Though I wonder where Grandpa did his recruiting? Dean and the grandkids were presumably indoctrinated since childhood, and Missy, I dunno, probably always evil and her marriage to Dean likely arranged to suit the Evil Plan, but there's, like, two dozen other cultists. How'd he find them? They'd have to be: old, white, rich, desiring immortality, okay with massively screwing over others to get that immortality, and creepily fond of black people in a... not-good way. That's a pretty damn narrow niche, so I wonder how Grandpa managed to bring them together? If I had to spitball a guess, maybe the Darknet?
edited 28th May '17 8:05:36 PM by HamburgerTime
The video obliquely implies there's a Ancient Conspiracy of sorts at work. Grandpa Armitage at one point mentions "Our Order has been trying to perfect this process for quite some time". So it's possible Gramps Armitage was part of a much larger beast.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."Maybe, but the wording of "Our (i.e multiple individuals) Order (a large hierarchy)" implies there's a larger organization operating, even if he was the one who created it.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."When I heard "Our Order" (rather than "My Order") my mind jumped to the idea of it being an Ancient Conspiracy of Old Money who want to live forever and possess black bodies and that's my current headcanon. As outlandish as it sounds it fits very well into the Campier aspects of the film.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."That's most likely what the movie intended it to be, but the story doesn't dwell on it long enough to really clarify if that's the case. I mainly came up with this because grandpa makes a point to call it "our" (rather than just "my") order, implying he's not its head (which, granted, is very shaky ground to base a theory on). I'm sticking with my Ancient Conspiracy because I love those. The movie doesn't really lose any logic if you assume gramps armitage just joined some form of older cult after losing to Jesse Owens.
If not that, he may have found his first members in other people who lost to Jesse Owens and had similar issues as he did.
edited 28th May '17 8:23:35 PM by Gaon
"All you Fascists bound to lose."More about the original Downer Ending has been revealed. In it, Chris actually does directly kill Rose and is arrested for it, and all the evidence that could exonerate him was destroyed in the fire and, for some reason, he can't fully remember the true events of that night. Rod tries to get him to remember, but Chris accepts going to jail as penalty for killing Rose and is at least content he shut down the Armitages' operation.
Have to say I vastly prefer the theatrical cut. In particular, not fond at all of Chris actually killing Rose - it'd basically mean that the Armitages' abuse turned him into the very stereotype he was supposed to be a subversion of, the big scary black guy who goes after white women.
In a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy way, though.
It's interesting because one of the criticisms I have been hearing (Was posted on the Film Diversity thread a while back) was that the film is too lenient towards white women because Missy's death is quick and offscreen and Chris can't kill Rose, while Dean and Jeremy's deaths are much more brutal. I don't think I agree with it because Rose's death is shot to be triumphant and thematically reflective, but it's an interesting interpretation to show how much one change can alter the themes of the rest of the film.
It's a very interesting premise, and something I could feel the film was heading towards at the end. But at the same time it feels like a ten minute epilogue and leaves a lot more questions than it resolves. The current ending is a little trite and also doesn't answer every question, but that economy of storytelling is punchier.
I just think that while Chris falling into the stereotype due to what the Armitages did to him is a decent Shakespeare-ish tragedy (Othello killing Desdemona and all that, except this time Desdemona and Iago are the same person), him still rejecting it despite what they did to him sends an even better message.
edited 11th Jun '17 5:17:02 PM by HamburgerTime
Just saw this today (yeah, it's still playing here, it did that well), and I think the humor works. There could have been a little less of it, sure, but in general I think having some humor makes scary or heartbreaking scenes hit even harder. You can't go 100% on a depressing or horrifying tone all of the time, it just exhausts the audience.
So this may just have been me, but did anyone think while first watching the movie that Jeremy would be a Token Good Teammate or at least a Guilt-Ridden Accomplice? I felt like he seemed so obviously creepy and sinister there just had to be a twist. Specifically, it's mentioned he's a drunkard, so I thought it was going to turn out that he drank to drown his sorrows over the things his family made him do, and that's why he acts so weird. But I guess sometimes a creepazoid's just a creepazoid.
edited 13th Jun '17 9:21:43 PM by HamburgerTime
I did consider that at first when I saw he had obvious drinking problems, but those feelings mostly went away when I saw his speech about genes.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."Just rented it from Redbox. Thought it was great.
Regarding sparing Rose and being too nice to the white girls, eh, I disagree. Missy got a quick death, but arguably Rose had the worst death. While she doesn't get strangled, she is left to bleed out on the country road. And being the last one to die, she knows all her family is dead.

Yeah, Peele said his inspiration came from affluent white left-wingers during the Obama years saying we don't need to fight racism anymore because we have a black President.
So it's not a satire of outright racists but racism "enablers," I guess you could say.
Though granted Grandpa Armitage was likely an active racist.
edited 28th May '17 7:59:30 PM by HamburgerTime