Mad Scientists Make Mad Children

 

Hey, hey, Horror Nuts!  Welcome to another edition of WTFHM!

Happy Black History Chinese New Year!!!  And it's also the Year of the Tiger! My birth year!!

In celebration of this magical time all the movies I'll be reviewing this month will either have an all (or mostly) black or Asian cast. That being said, let's talk about mad scientists for a minute.

Everyone loves a good mad scientist movie. Or at least, I do anyway.  From Frankenstein to Re-animator, once you realize you're about to watch a mad scientist movie, you pretty much know, whether the movie is good or bad, you're in for a good time.

Case in point, This week's movie!

Black Box starring Mamoudou Athie, Amanda Christine, Tosin Morohunfola, Charmaine Bingwa, Troy James, Najah Bradley, Nyah Marie Johnson, Donald Elise Watkins, and Phylicia Rashad.

Yes. THAT Phylicia Rashad. Claire Huxtable herself.

So, once upon a time, a dude named Nolan(Athie) got into a car accident that killed his wife and left him to take care of their young daughter, Ava(Christine). The problem is that the accident has left him with amnesia.  This becomes a problem because he can't get his old job back and he's having issues taking care of Ava.

Enter Dr. Brooks(Rashad) who promises that she can restore Nolan's memory with her new invention that digs out old memories and brings them to the surface. Nolan's spidey sense is clearly going off, but he does it anyway.

The thing is, Nolan has nightmares. And when he goes under in Dr. Brook's machine, he sees a Crooked Man coming for him.

And everybody's faces are blurred out, which is also creepy.

But as it turns out, it appears to be working. Suddenly, Nolan can remember his wedding and little tidbits about his wife. So, yeah, he decides to keep doing it.

Everything's everything when he goes under again, except THIS time, he finds himself in an apartment with a screaming baby and, it appears, he's beat up his wife.

Yes, very, very bad.  So, Nolan asks his homeboy if he knew of a time where he was particularly abusive to the love of his life. His homeboy replies by saying, "Nah, you wouldn't hurt a fly.  In fact, in my personal opinion..."

Nolan's unconvinced, however and decides to look for the apartment that he saw when he was under and he finds it.  There's woman and little girl living there and it freaks him out.

So, Nolan decides the next time he goes under, he's seeing some faces, dammit. And he's going to face the Crooked Man monster that's stalking him and that way he'll get some answers.

And hey, he actually does it!  While he's under, he goes back to the apartment with the baby crying and the woman that he appears to have beaten. He kicks the Crooked Man monster in the chest and the blurred faces come clear and he finds...

He finds a few major things. The first thing? The woman isn't his wife.

See, the blurry face thing goes away and he sees the beaten woman is definitely not his wife and if that's not his wife, who's apartment is he in?

Don't worry, it gets better. You see, because then he looks in the mirror and sees this guy:

Who is this guy?  We-hell, lemme tell you.

Turns out THAT guy is his true identity, Thomas Brooks(Watkins) the son of Dr. Brooks.

I know.  Mindblowing right?  Here's how it breaks down.

Dr. Brooks' son was killed when he fell down a flight of stairs. So, Dr. Brooks on the verge of a scientific breakthrough decides to use her own son as a guinea pig and transfers his consciousness into a computer.

Enter Nolan. Nolan and his family end up in a car accident, he ends up in a coma, badda-bing, badda-boom, Dr. Brooks transfers her son's conciousness into Nolan's head.

Nolan, now Thomas, decides he's going to go back and reclaim his life. He drops Ava off at his homeboy's house and goes back to the apartment where he convinces his wife Miranda(Bingwa) that he is, indeed, her dead husband.

Everything goes fine until, well, he sees that she took all the pictures down of him and we all remember that Thomas has a little problem keeping his hands to himself.

He and Miranda get into it and she knocks him out. When he wakes up, he finds himself in front of his homeboy's house with Ava trying to console him. Nolan/Thomas freaks out and goes back to the lab and tells his mother that clearly this isn't working out. She convinces him to go back under and kill the monster in his memory.

And while all that is happening, his homeboy, Gary(Morohunfola), has been doing some digging and finds out what's going on. While Dr. Brooks has Nolan/Thomas under in her machine, Gary and Ava try to stop her.

Meanwhile in the in-between:

That's right. Thomas is fighting the monster. And just when Thomas is about to kill the monster, it's blurred face is revealed to be...

You got it.  Seems Nolan isn't trying to give up on his life just yet. Thomas, realizing that his mother duped him and he's really not supposed to be here, forfeits his life and walks off into the void.

When Nolan wakes up, he's Nolan again. Dr. Brooks loses her job and everyone lives happily ever after...

Or DO THEY??

But the real question is, did I like this movie??  Well, yes, of course I did.  Let me just drop this right here:

This was a pretty decent movie, I have to admit.  I really enjoyed the premise and the level of mind-fuckery was close to top tier.  This one is a winner!

So, next week's movie! I'm definitely going to choose an Asian horror.  Let's see about Bridge Curse, shall we?  Until then, see you next week!

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