Hello friends! If this newsletter reads a little different, that is because part of it was written in the strange and foreign Eastern Time Zone. I gave myself homework on vacation and then promptly failed to do it, because all I wanted to do in my downtime was stare at a Bob’s Burgers until I fell asleep. Anyway, I watched a movie for you! Well, I watched two movies, but the first one was FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC, which was actually just…bad? In a not fun way? I will probably write about it in a subscriber post, as I work out why it bummed me out so much. The second movie, the one I’m going to write thousands of words about, is called HE’S OUT TO GET YOU and frankly, it rocks, so let’s get to it. (Content warnings for a car crash, child death, gaslighting, and murder.)
A brief scene introduces us to our main character Megan and the defining tragedy of her life: she was driving her husband and toddler son to a lovely picnic in the mountains when she took her eyes off the road to help her kid find his teddy bear, and she crashed head-on into another car, killing her husband and child. It’s not funny sorry, but it is pretty funny that the last conversation she had with her husband was cutely bickering about whether “In the Pines” is a good song or “weird folk music,” as Megan asserted. It’s good, Megan! Did you even watch the Nirvana “Unplugged”? Anyway, we pick up four years later, at a fancy mental hospital that she’s been in pretty much ever since the accident, because that sure would fuck you up. Megan would like to leave the hospital now, to the dismay of her doctor, who tells her she’s making so much progress, but that the progress is fragile. Megan counters that both her parents died while she was in here, and her brother has been taking care of the estate, and it’s not fair that he has to do everything by himself. Also, her parents sure did have a lot of money, and maybe she’s sick of giving it to these doctors who are concerned about her mental stability. Well, Megan is here voluntarily, so she can go. And she does! See ya.
Freed from the lavish clutches of expensive doctors, Megan drives down the coast to her parents’ house, calling her brother Gary on the way but getting his voicemail. When she arrives at the absurdly beautiful oceanfront estate in a small town named Skillman’s Bluff, there’s no Gary to be found, so Megan jimmies a patio door and lets herself in. This house! Is ridiculous! It’s so big! It seems legitimately possible that Gary just didn’t hear her because he was in the east wing and she came in the northwest wing, but no, no Gary. What there is instead is: a life-sized mannequin of Beethoven, if Beethoven were a chimp, seated in a rocking chair. Megan gazes fondly at it and reminisces about her parents cheerfully arguing about whether Beethoven has to live in the attic or if he can live in the den here. This never comes back around! There is no explanation offered for the human-sized model of Beethoven as a chimp! She leaves this deranged yet opulent tableau and pokes around Gary’s messy room a little bit but finds no Gary. She does find a note from a “Lisa” inviting Gary to come by her place after her shift at “the Pit” tonight. Gary, you old hound. Megan leaves her stuff in a room that has a little replica of Jeff Koons’s balloon dog on the shelf and dozes off, and when she wakes at sunset to no Gary, she decides to go find this Lisa character.
I was hoping that “the Pit” referred to the cool teen cafe from “Beverly Hills 90210,” in a world-shattering crossover that would go unremarked upon, but no, it’s just a diner called the Cherry Pit. There is indeed a waitress named Lisa working, and she has a cute southern accent, but she claims she’s never heard of a “Gary” “Burke.” And no, they’re not dating, unless Gary’s name is Jimmy and they’ve been married for three years. The waitress who lacks object permanence is a baffling dead end, so Megan goes to the sheriff’s department to report her brother not missing exactly, but missing-ish? Missing-adjacent. She’s reporting that it’s a weird situation. The sheriff, a no-neck cop type named Brunson, reluctantly stops yelling at a creditor on the phone to talk to Megan. He recognizes her last name and passes along his condolences on the death of her parents, who passed from separate illnesses very close together. Everyone knew the Burkes, it’s a small town. But when Megan asks if he’s seen her brother, Sheriff Brunson is baffled: what brother? The Burkes had a son? What BABY? Megan presses on: her brother has lived here his whole life, he was living with her parents and taking care of them, until their dad died, and since then he’s been taking care of the house. No, says the sheriff, a nice older couple has been taking care of the house. She can go visit the Andersons in the morning, when they’re awake and when Megan is less, you know, he doesn’t want to say “crazy,” but uh. Megan doesn’t like this situation at all, but she goes home, calls Gary again, gets his voicemail again, and goes to sleep.
In the morning, Megan goes to visit these so-called Andersons, Rita and Eldon. Rita is thrilled to see Megan, why, she recognizes her from the photos all over the house! She remembers Megan from when she was a little girl! Megan is pretty sure she’s never met this woman but she allows herself to be buffeted by hospitality. Rita explains that she had kind of known Megan’s parents for a while, but once Megan left for college and then to get married, they really bonded as empty nesters. Okay, says Megan, so they must have been in touch with her brother? Rita and Eldon, of course, didn’t know she had a brother. Rita gently suggests that perhaps Megan…is mistaken? about having a brother? Megan is pretty sure she’s not mistaken about having a brother, but she’s also pretty sure that these people know she’s spent the last four years in a mental healthcare facility. Who can even keep track of whether or not one has a brother these days, honestly, what with all the technology, and our phones, and errands to run. I need to get milk, I can’t remember if I have a brother.
Megan drags the Andersons back to her parents’ palace to prove that Gary exists, but the room that had been strewn with his belongings, including a very nice buffalo plaid comforter, is now wiped clean and is as searingly white as the rest of the house. All that remains is a DVD of Otto Preminger’s underappreciated film Bunny Lake Is Missing. No, that’s not true. It’s empty. A panicking Megan calls Gary’s phone again to at least make the Andersons hear his voicemail message, but it’s been disconnected. Rita asks if Megan needs a doctor, but what she needs is for them to leave so she can take a pill and try to calm down. The house phone rings, and when Megan picks it up, she hears audio of a car crash, which I was not expecting, and which I did not enjoy, but when she hangs up it rings again. This time it is someone offering her a deal on a cruise. She puts down the phone and cries because she’s never heard of such a bad deal on a cruise, but then decides that she can’t just sit here melting down all day, she’s gonna go to a bar. There are a lot of abrupt scene changes in this movie and I can’t quite figure out how to write about them without this being one gigantic Ducks, Newburyport type sentence. Next paragraph!
Megan wanders into an empty bar named Hubbard’s and asks the bartender if it’s too early for a drink but then just orders iced tea anyway. This is like asking if 10 a.m. is too early to eat a banana, or look at a bluebird. It’s…not? The bartender is named Duke, and he is reading Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo, which may or may not be a prop to make the clientele think he’s smarter than he is. It’s a pretty deep cut! He also has a toothpick in his mouth, which works for Dusty Baker. Megan asks Duke if Gary ever came in here, but he doesn’t recognize a photo of him. He does recognize Megan’s description of their family’s gigantic beachfront manor though, and muses that it doesn’t even really belong in this town. I am choosing to interpret this as a class warfare kind of statement. Megan jumps when she thinks she sees Gary’s reflection behind the bar, and tells Duke that he must think she’s crazy. She really doesn’t, at this point, but this is what’s going to pass for a meet cute and/or crazy in this movie. Also, when she goes home, she sees a person standing in the yard staring at the house but when she looks again they’re gone. Also they were wearing the standard Lifetime movie impenetrable disguise of: a black hooded sweatshirt. Is? Megan? Crazy? Boy I just don’t know.
In the morning, Megan visits her parents’ estate lawyer, who tells Megan that she’s the sole beneficiary of the home and property and everything else. The lawyer natters on about paperwork while Megan thinks, “do I have? a brother? I think so??” She leaves the lawyer’s office and goes to visit Duke at the bar and tells him that she feels like the lawyer was hiding something. She had ample opportunity to bring up Gary, and never did. Duke asks if maybe Gary and her parents had a falling-out right before they died, and Megan doesn’t think they would have totally cut him out even if they did. But they wouldn’t have to cut him out if Gary never existed. I can’t really tell if the movie wants me to take seriously the possibility that there is no Gary. I feel like no? Duke asks Megan if she’s planning on staying in Skillman’s Bluff, and she says sure why not, she grew up here and everything, her and her…bro…ther? Duke says he’s got his own reasons for staying in town. Seems like a pretty sweet gig he’s got here, giving women free iced tea and reading Victor Hugo, plus all the toothpicks he can eat. They smile at each other, and then Megan leaves the bar, only to find a rattlesnake on the passenger seat of her Nissan. The snake hisses at her, like snakes do, and Megan runs back into the bar to grab Duke. When he comes out, there’s no snake in the Nissan. Is Gary the snake? Is Gary…the snake?
Duke and Megan go to the sheriff’s office so that Megan can burst through the door and very dramatically yell, “someone tried to kill me!” Sheriff Brunson sighs and says, “okay well I’m gonna be a real dick about this.” When Duke introduces himself as the bartender at Hubbard’s, Brunson is like, “oh I see you were both drunk at 10:30 a.m.,” which: are bartenders usually drunk at work? I feel like they’re not but I’m also incredibly naive. Anyway, Duke tells him that actually no, they weren’t drinking, and even if they were, that isn’t relevant, what is relevant is that someone put a snake in the lady’s car. Hell yeah Duke, that’s right, you don’t get to put a rattlesnake in somebody’s car just because they’re drunk! The sheriff, incredibly, amazingly, goes off about how honestly, rattlesnake bites aren’t even usually lethal, grow up. Hikers get bit all the time and they hardly ever die! What is the big deal. Megan informs the sheriff that he sucks before Duke, seeing that this is going nowhere, drags her out to the street. Should’ve let them fight.
Megan takes Duke to her gigantic house and they sit on a bench in a lovely garden. I tried to figure out how much this house might cost but properties like it aren’t really listed on Zillow. My best guess is like $12 million? It really depends on what part of California they’re in. Anyway, they exchange backstories: Duke’s dad was in the coast guard so he moved around a lot and read books instead of making friends, and Megan’s husband and child were killed in a car crash that she’s actually pretty sure was her fault but that’s fine. Having informed each other of their basic biographical details, they’re ride or die for each other now, and that night Duke drags Megan out to the local high school. He jimmies the lock, telling her “I haven’t always been a bartender,” and it takes her way, way, way, way, way too long to realize that they’re there to find a picture of Gary in a yearbook. Just, so long. Megan takes the yearbook and they kiss in the car. “I’ve never kissed a criminal before,” Megan tells Duke. Oh, sure, your husband never broke the speed limit? We’re all criminals, baby. Duke drives her home to her mansion and she says, “I’d like to invite you in, but.” Duke gets it. “Go on, get out of here!” he says and shoos her out of his truck. I like Duke. I sure hope he’s not evil!
In the morning, Megan, who still seems to think maybe cops are good, returns to the sheriff’s office triumphantly brandishing the yearbook she stole from the school. The sheriff, shockingly, does not give a single fuck. He never said Gary didn’t exist, just that he’d never met him. So she goes home to comb through the yearbook and Facebook to figure out if any of Gary’s teachers still live in town. Duke is back at the house even though he is nominally employed and works mornings at the bar, and he offers to go with her to visit an English teacher who seems to have known Gary. Megan declines, saying she wants to have a “woman to woman” chat with this nice old lady. They’re gonna chat about manicures and menstruation and the possible existence of Megan’s brother. So Megan heads over to talk to Miss Snow, who absolutely remembers Gary, she sees him all the time. Weird thing though: she hasn’t seen him in a few days, does Megan know an—oh, Megan’s already out the door, she’s got what she came for. Megan! Megan get back here. Miss Snow knows something else, probably, and you just ran out on this nice old lady. Megan will never get another chance to ask Miss Snow about Gary, because as soon as she leaves, someone in a black hoodie knocks at the door and you know what that means! Miss Snow is dead now. Is there some reason the hoodie has to be black? Why can’t it be heather gray or millennial pink? Surely it is the thick fleece fabric that blocks identification, not the black color. Well, regardless, the nice old lady got murdered.
By the time Megan makes it home, Sheriff Brunson is waiting for her in the driveway of her majestic house, to tell her that Miss Snow has been murdered. He takes Megan down to the sheriff’s office and tells her that she was seen running out of Miss Snow’s house just before the body was discovered. “We both know I was the last person to see her alive, besides the killer,” snaps Megan, and the sheriff replies “besides the killer!!!” like he’s caught Megan at something. He’s quite dull, the sheriff. Brunson asks Megan if “John Cavanaugh” was with her at Miss Snow’s, which is when Megan realizes she absolutely does not know Duke’s last name, or his real first name. She brazens that out admirably, and anyway she’s free to go, as long as she doesn’t leave Skillman’s Bluff. And why would she need to? It’s got everything: a bar, a surf shop, at least one school, a diner. That’s everything.
That night, Duke comes by Megan’s compound but Megan won’t let him in until he tells her his real name. He replies that it is indeed John Cavanaugh, and adds that his middle name is a little embarrassing. And then he doesn’t tell us what it is! Let’s brainstorm: Lindsey. Ashley. Aloysius. Adolf. Rainbow. John Rainbow Cavanaugh. Duke telling Megan his real name is enough to win her full trust back, and they sit by the pool with blankets over their laps and chat about Miss Snow’s murder. Megan says that she hasn’t been arrested yet because “there’s no evidence,” but like, someone saw her running out of the house, took down her license plate number, and then found Miss Snow’s lifeless body? People have been arrested for a lot less than that. Megan has a theory though: what if! Sheriff Brunson murdered Gary and also Miss Snow? Maybe he’s in cahoots with the couple who took care of the house, and the lawyer? Please don’t think she’s crazy. Duke concedes that the murder plot involving an elderly couple sounds a little far-fetched, but he’s willing to hear her out. “It’s the oldest motive in the world!” crows Megan. “Sex?” asks Duke, picturing some hot sheriff-on-lawyer action. No, money, come on, have you not noticed this house? And all the things in it? You think life-sized mannequins of Beethoven as a chimpanzee grow on trees, Duke? Do you? Megan whines that actually she was quite self-conscious of how much money her parents had when she was growing up. I’d rather have that than being self-conscious of my electricity being turned off sometimes but sure. Since there’s no other family, the whole estate goes to her. Okay, but how does killing Gary and a person who knew Gary mean the lawyer and the sheriff and the Andersons get all that money? This is not clear to me, or to Duke, at all, and Megan doesn’t know either. She’s not a lawyer! Leave her alone! Duke says he’s gotta get going, and Megan is all, “oh you don’t want to spend the night with a nutcase?” and he proves her wrong by sleeping with her. He sure showed you, Megan!
After a brief “I heard a noise, did you hear a noise?” kerfuffle overnight, Megan wakes up to find Duke gone. She goes down to the bar, but he’s not there either. Some sassy older broad is cleaning glasses, and the broad tells Megan that if she does find Duke, tell him he’s fired for not showing up. She sure hopes Duke didn’t get cold feet about buying the bar from her; Duke told her he’d finally gotten a loan to do that. Megan, panicking, asks the bar owner where Duke’s house is, and she gives Megan a real hard time about assuming that Duke lives in a house. I’ve never been to a lot of my friends’ homes. Maybe one of my friends lives in a treehouse or houseboat or garden shed. That doesn’t mean we’re not really friends. Jeez. Armed with GPS coordinates to Duke’s residence, Megan leaves the bar.
Duke, it turns out, lives in a vintage Airstream trailer at the foot of a mountain next to the ocean. This looks incredible actually? Good for Duke? Megan creeps into the well-kept trailer and sees Duke’s laptop open to a page titled “Burke Family Obituary,” which, I guess if you die around the same time you might as well save on web hosting fees, and another window about Megan’s doctor at the hospital, the one who didn’t want her to leave. Megan then has a series of flashbacks of various scenes in the movie, including the scene directly preceding this one, and then hears Duke pull up. She looks for a hiding spot and settles on the bathroom, but the bathroom is occupied. By Gary’s corpse!!! You remember Gary. Megan’s brother? This is a movie about Gary. He’s dead now, though, and stuffed into Duke’s bathroom. Megan calls 911 and tells them she’s at John Cavanaugh’s house, which is not a house, and that he’s going to try to kill her. The operator tells her officers are on the way, and surely this is the point in the movie where it turns out cops are good, actually.
As Duke enters his trailer, Megan grabs some scissors and swings them at him, while screaming that he killed her brother. Duke is pretty sure he didn’t, but admittedly can’t explain the body in his bathroom. Sometimes when it’s humid in my bathroom, I get centipedes, maybe a similar thing happened here? Also, all that stuff is on his laptop because he likes Megan a lot and he wanted to make sure that she was telling the truth. Bad opsec either way, my dude. The sheriff shows up at the Airstream, and Megan tells him that Duke killed Gary, and Duke comes out with his hands up saying that no he did not. “You know what? I believe you,” says the sheriff, and shoots him in the shoulder. What? The cop was bad? The whole time? Oh WHO could have FORESEEN this? Duke goes down and just lies there bleeding and groaning for the rest of the scene. “Sheriff! You killed Gary!” yells Megan, which, yeah Megan, you already had this figured out! Like two scenes ago! Have another flashback, why don’t you! The sheriff waves his gun at Megan and launches into a monologue about how it could have been so easy to get her parents’ money, but she made it complicated. By…not being mentally ill enough? He also throws in that her parents were filthy rich and arrogant and never gave a dime to anyone in this town, and Megan protests that they were good people, and this is an exchange I would love the movie to dig into. Were they shitty? How did they get so much money! Where did it come from! Why did they live in a palace outside a slightly rundown beach town? What the fuck was the deal with the Beethoven chimp thing? How much of their fortune was tied up in the life-size Beethoven chimp? Anyway, Sheriff Brunson informs Megan that he’s going to kill her now, just like he did Gary, and Miss Snow, and he’ll make it look like she and Duke killed Gary. Megan is crazy, after all. And then somehow he and the Andersons and the lawyer will end up with all the money. How will they end up with the money? How? Will they? End up with the money? I looked it up, and their estate would go to any surviving relatives, and failing that, it just goes to the state of California. You can’t just show up in court and say “well I took care of their house,” or “well I was their lawyer,” or “well I was the sheriff in the town where they lived” (???) and get their money. They’re dead! You can’t extort a dead person! That’s the number one thing about extortion! Oh my god. Okay. Having delivered all the relevant information, the sheriff aims his gun at Megan, who promptly whacks him with her little noodle arm, forcing him to drop his gun. While he smirks that she’s never even shot a gun before, Megan shoots him square in the fucking heart. Incredible!
Megan drags Duke inside the trailer to tend to his gunshot wound (!!!) while flirtily asking if he still wants that loan to buy the bar. She purrs that of course, right now he needs an attentive nurse and somewhere nice to recover, which, oh my god Megan, he got shot like 90 seconds ago, he’s losing a lot of blood, maybe chill out on the five-year plan. But that’s how the movie ends! That’s literally it, except for a long slow zoom-out over the scene, really letting you take in the mountains, and the surf, and the dead cop lying in front of the trailer. Just, absolutely incredible. Best ending since DEADLY SPA. No notes.
Oh ps: this movie stars Samaire Armstrong from The O.C., who is 100% an anti-vax covid truther who has a lot of thoughts about Agenda 21 now, did you know about this? Wild! Wild. Agenda 21! It’s coming! Ok bye thanks for reading and sharing and getting vaccinated!