A glorified slasher/torture/revenge movie. Honestly, it wasn’t nearly as “psychologically disturbing” as I thought it would be. I think any general summary of it would clue you in to just how psychologically disturbing it is. Or maybe it was just all the reviews I read going on and on about how this is not for the faint of heart. That’s not to say it’s all about lollipops and unicorns because, obviously, it’s not. But really it was a lot of a little girl talking a whole lot about how she was going to cut his balls off and then not actually doing it. (Patrick Wilson’s acting in that scene is actually frightening. Otherwise the whole thing could have come off as ridiculous.) Or maybe it was because I could actually really relate to Hayley and I was a super angsty 14/15/16 year old who was convinced she would cut someone’s balls off if he tried to rape her and tended to play a lot of revenge scenarios in her head. Maybe not everyone is as twisted and dark as I am. Maybe everyone else was a totally well-adjusted, happy, innocent adolescent and this truly is shocking. Somehow I doubt that, but who knows.
Also, the ending seemed really improbable. At the very least, he would have attacked her and let her shoot him. No matter how guilty he was, self-preservation is everyone’s first instinct. And he could have always fled to France.