Film Corner: Beautiful Creatures

[Content Note: Racism; reference to incest lit.]

Below, the trailer for a movie called Beautiful Creatures, which is based on a book that may or may not have the same title, but I cannot be bothered to look it up because who cares.

This is one of those rare movie trailers for a movie about which I've heard absolutely nothing, even though it's apparently based on a popular book (same title? who knows! it's a mystery lost to the sands of time.), so I had no clue what the movie was about before I watched the trailer—and I still had no idea what it was about after I watched the trailer.

I'm pretty sure it's a Nanny McPhee spin-off about a teenage boy who uses magic to make out with a clone of himself in a long wig? That sounds about right.

To the video!


Crickets. Emo-scary gate. (Emo-scary—you know, like Tim Burtony, but less so, because people think tween girls have no taste and are stupid.) Be-robed person on emo-scary veranda. In voiceover, Emma Thompson who is speaking in a southern accent and dressed for church (?) but kind of like a witch (?) but definitely in a way that at first I think this a comedy (!), says some crap about a family with a spooky history, and how the "Bella" of the family (by which I mean a pretty white teenage girl who is the center of the entire magical universe) has been to three—count them THREE—different fancy/scary schools and weird shit has happened at ALL OF THEM.

Well, you know what they say: Suspicious accidents that mysteriously happen after the arrival of a Bella from a fucked-up witch family happen in threes!

Emma Thompson says, "I'm not afraid of you or your evil kind!" and I'm still thinking it's a comedy at this point, and there's about to be the sound of a record being scratched before Zach Galifianakis shows up and says something zany, but instead it's an unintentional comedy, and, after an Edward gives a lustful look at this hot new Bella in town, the windows at the school shatter, followed by appropriate emo music.

The Edward skulks around the emo-scary schoolgrounds and finds the Bella, who really does look just like him in a long dark wig, so now I'm thinking this is some sort of southern, gothic, Donna Tarttian story about long-lost twins who will totes murder the fuck outta snitches. THAT WOULD BE COOL.

Oh, hello, Viola Davis! Y'all, I'm pretty sure Viola Davis is playing a literal Magical Negro in this movie, and it is making me very uncomfortable, but I barely have time to be uncomfortable about that before I'm uncomfortable about the fact that the Bella is "going dark," which is a bad thing whoooooops that was just intercut with images of Viola Davis, but before you can say "problematic tropes!" the Bella and the Edward are making out. AHHHH! FLOWERS IN MY BRAIN ATTIC!

They are definitely not twins. Or: The book on which this movie is based which may or may not be called Beautiful Creatures was written by V.C. Andrews.

Emo music. Montagery. People are protesting. There is an amulet. Running on a hill. Jeremy Irons in the shadows. (That is never good. In the movies OR in real life.) Emo-scary spinning table of witches (?) and people flying through the air in a dark chamber like some real Gandalf vs. Saruman shit. The civil war? The Edward (OR MAYBE HE IS A JACOB!) yells at the Bella in the rain (obviously): "You wanna be like a normal human? What do you think that is?!" We are all inhuman fantasy characters in our SOULS.

The Edward says in voiceover, over emo-scary tattoos or whatever, "I don't believe that we have one fate and no choice. We make our own lives." The Bella and the Edward make out again. Eugh.

Coming next Valentine's Day to an emo-scary theater near you.

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