When the second person came to the door asking about them I knew what the twist was.
You?
As soon as he mentioned Maple Shade when they went into town. I saw a movie when I was a kid about an entire town run by the escaped local mental patients. I don't even remember the name. So as soon as Pop Pop said that it was the first thing I thought.
shareKnowing it was an MNS film going in, my mind was on the potential twist from the beginning. At some point very early in the movie, I had a thought were these their real grandparents? It was just a random thought, but my mind wandered there, partly because the Mom hadn't seen them in 15 years and the kids had never met them.
shareWatched the movie a week ago on Cinemax. Only clues I had prior to the events of the movie were from the trailers and TV commercials, avoiding any movie reviews or anything that would spoil the movie for me. There were two twists that I came up with, both based off the comment in the ads that the kids had never seen their grandparents.
The first thought I had was that it was some sort of cult sacrifice thing where the old couple the kids were visiting weren't their grandparents but some sort of demon or alien cult that parents sent their kids to to sacrifice them or something.
The second thought I had before watching the movie was that the kids somehow got picked up from the train station by the wrong grandparents or something.
After watching the movie and thinking about my second prediction on the twist, either I've been watching too many movies or movies are getting dumber.
I watched the trailer only once or twice and nothing in it really gave anything away. I kept focusing on the oven part! I just knew that these kids' grandparents were off going into it all.
shareAs soon as volunteering at the hospital was mentioned.
shareAbout half-way through the movie, when I noticed they never Skyped showing the mom and Nana/Pop together, then the story about the asylum having seen the couple for awhile, and the couple hardly ever talking about their "daughter." those were the clues that had me thinking these aint their grandparents...
shareHonestly I didn't realize it until they were holding up the laptop to show Mom. All of a sudden I was thinking, watch she'll say those aren't my parents.
shareThey didn't act much like real grandparents. Didn't really show affection for the kids. Didn't ask and showed no interest in their lives or how their mother was doing. Had no activities planned for the kids' visit, just let them wander about the property. No eating out, no movies, no visiting other relatives or family friends, no phone, no TV, no visits to local sites of interest, no vehicles driven, etc. The finale came when Stacey was seen hanging from the tree in the front yard. Seemed to confirm mom's warning. s/
shareI didn't... but then, I don't try.
"Your mother puts license plates in your underwear? How do you sit?!"