Written by Robert Scucci | Published
Escape rooms are fun because you can solve puzzles with your friends, win a prize, hit the gift shop, grab a beer, and go home. The escape room discovered by Edgar (David Richmond-Peck) in 2014 Brutal and Unusual it’s not that kind of escape room. Every time he leaves, he has to remember the day his wife Maylon (Bernadette Saquibal) tried to poison him, he defeats her and accidentally kills her, and then she dies. It’s the same The Neverending Storyunless the story dies tragically when you kill your spouse, then wake up in purgatory, talk about it in group therapy, and do it again. No thanks.
A dark, psychological thriller full of time loop tomfoolery, Brutal and Unusual is the absolute WTF movie I’d call the most twisted redemption arc I’ve seen in recent memory. We start rooting for Edgar, and slowly uncover more reasons to stop loving him. When he finally realizes what he has to do to break the cycle, it’s borderline unsatisfying by design, just to show how worthless the whole experience has made him.
Edgar Is Such A Tough Hang
There are two main settings for that Brutal and Unusual checks in during its 91-minute running time. First is the house where Edgar lives with his Filipino immigrant wife Maylon and his troubled son, Gogan (Monsour Cataquiz). Edgar doesn’t let Maylon work, has strict financial control, and isn’t a father figure to Gogan, who keeps getting into trouble at school but isn’t given a chance to explain why. Edgar even threatens to return Gogan to his abusive relatives in the Philippines if he doesn’t make amends.
Feeling completely trapped, Maylon decides it’s best for him and Gogan to poison Edgar and start over. He continues with it, Edgar realizes what’s going on when he becomes very ill, and an argument breaks out as they scramble for the phone so he can call for help. During that struggle, Edgar defeats and kills Maylon, only to wake up in a building that feels like a cross between a rehabilitation center and a mental hospital.
Edgar enters a group therapy session run by a female face on television known as The Helper (Mary Black). There, he meets Doris (Michelle Harrison), Julien (Michael Eklund), and William (Richard Harmon). He soon learns that everyone in the room committed a brutal murder before arriving, that they are all as dead as he is, and that this is their punishment. That fact is evidenced by another inseparable face on the screen, the Councilor (Andy Thompson).
Every day, Edgar receives his cruel and unusual punishment at these times, hearing how William stabbed his father several times before crushing his mother’s head with a pickle jar, Doris killed herself in front of her family, and Julien killed his three children. Convinced that he doesn’t belong there because he only accidentally killed his wife when he tried to kill her first, Edgar begins to devise a plan to escape through time and relive his death.
Learning Is How You Grow
The problem with Edgar in Brutal and Unusual that you are such a piece of trash. You are technically right to question his punishment because he is not a common murderer. But the semantics are complicated. Since Maylon died first, he is still guilty of murder. And that’s where things get complicated. Each time Edgar remembers his last day, he gains a new perspective by seeing events from different perspectives.
What he learned was that he was a bad person. He kept Maylon trapped in a life he didn’t want, using his financial control to dominate him and Gogan, constantly threatening to fire him whenever Gogan stepped out of line. At first, you remove Edgar because you don’t have the full picture. As the truth begins to sink in, it becomes increasingly difficult to blame Maylon for what he did.
Throughout his winding odyssey, Edgar never really learns anything, or at least refuses to admit he’s ever been wrong. He is desperate to escape the cycle his actions created, but he will not look at himself honestly. I’m not advocating murder, but if everyone who should love you decides that killing you is the only way they can live happily ever after, it might be time to look in the mirror before pointing fingers.
Watching Edgar try to fake his way out of the afterlife in line with his actions is what makes this such a successful reversal arc. He’s not really growing up. In his mind, he is always a victim. That’s what makes it so compelling to see him relive the same day over and over again, slowly revealing just how bad he is, and how everyone sees him.
The moral of the story is simple. Don’t be Edgar. But if you want to see him swing and try to talk his way out of his last day on Earth over and over again, you can stream Brutal and Unusual free on Tubi as of this writing.
