... about this movie ...
... I found it neither horrible or great ...
Here's my points of view ...
* I kinda liked that it had a strong Alfred Hitchcock vibe - lots of light and dark-shadow contrast, tilted cameras etc, almost as if your watching someone having a weird dream.
Also an old, isolated, quiet, small town was a Hitchcock staple.
* Genre: Defnitely not horror, suspense, or drama. Just 100% psycological.
* It would've been better if we could'a had some insight into what was driving the woman to do these things ... a crazy mother who was a nurse?
Was the woman raised in an orphanage? or in a very oppressive, strict family where no photos were taken?
She talked a lot about family, yet, she was in none of the photos, and therefore she was not in the old films either. The blonde child with the cat in the old film was also in the pics, so none of the films were hers.
* The era:
It was quite obviously modern, but we can see the woman has an extreme obsession with all things from the late 40's early 50's - this is what makes me think she had some psycological infatuation with a mother of that era. Also, the preoccupation with rather interesting trivial facts would have been more interesting if we had some background for her interest ... had her mother been given electrotherapy? Did the cars belong to her mom or dad?
The car had been registered in the 60's - not since ... which leads me to ...
* It was quite obvious the woman had a nursing degree, specifically anesthesiology (sp). she was possibley in cahoots with the doctor in some way - or, she could've been from anywhere USA ...
Anyway, that could be how she managed to go in the hospital room (at dawn it seemed) and walk out while the hospital was quiet.
If she was putting people down in anesthesia, she may have been going to their homes to get cars, old reels, family photos etc ...
* The flasback scenes the husband had throughout the movie make it clear that he had been being drugged by the wife for some time. It was clear the kidnapped girl was drugged as well.
But for some reason they omitted how the wife got out before the wreck. I assume she orchestrated the wreck by giving him another shot of drugs, and asking to be let out of the car at which point he tried to drive off and she was standing in the road - he swerved to miss her and wrecked.
Whether he hit her or not worked for her, to make him look like the criminal.
*Whether she was actually married to either the 1st or 2nd husband is anyones guess - based on her penchant for drugs, family fantasies, and homemade lobotomies, they could'a been losers she picked up at a bar, or some hospitalized loner she started drugging in the hospital ...
* The icepick lobotomy scene was ridiculous, bc, while the historical trivia for such a procedure may be true, she was not weilding an ice pick (half the thickness of a pencil) but a thick stake of some kind ...
* If we stick with the Alfred Hitchcock vibe the lackdaisical detective makes a little more sense ... small town, nothing ever happens, when something does happen, theres always a logical excuse, he seems tired and ready to retire - here's the perp in the hospital with his 'wife' story, but she's nowhere to be found.
*I just have a creative imagination, but no movie lover should have to try to make these extrapolations to fill in blank after blank.
I give this movie a 4 for the lovely contrast compositions of light, shadows, & sillouettes remenicent of the old movies ...
* The end: . .. if only the last scene would've been him jolting awake from a bad dream, and we see him waking up to the same face, a stranger - a nurse on the subway . . . at least we woulda had a surprise . . .