Review of Beneath

Beneath (2006)
5/10
What is it Peter Finch said as Howard Beale in 1976?
28 January 2009
Warning: Spoilers
Answer: "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" And if a London-born actor can convey that sentiment about ordinary media slop with such force as to win the only posthumous Oscar for a line he uttered during NETWORK in that most American of years, how can so many "baaaah" like sheep when the foreign plot against our culture is so much further along in the 21st Century? BENEATH is a second-rate Canadian-made horror\thriller with little to recommend it beyond the DVD box art. However, because the characters are ESPECIALLY stupid, the Canadians have pretended they're all Americans, living in Montana (instead of Vancouver, BC, where this propaganda was manufactured). Ten of the 14 comments posted prior to mine originate from Europe or South America, and heap little-deserved praises on this hatchet job. As of today, U.S. and non-U.S. IMDb users "award" BENEATH an identical failing rating of 5.3 out of 10. Yet the elite subset whose comments find their way onto this page are overwhelmingly non- (un-?) American and implausibly ga-ga in their kudos.

Why, you might ask, would Canadians cringe to fly their red maple leaf over the populace of BENEATH? 1)A daughter disappears with no warning one day (because she's been murdered by her employer!), and the missing woman's dad and friends never give her a second thought for six years (the audience is supposed to infer the employer was able to forge a couple convincing post cards from the other side of the country, but even Montana has police and private investigators--you can't just enter a few fictitious facts on the internet, and have Google make a professional person from a small town disappear overnight, for gosh sakes). 2)The emergency exits from a mine shaft lead out the chimney places of the mine owner's mansion?! Even if this is a bald-face lie, no real American with a college degree (i.e., Christy Wescot in this movie) could believe such balderdash for a second, no matter how much they had had to drink! 3)An injured wife with a good prognosis (and, remember, she WAS still strong as an ox six years later) is suddenly reported to have died at home by her husband, who then is allowed to seal her in a casket SIGHT UNSEEN by any medical examiner, police officer, or funeral home employee!

If that's how they do things in Canada, then just say so. Have BENEATH take place in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, which probably has a bigger population than the whole state of Montana. But no, the goal here does not seem to be making money in North America, but to have everyone exposed to this ideological filth believe Americans are so stupid they're ripe for another terror attack, United Nations bailout, "ugly American" book, etc. U.S. citizens should write their Congress people, demanding this vision of a counterfeit, idiotic United States stop at our borders. After all, France has outlawed Muslim head-scarves "to protect French culture," and the Germans have long ago banned "skinhead" haircuts. But if you have so much as a corner of a vintage Coppertone suntan oil ad exposed in your vehicle, Canadian border agents at the Blue Water Bridge will detain you for at least three hours while they pile all your belongings on the sidewalk in the rain, perhaps disassemble the van down to its chassis (as other agents go to their break room when it gets too cold for them, and fast-forward through your DVDs such as NURSES IN CHAINS and THE LATE SHIFT AT HOOTERS while swilling hot chocolate floating those little marshmallows on top), and then return your disc's but keep your classic americana artwork, and say you can go without so much as a "sorry for your inconvenience" (or, better yet, a wrench). Certainly we can enact a self-protection law requiring that regional coding for a movie like BENEATH will not play on machines sold here, and that if anyone tries to download BENEATH, they'll get an error message like a Beijinger Googling "freedom!"
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