Skeletons in the Closet (2001)

Comcast's free OnDemand movies is mostly a repository of junk, a great deal of Lifetime Original Movies, and crappy straight-to-DVD horror movies. It was through the free OnDemand movies that I stumbled upon this little gem, a no-budget, direct-to-video psychological thriller that was shot and takes place in, of all places, my home turf, suburban New Hampshire. Suburban New Hampshire is in many ways the quintessential slice of liberal New England, the type of place where every soccer mom drives an SUV with an Obama bumper sticker. It is both irritating and idyllic (idyllic enough to make me move back from Cambridge), but not especially isolated (Nashua, Manchester, and Lowell are close by, and Boston not as close, but still close enough), but still quiet; you can go outside for a walk and not have to see anyone else. Lots of wildlife, too. And cats. Always the cats. Why am I going on so much about the setting of this film? Because it takes place in a town exactly like my own, and even though it is super-cheesy, with constant soft-focus cinematography and a non-stop generic stock music soundtrack, this is a frightening movie, because more than any other film I have seen (and I am being serious here), this could take place right where I live. The psychology of this psychological thriller is about as bad as it gets. We are talking Freudian mommy issues bad, but for the purposes of pulpy entertainment, it works. Skeletons in the Closet is about an ordinary guy named Will who keeps having nightmares about the night his wife died in a fire. He also becomes concerned that his alienated, loner son, Seth, who loves plastic bone necklaces, may have been behind the recent murder of a student in his class. Is his son a killer? Or is Will delusional? What if Will actually set the fire that killed his wife and Seth's mother? Then there is an even darker topic, was Seth sexually abused as a child? And if so, at the hands of whom? Will? Or his late mother? To put it lightly, this movie turns serious topics into a ridiculous carnival of melodrama, but it works, and this is actually, strangely enough, a pretty decent movie. The dialogue is above what you would expect from this type of film, and sparkles with a bit of energy and emotion. But it is Jonathan Jackson's performance of Seth that really drives this one home. He strikes the perfect balance between creepy and tongue-in-cheek, and really keeps you guessing about Seth's true nature. For what it is worth, this one is worth checking out if you need a couple of hours to kill late at night.