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Hereditary


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How does everyone feel about how Hollywood portrays miniaturists?  I'm putting this question out in the news and events because Toni Collette (the woman who played the mother in Sixth Sense) will be starring in a movie called Hereditary due to be released nationwide in June this year. It looks absolutely terrifying and she plays - what else, a miniaturist!  I can't WAIT to see it, however it is kind of a bummer that Hollywood in general only seems to find story lines where someone who tinkers with miniatures MUST be crazy. Still this movie looks GOOD.

http://www.pajiba.com/film_reviews/when-will-a24s-horror-movie-hereditary-be-released-.php

 

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I expect that only miniaturists understand our fascination with the small, and the rest of the world cannot wrap their heads around the idea that grownups can enjoy not only making playthings for adults, but playing with them, as well; so we MUST be crazy.

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Yes, The Lovely Bones was top on my list. And television series with episodes like CSI's The Miniature Killer, Supernatural had one episode called Playthings...  and then there is the classic old Twilight Zone episode called Miniature.  In fact, outside of the movie Downsizing, which I haven't seen and am not sure how applicable it is, most dollhouse-based shows seem pretty dark!  Maybe it's simply that the art of dollhousing reaches so far back that it's a perfect catalyst for dark story lines.

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I recall watching a Ghost Whisperer episode with a haunted dollhouse....and I loved seeing the miniatures in the CSI episodes as well.  Yeah- wonder why dollhouses get such a bad rap?  :/  I certainly don't find them creepy!

 

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I hadn't thought about it but you're right!  Often dollhouses are portrayed as creepy!  In  many horror movies/programmes with old houses, they have the obligatory dollhouse in the children's bedroom or attic!

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1 hour ago, havanaholly said:

Anyone remember "The Incredible Shrinking Man" who had to hide out in a dollhouse to escape the cat that was hunting him?

When I read this, all I could think was, "When has a dollhouse ever thwarted a cat?"  Those of us with cats know how our felines are actually attracted to them and like to go inside!

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This reminds me I saw a documentary recently that I meant to post about, called Voyeur, on Netflix. The documentary itself is about a guy who ran a motel and had an elaborate system of spying on the guests through the air vents and the reporter who wrote a book about him. A scale model of the motel is used throughout the documentary for reenactments. Based on the doors and some of the accessories I think they were half scale models.

I guess this is another example of miniatures being used to depict something creepy, but I thought it was cool! Every time one of those scenes came on I wanted to pause it to get a better look. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find many pictures of the model online, but this article has a couple: http://kdvr.com/2017/11/27/story-of-aurora-motel-owner-who-spied-on-guests-told-in-new-netflix-documentary/

Here's another one: https://www.dailydot.com/wp-content/uploads/b60/bd/7a2a15cc7147dde9-800x394.png

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The haunted dollhouse is an old troupe, and it comes about due to uncomfortably around  the uncanny valley effect. So many cultures have taboos around effigies idols, or even photos for a reason. A lot of people feel unsettled by mimicry, and I think for a lot of people it's "Why spend time/money on something like that? You must be a weird obsessive because who has that patience" etc. Sometimes though I think it varies. I am a writer and since I was about 15 I've had a story I've been working on (it's been over a decade and it's not half written). One of the main characters builds dolls and dollhouses, and it really is reflective of how she yearns for control and a sense of peace. She's also a killer...but she's also a ballet dancer and avid reader. Traits that evoke "over" attention to detail or perfectionism are often easily made into big bad traits.

All this said the movie looks flippin great. From the look of it the miniturist main character isn't crazy, so much as her mother was. I'm guessing by the set up her mother was domineering, demanding, and belittling. As a result she sort of wound up turning to an artform she could control and as supernatural events unfold the miniture of the family home where she displays weird family events and seemingly plays out old emotional traumas begins to take on a sinister quality of continuing evils against her. If the movie is smart it'll play with people's "you do this hobby? Weird" assumptions and have that really be very mundane, but everything around it inflicts evil. Gosh I hope its good.

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At an early age I discovered Frederic Brown; his story "Nightmares and Geezenstacks" is about a strange old lady who gives the daughter of a family an old dollhouse with a doll family that just happens to be like the little girl's family; you can imagine the rest.

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