Better Watch Out (2016)

Why do these screams matter?

Directed by Chris Peckover, Better Watch Out (2016) offers an indictment of the trappings of suburbia while simultaneously exploring how access to the protections of privilege begins at a young age. The film’s storyline is a relatively simple one. Having arrived at the Lerner residence to babysit 12-year-old Luke (Levi Miller), Ashley’s (Olivia DeJonge) expected quiet evening takes a dramatic turn when she is forced to guard her charge and his best friend, Garrett (Ed Oxenbould), against a home intruder. But things quickly take a turn when Ashley discovers that her biggest threat comes from the last person she would expect.

As reviewers have noted, Better Watch Out is an effective hodgepodge of dark humor and unflinching brutality (Blackwell; Brady). Clearly inspired by films such as Home Alone (1990)—one of the bloodiest scenes is a direct homage—and Funny Games (2007), Better Watch Out flips the script on audience expectation by using what we know about home invasion films against us. When it is revealed that the source of the terror isn’t an intruder to the family home but a resident, the film morphs into a pointed satirical look at how the intersectionality of youth, heteronormativity, whiteness, and wealth creates a specific type of privilege that allows abusers to hide in plain sight. In many ways, the film anticipates conversations embedded in the #MeToo movement around how veneers of normalcy accessible through wealth can mask deep seated misogyny. Not only does it grapple with how toxic masculinity is being repackaged to younger men to privilege their needs over those of women, but the film also pushes back against cultural norms that tie aesthetics to safety.

Despite being filmed in Australia, the film reflects conversations also taking place around the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement represented by the Donald Trump presidency. From the way wealth and privilege are leveraged to create a veneer of normalcy to the intersection of male privilege and childhood, the film peels back the insidious ways in which misogyny is bred and replicated. From the outset, it’s clear that the Lerner family is a privileged one. Lingering shots of the family home convey an upper middle-class suburban existence as does the costuming of the immediate family. Luke’s pressed pants and jovial holiday sweater stand in direct contrast to his friend Garrett’s (Ed Oxenbould) jeans and hoodie and visually convey their have/have not dichotomy. Establishing this distinction is essential to the film’s success because it predisposes the audience to see the Lerner family as the quintessential representation of polite society. On the surface, there is absolutely nothing threatening about this family, which makes the events to come all the more unexpected.

In our first scream, Ashley and Luke have fled to the attic. While arguing with Luke over his desire to get his father’s gun and confront the intruder, Ashley accidentally opens the hatch door. As she begins to fall through, she is saved by Luke.

 

A clear reflection of the damsel in distress trope, this scene is troubling on multiple levels. Initially, the moment reads as a traditional ‘male rescues female’ exchange. Not only does Luke physically save Ashley, but the resulting scene of Ashley sitting while trying to regulate her nervous breathing as Luke stalks the room with a gun ready to confront the intruder plays into traditional gender roles. Considering that Luke is a child who just a few short scenes earlier expressed his romantic intentions toward the older Ashley, casting him in the role of the traditional romantic hero/protector is problematic enough. But the reveal that Luke, in partnership with his best friend Garrett, has fabricated the whole deadly intruder ruse to woo Ashley reframes the intent underscoring Luke’s intervention in the attic and brings to mind “Men’s Rights” activists who preach to their overwhelmingly young and male audiences the virtues of gender roles in which a woman’s voice carries significantly less weight in a relationship than does a man’s. From Andrew Tate, who advocates for men to inhabit an Alpha Male persona when interacting with women, to Involuntary Celibates (Incels), who believe women are committing an act of abuse when they refuse to have sex with men, to Matt Forney, who wrote that “Women should be terrorized by their men; it’s the only thing that makes them behave better than chimps,” views supporting toxic masculinity are everywhere (Artsy; Bates 5-6; Manne 17; “Male Supremacy”). And for young boys like Luke, this messaging results in the explicit objectification of girls and women.

Luke’s life of privilege has predisposed him to a certain set of expectations, one of which is that if he wants something, he deserves to have it. In the #MeToo era, Luke’s sense of entitlement to Ashley and her scream, resulting from his romantic machinations, sends the clear message that it’s not only men who are a threat but the boys who will become men. Children in horror films traditionally represent very specific notions of evil that capitalize on the sense of dread culturally associated with the next generation. But with Luke, Better Watch Out suggests that it’s not the next generation that is dangerous, but all generations of men who have been taught that their privilege and social standing grants them an immunity for boorish or abusive behaviors. That Luke’s dangerous pursuit of Ashley comes on the heels of his father, Robert (Patrick Warburton), ogling the teenaged Ashley in front of his wife, Deandra (Virginia Madsen), underscores that their objectionable behavior is not just a pathology of specific individuals, but is also symptomatic of larger cultural messaging that views women only in relation to men and, more often than not, as specifically prey.

The repercussions of Luke’s involvement in the home intruder charade informs our next scream in which an irate Ashely takes Luke to task for his childish actions only to find herself on the receiving end of his anger.

 

Having realized that she almost died in the attic because of Luke, Ashley unleashes an angry tirade that holds Luke accountable and minces no words:

What delusional infant thinks staging a break in will get him to second base? You’re mental! You’re a selfish brat with no consideration and you need therapy. Lots of it. (32:20-32:34)

The way Ashley communicates her anger at Luke in this moment is fueled both by heightened adrenalin stemming from the evening’s events and aggrieved disappointment that someone with whom she thought she had a good relationship has just betrayed her. Not that far removed from being a child herself, Ashley recognizes that Luke sees her as an object, and her response-pointed as it is-gives him back a taste of his own medicine. But for Luke, Ashley’s words are both emasculating and embarrassing. That their exchange is witnessed by Garrett further adds to Luke’s humiliation. Yet, rather than offering Ashley a sincere apology, Luke responds by hitting her and causing her to tumble down the stairs. Despite Ashley’s having conveyed her anger, Luke still believes that his needs take priority and he shows himself willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants. In a time when stories abound of men acting out physically when women do something that displeases them – like Donald Trump reportedly pouring wine on a journalist in response to a story she wrote- Luke’s instinctive response to physically lash out is monstrous but not especially unusual (Baumgold 41).

A hybrid of shock and fury, Ashley’s scream signals to the audience the Luke is not just a boy who has made a terrible error in judgement: he is actually a homicidal psychopath cloaked in an apple-cheeked veneer of innocence. Narratively, Ashley’s scream also reflects the verbal response of audiences caught off guard by Luke’s violence. We gasp or scream in this moment because we, like Ashley, did not see the violence coming. Despite his many red flags, Luke’s choosing physical violence still reads as unexpected such that the extent to which he escalates his violence throughout the rest of the film never loses the element of surprise.

In our final scream, Ashley is forced to confront the depths of Luke’s depravity when she watches Luke decapitate her ex-boyfriend, Ricky (Aleks Mikic), with a paint can.

 

A violent scene even by horror movie standards, Ashley’s hand is forced by Luke’s descent into sadism even as he maintains a veneer of calmness. She refuses to accept the fate that Luke has planned for her and begins actively to try and save herself. Despite watching Ricky die in horrific fashion, Ashley does not crumble like she did in the attic. Rather, her fury at being subject to Luke’s whims is channeled into a performance of abject rage transmitted through this scream. It is a direct challenge to the power structure represented by Luke that leaves women vulnerable. Echoing political performances of screams to bring attention to oppressive gender norms-such as “scream groups” in India that challenge cultural expectations of silence in women, U.S. activists screaming in dissension at the inauguration of Donald Trump, and Swiss scream activists taking up the cause of street harassment- Ashley’s scream is an assertion of her agency against a patriarchal power structure represented by Luke (Lock; Bryan; Guy and Goillandeau). It is the one performative act of agency to which still has access. Even though her violence echoes Luke’s, Ashley’s is driven by an understanding that the danger Luke represents is both individual (an imminent threat to her survival) and systemic (the cultural norming of class disparity and toxic masculinity).

This scene is also notable for how the dynamic between Luke and Garrett informs Ashley’s response. When Luke first assaults Ashley, Garrett expresses shock and a reluctance to participate in the violence Luke has planned. And yet, he goes along with his friend not because of a desire to participate in the carnage, but because he fears for his own safety. Garrett’s attempt to rescue Ashley at the end of the film results in his murder by Luke and is a powerful demonstration of how toxic masculinity doesn’t only hurt women but men, as well. But Ashley’s scream-directed at both Luke and Garrett after Ricky’s murder- reminds us that despite his hesitations, Garrett is just as culpable for what Ashley has endured as Luke because in the end, good guys who enable monstrosity through silence are just as guilty as the bad guys.

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Works Cited

Artsy, Avishay. “How Andrew Tate sells men on toxic masculinity.” Vox, 10 Jan. 2023.

Bates, Laura. Men Who Hate Women: From incels to pickup artists: The truth about extreme misogyny and how it affects us all. Sourcebooks, Inc., 2021.

Baumgold, Julie. “Fighting Back: Trump Scrambles off the Canvas.” New York Magazine, 9 Nov. 1002, pp. 36-46.

Better Watch Out. Directed by Chris Peckover, performances by Olivia DeJonge, Levi Miller, Ed Oxenbould, Virginia Madsen and Patrick Warburton, Well Go USA 2016.

Bryan, And Candace. “The Soothing Power of Protests, And Why You Should Scream, Shout and Let It All Out There.” Cosmopolitan, 31 Jan. 2017.

Guy, Jack and Martin Goillandeau. “Swiss women stage scream-in for equality and an end to domestic violence.” CNN, 15 June 2020.

Lock, Samantha. “All the Rage: The women who meet to scream into the night.” The Guardian, 19 Nov. 2022.

“Male Supremacy.” Southern Poverty Law Center, n.d.

Manne, Kate. Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women. Crown, 2020.