McGee And Me! - Not So-Great Escape

**McGee And Me! - Not So-Great Escape** is .

## Plot

Cut to Nikolas and Louis playing some kind of game involving an orange helmet and fake gun. They’re pretending to hunt aliens… it’s kinda boring.

Nick’s mother comes out and says to come in, it will be getting dark soon.

> Nick(in his head) Getting Dark soon? Does my mom live in an alternate time zone?
>
>

And I actually agree, because it looks it like it couldn’t be any later than 2 or 3 in the afternoon.

The 2 boys go into Nick’s room and play around more, when Louis picks up a newspaper (because 12 year old boys totally read the newspaper) and notices an ad for *Night of The Blood Freaks, part 4.* Which sounds like an absolutely fascinating movie I’d love to watch. In case you didn’t pick up on it, that was *sarcasm.*

What the hell *is* a blood freak anyway? I feel like the folks at Focus on The Family just came up with the most gruesome title they could think of and ran with it.

I googled, and 90% of the results when I google “Night of the blood Freaks” are McGee and Me, BUT I did find this http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0132888/

There is \*A\* movie out there called “blood freaks” which was made in 1972. It appears to be about a giant turkey monster, and drugs are involved. I couldn’t really find out more than that and I didn’t care to. It only got 2 stars, and never had a sequel, so It’s up in the air whether or not the writers even knew of its existence.

Louis talks about how great the 3rd movie, *Twilight of the Blood Freaks* was. I feel like I could make a joke about the *Twilight* craze but that would require actual creativity on my part. I’ll just say this scene was prophetic, mmkay?

NIckolas, sadly, wasn’t allowed to see it.

I’m honestly not sure I’d let my 11-12 year old see a movie like that either… I’d have to go read the reviews first. And yes, they did have movie reviews in 1980 something. We found them in these things called “newspapers” and “magazines.”

Anyway, either this movie actually is appropriate for the demographic or parents just aren’t looking at what their kids watch, because everyone at school has already seen *Dawn of the Blood Freaks, Day of the Blood Freaks, Twilight of the Blood freaks and now, as the shadows fall…. NIGHT of the Blood Freaks!*

We are still getting absolutely no explanation of what exactly a blood freak is. Is it like a zombie? A vampire? A Zompire? No really, I feel like this is a very important detail. And last I checked, the parents in the target audience of the movie would’ve clutched their pearls over either of those options.

Nickolas has to ask his parents for permission to see the movie, and his mom says absolutely not. Which makes you wonder about the other parents. Don’t the other kids need their parents permission too? And aren’t other parents concerned? If so, why? If not, why? I feel like there needs to be more explanation.

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His mom’s reasoning is “why would you want to see a gross movie like that anyway” which, seriously? He’s 12. 12 year olds, especially males, tend to like gross things and think they’re hilarious. I never understood it, even when I was in that age range, but to each hir own. His mom outright condemning it as “gross” before she even knows what it’s about is only going to make him more defensive, shows that she’s not listening to her child, and doesn’t really care about his personal preferences.

Nickolas’ dad comes in, and I actually think the mom should be saying this because the mom’s reaction is based on emotion (“it’s gross!”) and his dad’s is more logical, and I HATE that trope that “women are emotional and men are logical.” But it is FOTF, so what can you expect.

Nickolas’ dad’s first reaction is to ask what the movie is rated. Nick gets a blank look on his face. His sister, Sarah, tells them the title of the movie. His father then says, “absolutely not!”

We never do get an answer to what the movie is rated, and I feel like that’s very telling. It’s probably like, PG13 or something equally appropriate and Nick’s parents are just overreacting because the title isn’t something they’d pick.

Honestly, they’re only reasons for not letting Nick go seem to be “it’s gross” and “it has a stupid title.” I don’t dispute the last one, but those are not in and of themselves valid reasons. I’d respect it more if they sat down and discussed it with him, but that would mean TALKING to your children, and Dobson can’t have *that* because his approach is all about punishment.

Nick gets mad, his parents get upset… his parents tell him not to talk like that but honestly all he did was tell his sister to shut up, which was appropriate, she was being a pest. Then he ranted about how he couldn’t do anything and didn’t want to sit around with a bunch of old–

He gets cut off when his dad sends him to his room and grounds him. What? You don’t know that he was going to insult you. Maybe he was going to say “old fashioned.”

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And really, there isn’t anything wrong with Nickolas expressing a little frustration here. I know Dobson believes children shouldn’t express their opinions like this, but honestly it’s healthy to let kids let off the pressure valve a little. Let them rant at you a little, and then go talk to them later when they’re calm. I mean, do you remember what it was like to be a kid, how you couldn’t express anything negative or it was disrespect and backtalk and all you wanted was to be heard? All Nick’s doing here is ranting about how he can’t do anything. If it were my kid I’d just kind of let them go on a bit and walk away when I got bored. Then I’d go back and we’d talk about it like 2 rational people. I feel like Nick’s parents are way overreacting here.

Why didn’t we find out what the movie was rated? And what the heck’s a blood freak? Why is McGee alive and how did it happen? Why is no one answering the important question?

Nick goes to his room, and McGee starts talking to him about how he’ll turn out dumb if he watches movies like that all the time. So, all those poor other Junior High students are going to turn into stupid people when they grow up? Uh huh.

McGee, as it turns out, is an (alleged) film critic. We then watch a cartoonized clip of McGee pretending to be a detective. Yawn.

Nick then tells McGee they made a remake of that movie. This clip is just the McGee detective shooting guns and throwing grenades, with no actual plot.

Nickolas has somehow been transported to the theater with McGee, and somehow the smoke from the explosion gets all over them. McGee asks Nick if that was really any fun. Because it’s totally fun to be suddenly covered in gunpowder.

Nope, in the next scene we see Nick in bed, totally clean.

> McGee: You wanna watch that filth? Why not just stick your head in a garbage can?
> Nick: Because then I’d have to room with you
>
>

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Sigh. Right. Because watching a bad movie is TOTALLY the same as sticking your head in a garbage can. Totally.

Louis calls up Nick, and asks if he is ready to go. Hang on, I thought phones were a no no when grounded? What does grounded even mean, anyway, besides staying inside your house? The most I ever got grounded for was like, a day. I was totally like Cady’s dad in that movie *Mean Girls* when Cady goes out and he’s all like, “they can’t do that when they’re grounded?”

In any case, Louis gets the bright idea for Nick to sneak out. Since this is part 3 or 3, I’m guessing it doesn’t happen. Oh movie, please prove me wrong.

Nick rigs up a device to play back recordings if his parents knock. Then he goes downstairs. His mom is in the living room and his sister is on the phone. Nick whispers into a walky talky, which Sarah somehow doesn’t hear, which I don’t find believable because even if she’s on the phone, those 2 are being really really loud.

We get *really* long footage of Nick crawling around on the kitchen floor which… hang on, his wire recording device was *attached* to the door from the inside. How’d he get out without setting it off? He really should’ve climbed out a window.

Unfortunately they forgot about Whatever, and Nick almost gets caught. McGee distracts whatever just in time.

They get to the theater, and then they have to figure out how to get in if they’re not old enough. Old enough for what, Night of the Blood Freaks, or the theater itself? So, is this movie R rated, then? Anyway, they get in by pretending the guy in front of them is their dad, which actually works, even though the man does not respond to “dad” when they call out to him. He just walks on by them like he’s never seen them before and I’m all thinking, dude, just be cool about it and help them.

Nick’s mom knocks on his door. He says he’s drawing now, and to come back later.

Meanwhile, at the theater, Nickolas and Louis are wearing their cheasy 1990s 3d glasses with the blue and red plastic lenses eating popcorn. Nick looks scared at the screams emanating from the screen. No, we don’t actually get to see any of it ourselves. Louis also looks like he’s about to vomit, though much less so than Nickolas.

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Unfortunately, Nick wasn’t smart enough to record more than one message on the same time, he just has it replaying over and over? Anyway, when he starts sounding like Mickey Mouse on helium, Nick’s mom opens the door and find, surprise, not Nickolas. His mom looks pissed, his big sister Sarah looks happy.

In the theater, Nick isn’t the only kid who looks like he wants to vomit. I get that we’re supposed to think they’re scared here, but those kids look like they have the flu.

Now, really. His parents should’ve just let him have gone to the theater, so that he could see for himself that this was junk. Then he would’ve admitted mom and dad were right (or they may turn out to be wrong, never know) AND no need for any guilt trips about “disobedience.” Or being grounded. Same result, zero trauma.

The movie ends, and Nick takes off his glasses. He shoots Louis an angry look and rubs his eyes. Maybe he’s one of those people who gets a headache during 3d films. There’s a few seconds there where I really think he *is* going to vomit, but then some cheesy song starts playing about how he thought this would be great but he’s a fool. As far as songs in this series go this one actually doesn’t sound too bad.

Instead of sneaking back in, he walks right in through the front door. Maroon.

The parents sit him down and give him a huge guilt trip about how the movie was dirty and polluted and Jesus wouldn’t want him watching it, because theoretically it pollutes the mind.

So, Nickolas is about 12… I see no reason he can’t make the call about those movies himself, at that age? Oh right, parents need the shelter their children in plastic bubbles till they’re 18 or worse, until they’re married.

His mother then goes on about how he’s got scenes in his mind he’ll never erase. He’ll have them with him for the rest of his life!1!!!111!!!!11!1

Yanno, if the movie hadn’t scared him as much as he did, and if there wasn’t this big to do about all the guilt over it, maybe he WOULD forget them. Heck, maybe he’ll forget them anyway. I used to have nightmares about movies all the time, and except that one VeggieTales episode, I can’t remember scenes from *any* of them. And I know there was more than one.

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I bet if you’d just let Nick make the call himself, he might’ve forgot all about it and went, “huh, that was a really bad movie” and gotten on with his life. Because at the age of 12, that’s about what I did. Especially with movies I wasn’t allowed to watch, some of which, like Harry Potter, were actually excellent movies but that’s another rant for another time.

Also, what kid WANTS to watch a movie wherein a kid’s parents are punishing him? It was just uncomfortable and squirmy to watch when I was a child as it is now that I’m an adult, especially since I think Nick’s parents are sorta being absolute pricks here.

I mean, have his parents ever once given him an explanation for *why* the movie is wrong? all they will say is that it’s “garbage.” What do they mean by that? Well, they don’t tell us and, honestly, within Christianity, with every denomination of Christianity, there is a *huge* variance over the definition of “mental garbage.” Half the Adventist church would condemn anything fiction as mental garbage, and the other half embraced science fiction, fantasy and, gasp, romance novels. So the definition of mental garbage, as I was growing up, depended on exactly who you talked to.

I could insert an Ellen White quote about what she said on the subject, but I have a feeling that would qualify as “getting off the subject.”

I hope Nick grows up to become an atheist and later finds all the prequels to *Night of the Blood Freaks* to see if they were as bad as the one he saw.

Speaking of which, we sat with Nick through that whole movie and never even found out what a blood freak was.

They send him to his room, punishment TBD.

The next day, while doing extra chores, Nick decides his parents are right all along, and that he’s going to be much more careful with what he puts into his mind.

So, does this mean he’s not going to go see *Midnight with The Blood Freaks, Part 5* that’s coming out next year? Or with the theme would it be more like *Dawn of the Bloodfreaks 2: The Next Day*