Review of The Arbors

The Arbors (2020)
4/10
It was good up until the point I really lost the plot
5 April 2021
Warning: Spoilers
This guy Ethan finds a weird insect type creature feasting on a dead deer in the road and brings it home in a small pet kennel. The creature manages to chew through the cage door, so he then decides to construct a large, wooden box with breathing holes in it to contain it. The thing ends up biting him and he notices it is getting bigger, so he gets a chicken chick from somewhere and records the creature reaching it's spider-like legs out to pull it in.

He tries to get his brother to come and take a look at the thing, but he can't because he is working. His brother asks him if he can watch his niece the next day and then he will look at whatever it is he wanted him to see when he comes to pick her up. He never tells his brother what it was he even found and as you may have guessed,it gets out before he has a chance to see it.

When Ethan goes to check on the insect before his brother arrives, he discovers it escaped and finds his neighbor's teenaged son lying dead next to his garage. Note that the neighbor's son liked to pester Ethan. More bodies are found and there gets to be a point where you make the connection that this thing seems to be knocking off people that Ethan isn't particularly a fan of.

About halfway through the movie, he finds his boss dead outside his house. His boss had just fired him. This is where it totally lost me... You'd think all signs point to Ethan as the one murdering these people and the bug is just a psychological thing. So, he calls his coworker Brody over and tells him what happened. He shows Brody the video of the creature killing the chick, which kinda contradicts any theory of Ethan being the real killer. Brody asks him what it is and he says he doesn't know.

Somehow, Brody doesn't seem to be all that freaked out by this and just agrees to help him hide the body. While doing this, Brody is standing guard outside the car while Ethan takes the body into the woods to bury it. A cop shows up and asks Brody what he is doing, and Brody just starts booking it. He is taken into custody for the night while Ethan finishes up and goes back home.

Ethan finds out his brother and sister in law and their daughter are moving out of state, and he gets upset and leaves a message on his brother's phone saying that he feels resentment towards his niece and sister in law. After that, you guessed it, they go missing. Ethan's brother goes to these little town watch meetings to try and figure out who is murdering these people and a fellow attendant who is a police officer slips up and mentions that they had caught Brody the other night but had to let him go as they had no real reason to contain him other than the fact he tried to flee from an officer.

They all go to Brody's house with the intention of killing him because the officer spills it, and Ethan goes along. Ethan himself breaks in and shoots Brody. This made NO SENSE! It totally lost me really from the point that Ethan showed Brody the proof the creature existed and was growing in size. Ethan also ends up pulling a tooth out of his hand that dislodged from the creature's mouth when it bit him, so he had physical proof as well. Why murder his friend and coworker or even let the townspeople continue to stress over what is happening when he had proof all along of what was causing all the events?

After he kills Brody, it appears on the news that Brody had been killed and he was suspected of conducting the dozen murders. The cop covered for him and said he killed him in a standoff. Ethan goes to this house where the creature seemed to live and had tunnels that lead throughout the city and burned it down and left. The movie ends after that. It started off good but then it just hit a point of frustration and confusion. I can't even present this with the 5 star halfway decent rating.
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