The Re-Deadening
The Re-Deadening
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Movie Information
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The Re-Deadening is a horror film which was shown at Springfield Googolplex Theatres.
Background[edit]
Homer was babysitting Rod and Todd Flanders, and he decided to take them and Bart and Lisa to the movies. However, when they arrived at the Googolplex, Homer was unable to decide what to see because every kid-friendly movie was sold out. He considered taking them to Teenage Sex Wager, but Rod and Todd stopped him from making that decision due to the movie being banned by their church's movie guide: What Would Jesus View? They met up with Lenny Leonard and Carl Carlson at the ticket booth, and Lenny said they were going to see The Re-Deadening because Lenny had a small speaking part in it. That clinched the decision for Homer, and he took the children to The Re-Deadening.
Plot[edit]
The movie was about a possessed killer doll called Baby Button Eyes, who was not only homicidal herself, but also encouraged others to commit murder. In a scene early in the movie, a little girl was sitting in a rocking chair holding the doll and looking intently into her eyes. The girl then said, "What's that, Baby Button Eyes? You want me to kill Mummy?" The implication was that Baby Button Eyes often threatened the children into committing murder by revealing her origins: The girl was reluctant to kill her Mummy because she had been nice to her, and only went through with it because Baby Button Eyes revealed to her that her Button Eyes came from the trousers of a psychotic killer.
The remainder of the movie followed Baby Button Eyes going on a murderous rampage where she killed everyone she encountered. In Lenny's scene, he was working as a gardner when the doll jumped on him, killed him, ripped his eyes out, and replaced them with buttons sewn onto his face. There was also apparently a prophecy concerning the doll, as Lenny screamed about it being fulfilled when the doll attacked him.
At one point in the movie, it was thought that Baby Button Eyes was dead. However, she rose up and killed yet another person, and the rampage continued.
Production[edit]
Lenny talked at some length about his role in the movie. He said that he had gotten to be in the movie because "The director saw my picture in a medical book." Carl chimed in that he had gone to visit Lenny while the movie was being shot and had gotten banned from the set. After the scene where Lenny's gardener character was killed, Lenny said that the buttons only looked like they were sewn onto his face—they had really used hot wax to stick the buttons into place over his eyes.
Reactions[edit]
Homer took a very blasé view of the on-screen horror, setting his soda on Lisa's head and his popcorn on Bart's (when they were hunched over to avoid looking at the screen) and nonchalantly making comments like "Well, what do you know? It's un-killable!" when it seemed that nothing could stop the doll. He also refused to leave the movie, in spite of the fact that all four kids (even Bart) were scared to the point where they were unwilling to even look at the screen, and Rod and Todd were hiding under their seats.
When they got home from the movie, Marge was completely shocked to learn that Homer had taken children to see The Re-Deadening. Bart and Lisa were so scared that they were still shaking uncontrollably when it was time for dinner. Homer, obliviously adding insult to injury, bought the movie's soundtrack album and then played it during dinner, traumatizing Bart and Lisa even further. When Lisa tried to sleep, she tried to calm herself by telling herself that it was only a movie filmed in Vancouver with Donald Sutherland as the priest who stopped believing. However, she was unsuccessful, and when she heard strange noises coming from the attic she became even more scared and ran out of her room to Bart's. (They later investigated the attic and found that the noises were being made by Artie Ziff, who had been secretly staying there following his bankruptcy and loss of his company.)
Trivia[edit]
- The little girl who was coerced by Baby Button Eyes to kill her mother is implied to be of British origin, due to the fact that she was speaking in a British accent and using British expressions such as referring to her mother as "Mummy" and saying "trousers" instead of "pants".
Behind the Laughter[edit]
- The movie is most likely a parody of Dolly Dearest, which is a horror movie about a possessed doll.
- Village of the Damned, Child's Play and The Others are also parodied in the plot.
- The music of The Re-Deadening is very reminiscent of the music from the horror film Rosemary's Baby.
Appearances[edit]
