Knotted up

You think you know someone. (Unmarked Spoilers)

Tyler Burnside (Charlie Plummer) is the teenage son of boy scout leader and pillar of the community Don Burnside (Dylan McDermott). After borrowing his dad’s truck, Tyler discovers a piece of bondage porn. His curiosity piqued, he keeps digging and uncovers evidence that Don might be the Clovehitch Killer, a serial killer who just disappeared years ago. To figure out the truth, he teams up with Kassi (Madisen Beaty), a girl his age who has a deep interest in the Clovehitch case.

I’d hate to just come out and say this because, much like A History of Violence, this is a movie you’re going to watch a totally different way the second time once you know the truth. Unfortunately, my analysis is kind of hard to give otherwise, so here goes. About midway through the film, we find out that Don is Clovehitch. 

Upon realizing that Tyler has caught on to the truth, Don takes him camping. It’s a great moment that makes you wonder if there’s going to be a little hunting accident. Instead, Don says that the evidence Tyler found belonged to his brother, Uncle Rudy (Mark A. Nash). Following Rudy becoming catatonic after a suicide attempt, Don chose to hide the evidence to not hurt the rest of the family. While all of that could be a lie, the fact we’re given no other reason for why Clovehitch would have stopped killing for so long suggests that it’s more a half-truth that leaves out Don and Rudy’s status as accomplices.

In my review of Strange Days, I wrote that the villain using bondage and asphyxiation is an example of the good sex, evil sex tropes. In no way did I mean to imply that BDSM is evil because in and of itself, it is not. What I was getting at was that often, in mass media, there’s a clear dichotomy between how heroes have sex and villains have sex. Good guys never need viagra, while bad guys are impotent. Good guys are straight, while bad guys are gay, ace, or bi. Good guys use vanilla, missionary sex while bad guys are kinky. 

For the sake of fairness, I feel that I should point out that the BTK Killer, Clovehith’s inspiration, was also into bondage porn. And would wear women’s clothing to roleplay as his victims, similar to what we see Clovehitch do in the movie. The whole villainous crossdresser trope is also really insulting towards people with an alternative lifestyle. Within any subcategory of people, you’re going to find outliers. The problem is that malevolent examples of bondage users and crossdressers outweigh more benign ones in pop culture. Though to the credit of  The Clovehitch Killer, Kassi does acknowledge that being into “weird sex” doesn’t necessarily translate into some being a serial killer. 

Towards the end of the film, Tyler and Kassi barge in on Don about to kill another victim, to which Don tells Tyler the situation is not what it looks like and that Kassi’s manipulating him. Earlier, Tyler was ready to give up after being told about Uncle Rudy and leave it at that. Then Kassi calls him to a victim’s house, and when Tyler doesn’t want to go inside, she kisses him. He goes inside (please God, give me the strength not to fall for that) for some more kissing, but Kassi wants to keep talking about Clovehitch and convince Tyler not to give up. So when you think about it, Don was right about her manipulating him. It just doesn’t make him any less guilty. 

After proclaiming his innocence despite standing over the unconscious body of another victim, Don talks Tyler into handing over the rifle his son brought with him. Unsurprisingly, Don tries to shoot him, and, equally unsurprisingly, the gun isn’t loaded because the whole thing was a test. Except for someone who’s as outdoorsy as Don, shouldn’t he be able to tell the weight (NSFW) difference? I’m not into guns, so I genuinely don’t know.

I must be on a roll in terms of serial killing dad movies. If you enjoyed The Clovehitch Killer, as I did, then I highly recommend reading the Stephen King short story, A Good Marriage. It’s pretty much the same plot, except instead of the son, it’s the wife of the person who ends up being BTK. There’s a movie version as well, but it’s not as good.