WALLFLOWER

WALLFLOWER tells the story of the Capitol Hill massacre, where a man murdered six people in Seattle during an after-hours house party. There was a huge rave one night in March 2006, with teenagers and young adults coming together to dance to electronic music, drink and do drugs. Kyle Huff attends the rave, but, unlike most of the people, he comes alone. He mostly seems to stand around watching the party happen.

A group of friends are having a great time together. One teenager sees Kyle and reaches out to him, saying that he looks lonely. Another guy sees him and extends an invitation to the after party that he’s having at his house. Kyle seems to be struggling with a recent breakup. He also has written a letter expressing how much he hates hippies and that the time is now to end things.

Kyle appears to be quite the loner but shows up at the after party anyway. He lurks, listening to other people’s conversations and occasionally contributes his own thoughts. He sees a young female, who looks like she could be underage, and offers to give her a ride home after he sees a guy trying to get her drunk.

However, Kyle’s demeanor has made everyone else around him feel strange, as he quietly hangs around. There is a young woman in the house who was rude to him at the rave. She apologizes for that, but then later is very rude to him again. She’s going through a breakup with her girlfriend, and, when she happens to see her, she freaks out, throwing a beer bottle at her car and threatening to kill herself.

The teenage girl who was kind to Kyle earlier at the rave is also at the after party, and they strike up a conversation. He practices talking to her in the mirror, but the actual conversation doesn’t go exactly how he expected when he actually does it. He seems to be interested in her, but she doesn’t reciprocate. He follows other people, finding some in the basement having an odd conversation. They are discussing if they would switch genders from birth if they had the chance, and why. There, he finds a bowl of psychedelic mushrooms and decides to eat one.

Later, Kyle returns home and retrieves a gun, some ammunition and a spray paint can. He marches back with a crazed purpose, painting “NOW” on the sidewalks on the way. He approaches the house, immediately shooting everyone in view. He goes inside and does the same. Some hide, some escape, and then the police arrive.

This story is told through a series of flashbacks and flashforwards during the night and next morning following the rave, during the after party. The script doesn’t include any background information on any of the characters. The most extensive secondary story besides the massacre is the breakup between a girl and her ex-girlfriend, but even that hardly expands. Without any look into the people on-screen, the audience has no reason to feel emotionally connected to anyone, creating almost complete apathy for something that should be heartbreaking. The movie reveals little about the vicious killer’s motivation, because he seems to have a longing to be friends with the people he later murders. He doesn’t leave angry, and he doesn’t seem to be seeking revenge on anyone, yet he commits this heinous crime.

WALLFLOWER follows a very negative humanist and pagan worldview, with a man centered world presented where God is a question that doesn’t make sense to the characters, and almost anything goes. Everyone does what they please, and revelation comes by the pathway of drugs and leads to false New Age enlightenment about the universe. There is heavy drug and alcohol use taking place at the rave and the after party, so there is nearly constant substance abuse. Finally, people make inappropriate comments throughout regarding body parts or sex, the main female character is a lesbian, and WALLFLOWER contains many strong obscenities. Ultimately, the movie seems to offer little true insight.