Review of Revolutionary Road (2008) by Kevin H — 01 May 2014

In a typical horror movie the death of youth usually occurs through weapons such as knives or chainsaws.

Here the young defeat themselves, seemingly by growing up. The weapons are disguised as prerequisites for the good life: a comfy job for the husband, a domestic life for the wife, kids and a lawn surrounded by neighbors, as well as the uneasiness of a whole generation.

It's a film set firmly in the 1950s, but this narrative tone poem of hopelessness lurking just beneath "perfection" could be an abridged version of any time period where houses seem too big yet towns seem too small.

So often horror movies start with life and end with death. So often do they take place in large houses at the edge of the woods. But rarely are the casualties this frightening or this real. The argument it seems to make is that there is a far more mundane and deadly killer of young dreams than some ghost with a machete.