The New Daughter (2009)

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The acting in this movie is really good.

This movie was mildly entertaining but incredibly maddening. Kevin Costner's character was a failure as a parent and as a human being. The instant he discovered that his little girl was going to be made into a sex queen for the mound folk, he should have set up a sting. The daughter was what, 13? It doesn't matter what state in America they were in, this is illegal everywhere. Middle school kids cannot legally be involved in orgy situations in the Unites States. Yes, he was searching key words on the internet like "puberty" and "raising a teen daughter", so I know he put in some effort. Sadly, it was not nearly enough and he should have known that. Why wasn't he Googling "Mound sex and underage girls" or "The ethics of engaging in multi-partner mound coitus with a child"? He would have seen it was totally illegal and he could have contacted the authorities. He was too worried about coming off as an uncool, preachy, helicopter dad.

A well made movie. Very watchable until I lost patience and had to fast forward the last 20 minutes in 30 second chunks. Costner underplaying it to an insulting degree as usual. His almost zero reaction to everything going on around him was annoying and he leaves his children alone just a little too often! Great directing, make-up and special effects.This could have been a great movie with a different lead actor (maybe a deadpan lookalike of Buster Keaton!)

This was a ridiculous movie and I was so disappointed that an excellent actor like Kevin Costner would waste his time which wasted our time. What parent would allow his children to stay in an unsafe place, ignore scratches on his daughter's back, leave them to talk with a woman when there is danger, and in the end leave his terrified little boy to blow himself up with his daughter. There was no reason to be in the tunnel. Who in their right mind would get out of a vehicle when there is a howling monster in front of them? And then the movie ended like someone pulled the plug and we sat there going what??? There was no point to this movie at all.

I kept thinking Costner must have had an impending balloon payment due; why else would he agree to star in such a ghastly movie. Surely he had to know, at one point during filming, that this was a howler. I am also surprised that Samantha Mathis signed on. While she isn't stellar, she is a decent actress and has appeared in some fine films, i.e. "Jack and Sarah." The rest of the cast was new to me and while the storyline did not permit any breakaway performances, I think the little boy has a future in movies. Can't say the same for any of the other leads. Anyway, I am left with several pithy questions: (1) what was the purpose of shotgun in this tale; and (2) the more burning question: Why the heck did I stay tuned?