ONE THING I HAVE ALWAYS FOUND puzzling is the wide range of guiltiness that resides in each human. I am talking from one extreme to the other; where one person shows no guilt for doing something that is morally wrong, to someone else who feels guilty over something that has nothing to do with them. There was a period, earlier in the year, where it seemed as if every time I watched the news a domestic crime took place. A father and son were arguing and the father stabbed his son with a knife, two cousins were at a family dinner where they got into a fight and one of the cousins shot the other, and a son killed and chopped up his mother because she would not give him money for cigarettes; these were some of incidents the news was reporting. In all cases I could not see the slightest inclination of a sense of guilt from any of the perpetrators. I was dumbfounded; where in the world did these individuals think their behavior was acceptable? When I see or read about such things, it makes me wonder if the ability to feel guilt is a learned thing or part of a human’s genetic makeup; I find it baffling.     TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHY THE differences, I now will question someone when they apologize for something where they had no part in the cause and reaction. A friend of mine was always saying he was sorry whenever I was talking about something that happened to me. We could be walking side by side and I suddenly dropped something I was carrying in my hands. He would apologize to me. I asked him why he was saying he was sorry; did he slap the item out of my hands? Each time he apologized for something unrelated to himself, I would question him on it. It took some time before he broke the habit and as a result, I found out why he was doing it. He told me when he was younger, he felt there was nothing he could do that would win his father’s approval; it caused him to constantly feel bad about himself. We talked about this for some time as I tried to help him see the goodness inside of himself. Unless he did something that caused a person distress, he had nothing to feel sorry or guilty about. I explained it was one thing to feel empathy for a person, it was another to say you are sorry. If you are curious about the levels of guilt then you might be interested in watching this film festival winning, dramatic crime movie.      EARNING A LIVING WAS GETTING HARDER for Wilfred James, played by Thomas Jane (The Thin Red Line, The Mist). There was a way he could solve his problems; however, his wife was standing in the way. With Molly Parker (The Wicker Man, Deadwood-TV) as Arlette James, Dylan Schmid (Horns, Once Upon a Time-TV) as Henry James, Kaitlyn Bernard (The Professor, The Healer) as Shannon Cotterie and Neal McDonough (Timeline, Captain America: The First Avenger) as Harlan Cotterie; this horror film based on a Stephen King story provided a steady pace of gloom and doom. I thought Thomas did an excellent job of acting as his story unfolded. There was more suspense than horror in my opinion, though there were a couple of icky scenes. What I enjoyed about this picture was the avoidance of the usual scare tactics; the script and direction really focused on the main character’s decline. Also, the sets and location shots helped in creating a sense of isolation for the viewer. Guilt is certainly something that can have an affect on the human mind and body; this movie proves it.

2 ¼ stars