The Johnsons
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Sidney
Oh, how he just didn't see it coming.
Portrayed by: Billy Mayo
The worrisome husband and father. He is also a poet who wrote a memoir about his abuse.
- Ambiguously Evil: Isaiah claims later in the film that Sidney sexually abused him first. Whether this is actually a lie or not is never elaborated on.
- Ambiguous Situation: It's never made clear how the abuse began. At the very least, Sidney walks in on his son, and then gave a touching speech about how something of that sort is perfectly normal, implying that the son was already obsessed with his father but that he interpreted his words of reassurance as him giving the okay to abuse him. After all, he did say it was "perfectly normal".
- Whether Sidney sexually abused Isaiah first. Isaiah implies that Sidney incited the abuse somehow, however, we see in Sidney's memoir that not even he is sure what started it all, musing on whether it was something trivial like grounding him or sending him to his room that set Isaiah off. The film also never gives any indication that Sidney had any part in the abuse, further muddying things.
- Big "NO!": Has one when he's getting raped by Isaiah. His wife turns up the volume of her television set instead of helping him.
- Break the Cutie: He began as just an ordinary husband and father, but through whatever means, he became his son's plaything.
- Broken Tears: By Joan's account, she first realized something was wrong after Sidney drove Isaiah home from prom night, as he sat in the bathroom all night crying with the sink running.
- Driven to Suicide: It's implied that he deliberately ran in the direction of a white van as a means of escaping the abuse.
- Extreme Doormat: Sydney seems like a timid and meek Nice Guy but he never stands up for himself when his abusive son gets more and more sexually aggressive towards him.
- Fate Worse than Death: He was trapped in an abusive relationship with his son for over 10 years, unable to stick up for himself and was eventually too fearful of what his son would do to him to tell him others about what was happening. It's likely that if he didn't get hit by a car toward the end of the movie he would have had to endure even more of his son's abuse for presumably the rest of his life.
- Guilt Complex: While he's not sure what caused his son to begin abusing him in the first place, he blames himself for Isaiah's abuse nonetheless.
- Noodle Incident: Whatever Isaiah did to him on prom night left Sidney so broken he sat in the bathroom all night crying with the sink running. Joan wonders if this is when the abuse started, though she realizes that it must have been going on even earlier than that.
- Poor Communication Kills: If he didn't have that talk with Isaiah at the beginning of the movie, it's likely that the entire plot could have been avoided. Justified as he didn't know that his son was masturbating to a picture of him when he gave him those words of reassurance.
Joan
"You monster. You killed your own father, how could you?"
Portrayed by: Angela Bullock
The wife who is aware of the abuse, but turns a blind eye to it.
- Bleed 'Em and Weep: Is in utter hysterics after murdering her own son.
- Bystander Syndrome: Ignores her husband's abuse throughout the duration of their marriage. It would come back to bite her.
- Everyone Has Standards: She definitely enabled the horrible situation, but finally snaps when Sidney gets killed as a result of her son's abuse.
- Karma Houdini: Downplayed. She was complicit in her son's abuse of her husband for years and failed to do anything about it or confront him about it until it was too late. At the end of the movie, she kills her son in self-defense and burns Sidney's second copy of his memoir so that no one will ever know of the abuse he endured. However, she will also have to live with knowing that both her husband and sons deaths are to some extent her fault.
- Never My Fault: It's implied that she burns the memoir not only to protect her reputation but so she won't have to explain her inactions during the entire time she was aware of Sidney and Isaiah's abusive incestuous relationship.
- Offing the Offspring: Is forced to kill her own son in self-defense.
- Secret-Keeper: A dark example. She burns the second copy of Sidney's memoir, making it so no one will ever know of the abuse he suffered at the hands of his own son.
- Selective Obliviousness: She's well aware that her son has been abusing her husband for years and even hears it happening but chooses to ignore it by turning the TV up.
- Stepford Smiler: She's so obsessed with keeping an image of a happy, functional family that she would reserve the fact that she's aware of her son's disturbing behavior and she's willing to ignore the way her own son abuses (and later rapes) her own husband.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: Her expression at the funeral as she comes to terms with what happened.
Isaiah
Portrayed by: Brandon Greenhouse (adult), Carlon Jeffery (young version)
The son with an unhealthy fixation on his father.- Asshole Victim: When his mother kills him at the end, it's totally deserved.
- Axe-Crazy: He is a mentally depraved sociopath who remorselessly attempted to kill his mother.
- Bald of Evil: Downplayed, as while he still has hair it's cut incredibly short.
- Beard of Evil:
- Big Bad: Of the short film.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Acts like they are a normal family to everyone but is a predatory abuser who preys on his own father.
- Caught with Your Pants Down: The beginning flashback of the movie is a scene where Sidney walks in on him masturbating at a photo before talking with him about how it's normal for boys his age to do so. Unfortunately, he's completely unaware that Isaiah was masturbating at a photo of him, which is anything but normal behaviour, foreshadowing the sexual abuse he would then endure at the hands of his son.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: He was jealous of his own mother's relationship with his father.
- Crocodile Tears: What he does to continue manipulating his father into accepting his incestuous abuse. After he rapes Sydney in the bathroom, Isaiah tries this again, but it doesn't work and Sydney runs off into the street where he is promptly killed by a moving vehicle.
- Depraved Bisexual: While he married a beautiful woman, he still has his eyes on his father. The movie makes it clear that Isaiah has greater sexual attraction towards his own father, showing that he is bisexual. This even goes on to where, while he and his wife are kissing during their first-anniversary party, Isaiah is uninterested in her and continues to look at his father with same-sex attraction, even breaking glass and making an excuse to his wife that he's going to clean up after the party.
- Domestic Abuse: In a role reversal, he abuses his father.
- Even Bad Boys Love Their Papas: As twisted as his relationship with his father may be, he still loves his father even after the old man died in a truck crash.
- Exact Words: He took his father saying that his masturbating is "perfectly normal" to heart, seemingly unaware of the fact, or simply not caring that, his father wasn't aware that he was masturbating to a picture of him when he gave him those words of reassurance. Either way, it's implied that it was this conversation that was the inciting incident that lead to 14 years of abuse.
- Faux Affably Evil: Puts on a front of charisma and uprightness when in public, but in secret, is a sociopathic monster who molests his father any chance he gets.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Even assuming Sidney did sexually assault him first, it's shown to be comparatively irrelevant considering that he then engaged in several years of sexual and emotional abuse towards him.
- Hate Sink: He is a violent abuser who sexually abused his father for 14 years and later tried to kill his mother after deflecting the blame of his father's death from him.
- Never My Fault: Accuses Sidney of corrupting him. He also refuses to acknowledge that it was his own actions that led to his father's demise.
- Psychopathic Manchild: He continues his predatory ways and denies all responsibility for his own horrible actions well into adulthood.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Had been sexually abusing his father for 14 years.
- Self-Made Orphan: After his father is indirectly killed by him, his mother confronts him about the decade-long abuse which eventually escalates into a fight, and he attempts to kill his own mother by sticking her head in the fireplace. Fortunately, Joan manages to fight back with a fire poker and kills him.
- Start of Darkness: While it seems like Isaiah had an attraction to his father since he was at least a teenager, the conversation he and Sidney had about masturbation being normal for people seemed to have spurred him into acting on his urges after misinterpreting his father's words.
- The Sociopath: Sexually abused his father for years, most likely even when he was still a child.
- Teens Are Monsters: He was always a terrible brat even before becoming an adult.
- Villainous Breakdown: Doesn't take his father's passing all that well. He becomes even more psychotic when Joan accuses him of indirectly murdering his own father.
- Would Hit a Girl: Strikes his mother after she slapped him, and then tries to kill her.
- You Monster!: Joan outright says this to him when she confronts him for being the indirect reason for his father's death.
