Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this short story-based film is a bleak study of human cruelty in the form of emotional sabotage and actual murder. There are many violent episodes -- from the opening sequence in which a serial killer stalks his prey to a scene in which two children kill a pet to an emotionally jarring exchange in which a husband and wife fight each other with words and fists. Racism also rears its nasty head, and there are disturbing close-ups of a murdered woman. Characters drink, smoke, and swear.
Sexual
Content
A husband and wife have sex (though there's no nudity). Some talk of sex. A partially naked corpse.
Violence
Lots of it, and in all forms -- from verbal abuse to outright murder. A serial killer hunts down women and unceremoniously dumps a partially naked body into a lake. Also, children kill a pet, intending to use it for sacrifice. A man punches his pal on the nose and breaks it. One of the children keeps a dead bird that she presumably also killed.
Language
Occasional use of everything from "damn" to "holy s--t" to "f--k."
Social
Behavior
Disturbing moments include a child nearly causing a playmate to drown; physical abuse between spouses (a man and woman attack each other verbally and with their arms and fists in a discomfortingly realistic fight); crimes such as tampering with evidence; racial conflict.
Consumerism
Some product placement in the gas station, but nothing easily identifiable.
Drugs / Tobacco /
Alcohol
Lots of alcohol. The four men guzzle beer on their fishing trip and at a party beforehand. Some shots of characters smoking.
