Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

MOVIE COMMENT CATCH-ALL THREAD


jaedmc

Recommended Posts

 

I also like that when the family gets creeped out of the house they're like "Fuck it, we're moving". You hardly ever see that in a movie, at least not until the very end like Amityville.

 

One of the reasons I loved both The Conjuring and the first Paranormal Activity movie is that they both bother to take the time to give a reason why the "Fuck it! We're moving!" strategy does not work.

 

Yeah, the reason sounds like a Romero Zombie Rule , but at least it is there in black and white and explains why the movie will continue in the current set piece and why moving out of the "haunted house" is useless.

 

Speaking of the Zombie Rule, here are Leigh Whannel's (of Saw fame) thoughts about monster movie rules:

 

But over the next year, as I slaved to produce something people actually liked, there are certain terms the execs would use that I came to despise, and that only made things worse.

 

The biggest one was “the rules”. What are the rules?, they would want to know. The rules, the rules, always the rules.

 

Allow me to explain. In Japan, if a horror film was made that featured a demonic cat that took its head off and started vomiting acid rain through the hole in its neck, all the while tap-dancing to the tune of ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ by Rick Astley, no one would question it. “How creepy is that fucking cat?”, they might ask - but nobody would ever dream of asking WHY the cat does this, and if they did, the answer would be pretty simple: because it’s a demonic cat you fucking moron, and demonic cats do weird shit.

 

Now, if that same Japanese demonic cat movie made a few dollars and was then remade in Hollywood because they had no fucking ideas of their own, the first thing  some know-nothing movie producer would ask is “Why does the cat take it’s head off and tap-dance to Rick Astley? What’s the mythology behind it? What are the rules?

 

Only in a place as fucking stupid as Hollywood would someone use the word ‘rules’ when talking about shape-shifting cat demons. The only logical response to a know-nothing movie producer’s question is “THERE ARE NO RULES, IT’S A SUPERNATURAL CAT YOU DICKHEAD.”

 

That is great shit, but I have to disagree and say that some monster movie rules are kinda necessary for meta purposes.  Without the "the evil will follow you no matter where you go" rule from PA or The Conjuring, families that stay in haunted houses look like dumbasses and since monsters are antagonists (or at least they're supposed to be), there needs to be some sort of built in weakness that the protagonist can discover and use to defeat the monster.

 

I love the Lovecraftian model of "you're fucked no matter what you do" but you can't sell that kind of hopelessness all of the time, especially in horror because it can become cliche and turn your execellent movie into a pretentions, contrived one.

 

Case in point, the "evil wins" method in Jeepers Creepers and The Collector is obviously there to build an ending that teases a sequel.  There's no reason why The Creeper or The Collector couldn't have gotten their asses kicked to stay in one fucking movie.

 

This is the peril that Whannel mentions in his blog ergo selling a franchise before you've sold the first installment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ONLY GOD FORGIVES - looks visually stunning and has great performances from Kristin Scott Thomas and Vithaya Pansringarm.

 

Apart from that it was very, very average. I've never seen DRIVE so I didn't know what to expect - but if it's like this I won't be rushing to watch it anytime soon

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The "fuck it, we're moving" thing doesn't really make sense to me though. If any of us have sold/bought a house in our time, it isn't as simple as packing your bags and going to a new home. In fact, it's the biggest pain in the arse imaginable. So when you've just moved in to your new home it's gonna take a little more than some doors opening on their own to make you move out, surely.

Even saying "lets go stay with grandma while we sort it out" is a stretch because nobody likes staying with grandma.

So basically it's "noises? What noises?" Until everyone's dead, for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've never lived in a haunted house. My roommates at my previous apartment claimed to have seen a bunch of ghostly shit whenever I wasn't around, and they weren't joking or lying as best as I could tell, but somehow I seem to project a Field Of Depressingly Un-Alterable Reality around my person and I never see or hear weird shit unless I'm dreaming or incredibly stoned. And I've moved houses more times than I'd care to count, having gone through all that hassle on probably a dozen different occasions. But if the house appeared to be genuinely haunted with inexplicable and dangerous supernatural phenomena, there would be a Jingus-shaped hole in the wall to announce my departure. I'd hire movers to go back into the house to get my stuff while I sat on the lawn. The whole point of the occult is that you don't know what's going to happen and what it can or can't do, and that ain't a bet I'm willing to put money on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I watched NORTH BY NORTHWEST last night.  As I was watching it, I thought that the woman playing Cary Grant's mother doesn't look all that much older than him.  I looked them up and saw that she was 8 years older than him.  I guess Cary was playing younger than he was in real life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fun Fact: Jimmy Stewart wanted to play the Cary Grant part. Hitchcock told Stewart no because he felt Vertigo didn't make much money because Stewart was too old. Cary Grant is 4 years older than Stewart.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was talking to a friend at work and tried to come up with a list of films that we enjoyed (or at least weren't obviously terrible) that were betrayed by really shitty endings.

 

We came up with:

 

- US version of The Descent

- High Tension (Oh, God.. Where to begin?)

- Grease (The moral of the story?  In order to get the man you want, you have to be a slut!)

- Signs (Why do aliens whose weakness is water decide to invade a planet where water covers more than 80% of the surface?)

- I Am Legend (Will Smith's need to be a movie hero blunts the true impact of the novella.)

- The Devil Inside

 

Any faves / unfaves of yours?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The "fuck it, we're moving" thing doesn't really make sense to me though. If any of us have sold/bought a house in our time, it isn't as simple as packing your bags and going to a new home. In fact, it's the biggest pain in the arse imaginable. So when you've just moved in to your new home it's gonna take a little more than some doors opening on their own to make you move out, surely.Even saying "lets go stay with grandma while we sort it out" is a stretch because nobody likes staying with grandma.So basically it's "noises? What noises?" Until everyone's dead, for me.

 

 

Until you've awoken at 3:00 a.m. in the dark to hear a large-sounding clearly physical entity attempting to claw (or chew?) its way through the wall?  ceiling?  thin air around you?  Pounding and grinding...and then stopping as soon as you make a sound, like it's hearing you and reacting to your movement.  Waiting while you to stand there naked in the dark straining your ears, questioning if you actually heard anything...waiting for you to start to slowly carefully move toward the door before POUNDING on the wall next to you...

 

You don't kow how exactly you will react.  But if you are like me, there will be pee.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always felt the last 1/3rd of 'The Dark Knight' is rather poor/borderline unwatchable after a pretty crackin' first 2/3rds.  Realistically, everything after

 

Rachel Dawes dies/Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face

 

was pretty weak.  That interminable ending with the convicts on the boat and the kill-switch bores me to tears.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The "fuck it, we're moving" thing doesn't really make sense to me though. If any of us have sold/bought a house in our time, it isn't as simple as packing your bags and going to a new home. In fact, it's the biggest pain in the arse imaginable. So when you've just moved in to your new home it's gonna take a little more than some doors opening on their own to make you move out, surely.Even saying "lets go stay with grandma while we sort it out" is a stretch because nobody likes staying with grandma.So basically it's "noises? What noises?" Until everyone's dead, for me.

Until you've awoken at 3:00 a.m. in the dark to hear a large-sounding clearly physical entity attempting to claw (or chew?) its way through the wall? ceiling? thin air around you? Pounding and grinding...and then stopping as soon as you make a sound, like it's hearing you and reacting to your movement. Waiting while you to stand there naked in the dark straining your ears, questioning if you actually heard anything...waiting for you to start to slowly carefully move toward the door before POUNDING on the wall next to you...You don't kow how exactly you will react. But if you are like me, there will be pee.
If anythings happening as I wake up, I'll assume I'm dreaming. Doesn't stop me from being shaken up, but I'm not selling my damn house in the morning.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dolfan has alerted me of both the passing of Eileen Brennan and the fact that I'm not the only one who loves CLUE: THE MOVIE.

Seriously, if we re-do the Best of the 80's, don't be surprised if that's #1 on my list.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know if I'd put IDENTITY in the category of "great". but it had me pretty rivited until that shit ending.

While we're on that topic, might as well pose the "shitty movies" with great endings question. The first thing that comes to mind for that is BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

MACHETE MAIDENS was so fun.  The one it clued me into was HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD, the movie Joe Dante made on a bet with Corman that he could make the cheapest movie Corman had ever produced.

 

I remember reading an old Fangoria or (more likely) Cinefantastique as a kid and Dante talked about making a whole trailer with nothing but the vehicle explosions from Corman pictures. Knowing he made a WHOLE MOVIE including pretty much all that was great. 

 

Sid came off like a loose and semi-drunk dirty old man in Machete Maidens which made him way less intimidating. I could shoot the shit with him over a bottle of Jimmy for sure. On a side note, I went to a horror con years ago and a gal I was friends with who owned a horror/clothing/ephemera store told me she was having dinner with Sid and Bill Moseley and semi-invited me. Wish that would have came together. I never know whether they did that or not, but both were def. at the convention.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was talking to a friend at work and tried to come up with a list of films that we enjoyed (or at least weren't obviously terrible) that were betrayed by really shitty endings.

 

We came up with:

 

- US version of The Descent

- High Tension (Oh, God.. Where to begin?)

- Grease (The moral of the story?  In order to get the man you want, you have to be a slut!)

- Signs (Why do aliens whose weakness is water decide to invade a planet where water covers more than 80% of the surface?)

- I Am Legend (Will Smith's need to be a movie hero blunts the true impact of the novella.)

- The Devil Inside

 

Any faves / unfaves of yours?

 

I enjoyed The Last Exorcism up until the last five minutes.  It got assigned to me as part of one of our THIS IS HALLOWEEN ventures.  I thought it started off strong, with Cotton being the perfect carny preacher/exorcist who didn't believe the garbage he was selling--until he runs into the right/wrong family.  If she had been a big name, Ashley Bell would have been Oscar nominated for her turn as Nell.  She was that good.  Everything seemed right until--blam-o, what a cruddy ending.  Aggravating as all out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know if I'd put IDENTITY in the category of "great". but it had me pretty rivited until that shit ending. 

Identity would have been a GREAT movie if the ending wasn't shitty. It was like a guy walking a tightrope. It's not a success until the guy reaches the other side. If Identity were Man on a Wire, he would have fallen off just at the end and then planes would fly into the towers and then cut to a big banner reading Mission Accomplished. Roll Credits.

 

As for The Last Exorcism, I thought that ending was kinda fun. And I think, as far as Found Footage flicks go, it has some of the best angles and visuals. Lots of nice distance shots where you're not sure what's what. The biggest beef I had with the ending was the obvious problem in nearly all found footage films. "When do you say fuck it and drop the camera and bounce?" But after seeing so many I realize the answer is not until you're dead. Which in this day in age with youtubers and twitter, I'm having a much easier time believing. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...