Hawrrible Movies
After watching the abysmal Saw III last week, I thought my love of horror films must surely be coming to an end. There was absolutely nothing good about the film; the "plot twist" was predictable and uninteresting and the gore was all unnecessary and not even particularly convincing. The scariest thing about the movie was undoubtedly the acting. I found myself wondering why, given all the horror and nastiness the real world has to offer, I was wasting my time watching people being horribly tortured to no end other than the film makers squeezing out the last few bucks from this initially promising series. The original Saw was, as I remember, pretty good, with a balance between the ingenious and gruesome traps it has become famous for and the intense psychological drama of the two men stuck in a room, with the prospect of having to saw off their own feet. It's is certainly no cinematic masterpiece that would change anyone's life, but it's pretty good entertainment, and that's the best justification I could come up with for watching any horror film.
After watching The Descent, I had my faith in horror films completely restored. It's bloody scary, and most of that has nothing to do with the very creepy, gollumesque predators who really don't do anything until well into the film. It has all the really scary stuff; people trapped, in the dark, in very confined spaces, with a lot of long drops, running around frantically. That was more than enough to get my palms sweating pretty early on, without any need for bizarre puppets pedalling tricycles and wanting to "play games" with people. Whatever. And it's really well done, with beautiful lighting and interesting shots, there was actually some quality to be enjoyed here. The weird flesh eating, wall climbing monsters, are nothing next to a bunch of tomb raider type women - not one of them your horror genre helpless damsel - slowly going nuts. These are some pretty strong women, prepared not only to go into places that I wouldn't even want to venture near, but also dealing the best they can with all the really scary stuff, like losing a child or having your best friend betray you. If these girls are losing it, I'd be dead in seconds. But they face their fears, encourage one another, and fight and keep fighting. And (now this is a spoiler, if the rest wasn't already) it's not enough. They all die horribly, in the dark, alone - and that's the kind of ending that I like. Things do not always end well, there is not always a "right" thing to do, and doing it will not necessarily get you saved. Even more interesting is the notion of the "unreliable narrator" - which I'm pretty sure transfers from literature to film, though perhaps not as clearly. The main character is shown from the very beginning of the film to be deeply affected by the death of her child and husband, and her hallucinations and brutal attack in the caves on the woman with whom her husband had an affair leaves you wondering about her state of mind. Are the monsters - more scary because they appear to be deformed humans - representations the demons that she is unsuccessfully fighting? Does she in fact, kill all her friends? I feel like figuring out the "truth" is perhaps not as important as having different possibilities - the film leaves space for ambiguity.
It ends with the heroine escaping the caves, running screaming into the forest and making a victorious getaway in her truck. Or at least so it does for the Americans who saw in the cinema. The uncut - and original British version - returns to the caves where the heroine awakes, having dreamt her escape, and hallucinates that she is with her dead daughter. I love that the Americans couldn't deal with the hopelessness of the actual ending, they have to have the heroine survive at all costs. This alternate ending completely destroys the ambiguity of the film and limits its impact, and I think it’s a real shame it was shown in that restricted form. What's the point if you don't wonder about it afterwards. Is it really all a big metaphor? Would women all kill each other if trapped in a confined space? What is it that has driven humans to explore tiny, confined spaces for thousands of years? I loved it.
I'm currently taking a class called "Victorian novel into film", which is undoubtedly the most boring of all my classes. It's been incredibly tedious, right up to last week's homework, when we had to describe how we would shoot a scene from Jane Eyre. I loved trying to shape the author's intentions into something that would work on screen, and realising just how much every intricate detail reveals about the characters. Not for the first time, I decided that working creatively in the film industry would probably be my dream job. I don't think I'm cut out for directing, but designing props and sets or even editing looks like a lot of fun. I think, however, it may be a bit late to change my degree. Again. Maybe I can just be a really bad film critic.
After watching The Descent, I had my faith in horror films completely restored. It's bloody scary, and most of that has nothing to do with the very creepy, gollumesque predators who really don't do anything until well into the film. It has all the really scary stuff; people trapped, in the dark, in very confined spaces, with a lot of long drops, running around frantically. That was more than enough to get my palms sweating pretty early on, without any need for bizarre puppets pedalling tricycles and wanting to "play games" with people. Whatever. And it's really well done, with beautiful lighting and interesting shots, there was actually some quality to be enjoyed here. The weird flesh eating, wall climbing monsters, are nothing next to a bunch of tomb raider type women - not one of them your horror genre helpless damsel - slowly going nuts. These are some pretty strong women, prepared not only to go into places that I wouldn't even want to venture near, but also dealing the best they can with all the really scary stuff, like losing a child or having your best friend betray you. If these girls are losing it, I'd be dead in seconds. But they face their fears, encourage one another, and fight and keep fighting. And (now this is a spoiler, if the rest wasn't already) it's not enough. They all die horribly, in the dark, alone - and that's the kind of ending that I like. Things do not always end well, there is not always a "right" thing to do, and doing it will not necessarily get you saved. Even more interesting is the notion of the "unreliable narrator" - which I'm pretty sure transfers from literature to film, though perhaps not as clearly. The main character is shown from the very beginning of the film to be deeply affected by the death of her child and husband, and her hallucinations and brutal attack in the caves on the woman with whom her husband had an affair leaves you wondering about her state of mind. Are the monsters - more scary because they appear to be deformed humans - representations the demons that she is unsuccessfully fighting? Does she in fact, kill all her friends? I feel like figuring out the "truth" is perhaps not as important as having different possibilities - the film leaves space for ambiguity.
It ends with the heroine escaping the caves, running screaming into the forest and making a victorious getaway in her truck. Or at least so it does for the Americans who saw in the cinema. The uncut - and original British version - returns to the caves where the heroine awakes, having dreamt her escape, and hallucinates that she is with her dead daughter. I love that the Americans couldn't deal with the hopelessness of the actual ending, they have to have the heroine survive at all costs. This alternate ending completely destroys the ambiguity of the film and limits its impact, and I think it’s a real shame it was shown in that restricted form. What's the point if you don't wonder about it afterwards. Is it really all a big metaphor? Would women all kill each other if trapped in a confined space? What is it that has driven humans to explore tiny, confined spaces for thousands of years? I loved it.
I'm currently taking a class called "Victorian novel into film", which is undoubtedly the most boring of all my classes. It's been incredibly tedious, right up to last week's homework, when we had to describe how we would shoot a scene from Jane Eyre. I loved trying to shape the author's intentions into something that would work on screen, and realising just how much every intricate detail reveals about the characters. Not for the first time, I decided that working creatively in the film industry would probably be my dream job. I don't think I'm cut out for directing, but designing props and sets or even editing looks like a lot of fun. I think, however, it may be a bit late to change my degree. Again. Maybe I can just be a really bad film critic.
Oh, and that's what they call them in Brooklyn. Hawrrible...
posted by Chantal @ 9:55 PM
1 Comments:
haawwwwrrible!
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