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Friday, October 27, 2006
So TERRIFYING it will change your life!
Having already offered a list of scary movies, I’d like to ask a different question: What movies really, really, really, really scared you?
Keep in mind, I don’t mean a movie that only made you go “EEEEEEEE!� or even a movie that creeped you out for a couple of hours. I mean a movie that scared you so badly, it actually changed your behavior.
And while I’d love to hear any and all examples, please don’t limit yourselves to horror films. It can be any kind of movie.
I was trying to think of films that changed my behavior, but most of the ones I came up with were about things I was already scared of. “Jaws� gave me a pretty good start when ol’ Brucie popped his head out of the water when Chief Brody was tossing the chum, but I can’t swim, so I never thought it was safe to go in the water.
I’d like to say “The Blair Witch Project� swore me off ever walking in the woods at night again, but I’m too big of a klutz to walk safely in the woods in broad daylight, so never mind that.
I was attacked by seagulls when I was about 4 years old on Huntington Beach in California when they went after my McDonald’s French Fries that I had been throwing out to them (Mine? Mine? Mine?). So I was already freaked out by the fowl creatures of the earth when I saw “The Birds.�
Ah, but it was McDonald’s that gave me a different kind of scare. After I saw “Super Size Me,� in which Morgan Spurlock ruined his health by eating nothing but Mickey D’s for a month, I swore off Quarter Pounders — for a little while, anyway. No Royale with Cheese for me!
So tell me, what movies, horror or otherwise scarred you so much, the made you change your tune like that? Disney movies? Scary movies? Michael Bay movies? Fire or frighten away!
Permalink | | Categories: Ask the Audience
Small screen frights for the weekend
Much as I’d like to tell you about the latest horror movie in theaters, guess what? “Saw III,� like nine-tenths of the scary movies out this year, wasn’t screened for critics!
Oh well. Seeing that movie would probably make most critics feel like Charlie Brown on trick or treat night: “I got a rock.�
What I can do, however, is point you to some cool scary flicks playing on TV this weekend. Most of these movies are probably more worth your time than “Saw III� anyway.
Over on my fav-oh-rite channel, Turner Classic Movies, Mr. Rob Zombie’s Underground series looks at – what else? – zombie movies, including the best of that sub-genre “Night of the Living Dead.� On Saturday, check out a trio of scary-fun movies, the original “The Haunting,� “The Day The Earth Stood Still� and the original “King Kong.�
(Yeah, I know, “The Day the Earth Stood Still� is really sci-fi, but let’s face it: Gort is pretty scary.)
On Halloween night, TCM has scary movies all day, my favorite of which is Jacques Tourneur’s low-budget shocker “Cat People,� which stands as stark proof that it’s what you don’t see that is most terrifying. A host of Vincent Price movies plays in prime time, including Roger Corman’s “Masque of the Red Death� and “House of Usher.�
Fox Movie Channel raids its library to show fright flicks starting Sunday, the best of which is not really a scary movie, but a spoof, “Young Frankenstein.� Look for one of Brian De Palma’s lesser-known 70s thrillers “The Fury� on Halloween.
If you don’t mind having your movies edited and shown with commercials, the once much more valuable AMC has its Monsterfest, which includes “Exorcist� and “Halloween� movies. (You know, one great movie, several crummy sequels.)
And circling back to where I began, it wouldn’t really be Halloween without “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,� would it? It’s 40 years old (!) this year and runs tonight on NBC. Just don’t forget, one little slip can cause the Great Pumpkin to pass you by.
Did I miss anything? Offer suggestions of your own if you’ve got em.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Movies on TV
“Catch a Fire” heats up without igniting
“Catch a Fire� reminded me of one of those educational “dramatization� films I used to watch in school, with all the good and bad that entails.
On the upside, “Catch a Fire� is intriguing in that it showed me a side of the fight against apartheid that I hadn’t known much about, and I came away feeling fascinated and moved. On the downside, the movie sometimes feels more like a spoonful of medicine than a shot in the arm.
The film tells the true story of Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke) who in 1980 is wrongly accused of and imprisoned for carrying out an attack on the nuclear power plant where he works in South Africa. Although he is eventually released, the police’s torture prompts him to join the African National Congress, the very “terrorists� he was accused of conspiring with. He figures he and his family might as well have been wronged for a reason.
The always-reliable Luke throws himself into his role, investing it with great passion. Tim Robbins, playing police inspector Nic Vos, tries to show the character’s duality, sometimes making him look evil, and sometimes showing a man honestly trying to do his job.
I wish the film had looked harder at that duality. Sometimes it works very well, especially when we see Patrick undergoing his ANC training. He wants to be one of the “good guys,� and yet, as a man willing to die for his cause, he becomes scarily reminiscent of modern-day terrorists. These scenes reminded me of “Paradise Now,� last year’s outstanding movie about Muslim suicide bombers.
Phillip Noyce’s direction is at its strongest in these scenes. Having built his reputation on thrillers like “Dead Calm� and “Patriot Games,� Noyce skillfully uses his action techniques not only to thrill, but to make an impact, as he did in “Rabbit-Proof Fence� and “The Quiet American.� The training sequences are exciting, yet unnerving at the same time.
Slovo’s screenplay doesn’t walk that line as successfully. Like too many well-meaning writers, he resorts to telling rather than showing because he thinks his words will make more of an impact than the images, especially when he resorts to villainizng Nic Vos. This is understandable, given that Slovo is the son of ANC leader Joe Slovo, but his tendency to preach makes “Catch a Fire� feel more earnest than enlightening. Ironically, Luke’s breakout movie, “Antwone Fisher,� suffered the same flaws.
Like “Fisher� however, “Catch a Fire� has enough passion to generate heat. I only wish the movie could have been “hot� enough to live up to its name.
GRADE: B
