Reply With Quoteyup, it was crap but at least I didn't buy it. :P
And it was better than the last horror flick I rented, Darkness Falls. *sigh*
I've decided to go back to the 70's and 80's for good horror.
As a public service announcement I'm going to admit that I'm a moron for buying a DVD based on a Cleve Blakemore recommendation. That DVD is They, or rather Wes Craven Presents They as the film is called to indicate that it doesn't have anything but its producer's name to recommend it.
The film itself is lame enough, more funny in a silly way than terrible, showing kids who experience "night terrors" and then young adults who get a bleeding "mark" just before they are taken away by skeletal creatures who can only exist in the dark.
Based on the blather of the bulging biceps braggart, I had expected some very clever and subtle socio-philosophical commentary to manifest itself as this trite terror works its way to artistic culmination.
Instead, the DVD offers a choice between two endings that are dumb and dumber, respectively (and I don't even worry about spoilers since you don't want to see this dreck anyway): in one the protagonist is literally taken away into the dark world of light-fearing corpses and can't get out, in the other the protagonist is completely insane and just imagined everything.
Maybe my racially and genetically inferior intellect cannot but fail to comprehend the towering vastness of Blakemore's mind but from where I'm standing it looks like Cleve just recommended this film because he sympathises with paranoiacs and schizophrenics everywhere.
yup, it was crap but at least I didn't buy it. :P
And it was better than the last horror flick I rented, Darkness Falls. *sigh*
I've decided to go back to the 70's and 80's for good horror.
Christoph, I believe Cleve actually recommended "They Live." Not Craven, Carpenter. I could be wrong about this.
No, he actually recommended They -- at least that's how I'm reading his post.
What was They Live again? Wasn't that the one flick about zombies that you could only recognise as such with special sunglasses?
Yes,starring Rowdy Roddy Piper.It's not too bad for a B movie.Originally Posted by Christoph Nahr
Hmm, I thought Darkness Falls was better than it had any right to be. The 'monster' was creepy. Plus, they did a good job of implying darkness, without making it where you can't see ONE DAMN THING THAT"S GOING ON, which seems to be the trend in Hollywood ever since the X-Files.
But then, there's no accounting for taste.
"They" is one of the only movies I have ever walked out of.
Don't you know that the 'everything was all in his mind' ending is the mark of a TRUE genius!! You literally can NOT get any more clever then that. In fact you remember all those movies where something scary would happen and then the character would sit bolt upright in bed and scream...but it was all a dream? Well, every single person in the world was a freakin' moron for calling that 'trite' and 'retarded', in all actuality it was cutting...excuse me bleeding edge sociopolitical commentary with the subtlest of satire undertones and the epitome of fine cinema. Jeez, don't you know ANYTHING?
This also explains why suuuper geniuses like Cleve found 'The Bob Newhart show' to be the best TV show in the history of the universe and several parallel universes that only Cleve and his magic muscly genius brain can see.
Okay, it wasn't GREAT. Did I say GREAT? I thought it was good. The final scenes in the subway, you didn't think those were kind of neat?
Yeah, it kinda lacked something. DAGON was not GREAT, either, but it was GOOD.
As for They Live, hey, you'd better defer to my sooper-dooper Wile Coyote brain on this one, because that movie just plain rocked. It was an awesome concept with awful direction and plotting as usual by John Carpenter.
If you're looking me to recommend 5 star horror films, I myself can't find any in video so I'm all ears to any recommendations. I just thought THEY was a pleasant surprise compared to crap like LOS VAMPIROS or some such drivel out on video about every thirty seconds from some bootleg mexican crew shooting out the back of a pickup truck being chased by immigration half the day.
As for buying a DVD based solely on somebody's recommendation sight unseen, I hope you got reamed good. You should have at least rented it. I wouldn't dream of buying anything unless it was something I could stand to watch ten times.
Otherwise, you have to admit that the film was at least off a beaten path a little, if poorly executed in many places. That was an interesting story, good pacing, a lot closer to literary horror than the usual slasher film. Pulling the bone out of her head in the bathroom as some kind of "marker" she found on herself - weird stuff. Unfortunately for you, if you pulled the bone out of your head you'd have nothing left above your neck but a sack of empty flesh.
I immediately saw that you were confused. It might be easier to try and put Wes Craven's name in there someplace so folks aren't confused in the future.
As we were leaving the movie my friend asked, "Is it okay if you want the protagonist to die?"
"Wes Craven's They" was alot of wasted potential. I dub thee "average summer movie" aka Italian Job, Hollywood Homicide.
Roddy Piper's "They Live" however ... why didn't that make Roddy a star? As a youth, my friends and I all thought that movie was sooooo good. I'm reluctant to watch it now just in case it might fall from the lofty pedestal it's currently on. :)
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