May Film Journal
The Seventh Continent (Michael Haneke, 1989)
Knuckleface Jones (Todd Rohal, 1999) (short)
The Guatemalan Handshake (Todd Rohal, 2006)
La Cérémonie* (Claude Chabrol, 1995)
Lola Montès (Max Ophüls, 1995)
Time of the Wolf (Michael Haneke, 2003)
The Ruins+ (Carter Smith, 2008)
Six Figures Getting Sick (David Lynch, 1966) (short)
The Alphabet (David Lynch, 1968) (short)
The Grandmother (David Lynch, 1970) (short)
A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)
Le Feu follet (Louis Malle, 1963)
Aguirre, the Wrath of God*+ (Werner Herzog, 1972) (in Nashville!)
The Strangers+ (Bryan Bertino, 2008)
*rewatch
+theater
Labels: film journal (2008)
posted by Diane @ 9:05 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Hey-- what'd you think of THE STRANGERS? I was thinking of seeing that one. The trailer seemed pretty eerie.
Hi Russ! Oh, it is pretty eerie—and then downright terrifying. And then it served up an ending that I hated.
Bertino does have talent. There were a lot of chiling moments, although, annoyingly, the audience at my screening giggled through a lot of the initial ones. Finally things got so bad that all traces of laughter stopped. And then they got worse—we're talking tortore-porn levels here.
But I guess it really comes down to what you're expecting, Russ. I've avoided a lot of the recent horror films, so I can't really compare, though I'd guess this was a step up, at least for most of the movie. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth, though. My friend who went with me said this was pretty much the type of film (especially the ending) that Haneke was pointing his finger at in Funny Games.
(Jason, jump in with comments if you'd like. I plead sickness during our screening, as you know.)
Wow, Diane - The Strangers AND The Ruins?? What did you think of the latter? I started the book a couple of years ago, when it was the big "must-read" of the summer, and based on the strength of Scott Smith's "A Simple Plan." But then had to give up on The Ruins when it got too revoltingly gruesome for my taste. The movie ads looked more silly than scary. What did you think of it?
Hi Mark. So you stopped reading when you got too grossed out, eh? Heh, I stopped looking at the screen during several points in the film for the same reason. I went in knowing very little about this one—I'd never even heard of the book. Anyway, it was playing at the dollar theater, and a friend wanted to go. The worst parts of the film had more to do with crude surgery, rather than the actual source of the terror. Ick.
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