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Reviews
Watcher (2022)
IGNORE THE BAD REVIEWS AND, If YOU ARE ABOUT TO GIVE ONE, READ HERE FIRST
I hope someone sees this and checks out the movie when they otherwise would have been persuaded by bad reviews.
Concerning the complaints:
!) Many bad reviewers refer to the characters behaving irrationally...including not putting curtains up in the window when they think they are being watched. These people weren't watching closely enough for their opinions to warrant consideration. The main character puts up curtains shortly after feeling like they're being watched. There are curtains up in the window through the entire movie except for the first few scenes. In fact, whether or not there were curtains in the window, most of the plot would have played out the same way. Nothing hinges upon those curtains even though some reviewers seem to dwell upon their imagined non-existence. They aren't paying attention to the killer's main intentions or his relationship with the main character.
2) Bad reviewers (I mean that in more than one way) claim the main character acts irrationally by following a person she believes to be stalking her. Apparently they need to have the psychology of every decision spelled out for them or they are at a loss. At that point in the movie if you simply ask yourself, "Why is she following that guy?" and have a minimal amount of empathy for what she might be thinking then it makes perfect sense. She doubts her own feelings. She is in limbo. She needs to act in some way. She needs a sense of agency. She wants to prove her own suspicions wrong.
3) Bad reviewers do not understand the human body or its workings except via horror films. Some folks claim that a character would bleed out and die more quickly toward the end of the movie from a cut they received. In fact, there is comparatively very little blood loss in that scene. I have bled just as much or more from non-life threatening injuries. Others complain there isn't enough blood if a main artery was cut. They are right. Clearly a main artery wasn't cut. It is a realistic amount of blood - an amount that could easily lead to fainting and then revival or intermittent wooziness - and a realistic scenario.
4) Reviewers (one claiming to be a womens' self-defense expert which is really sad) criticize the main character for hiding in a back room of a public place when she believes she is being followed. Apparently being in the back room is putting her in more danger even though she just put a barrier between herself and her possible stalker. It could have been a good idea or it could have been a bad idea. Either way, it's portrayed as an instinctual snap decision that is not at all unrealistic or inherently stupid/irrational. There are so many complaints along that line - criticizing the main character for behavior that thousands of people without the foresight of knowing themselves to be in a horror movie do every day - that I can't address them all. None of them seem particularly out of the ordinary, however, if you can put yourself in the main character's shoes.
5) People complain about too much Romanian without subtitles in the movie. There really isn't a lot and, whenever it is necessary to understand what is said in Romanian, someone is standing right there in the scene to translate it. Apparently these people are just upset they have to listen to a language other than English.
6) People hate the husband for not believing the main character and seem to find it too contrived. Fine...but an objective look at the behaviors in the movie and the husband doesn't really do anything that inappropriate except for some basic slips of the tongue that are a bit insensitive. We also don't know what kind of past experiences they have together to make them interact in the way that they do. Whether her behavior is extremely abnormal or within the realm of possible behavior from her (due to stress or isolation) is left up in the air for most of the movie and it NEEDS to be that way. The question of the importance of trusting one's instincts or unquestioningly believing women's fears and proactively responding to them is a major theme of the movie, The answer, when it comes to the film, is not particularly dogmatic. There is ambiguity there. The message is subtle to be honest. That's what people seem to want when they complain about movies hitting them over the head with progressive political messages and, when it's done this subtly, they either don't seem to get it or still think it's hitting them over the head based on whatever fast, unthinking interpretation they've made.
7) People are upset that the movie follows horror/suspense tropes. That is the point of the movie, It is exploring the trope. Not "subverting" it or viewing it ironically or trying to make the audience think they are falling for a trope but then, wham-bam-I'm-so-smart, pulling out a twist ending. No, it's about taking the trope and immersing the audience as deeply as possible within that situation so as to feel its real weight and significance...not just for the main character but for all people (mostly women) who find themselves in that situation.
8) People think the movie is too slow. I don't think it will be too slow for anyone who watches anything other than mainstream, Hollywood movies. The pacing is deliberate and without much lag. It's not like it's a Bela Tarr or Antonioni movie or something. These are just the usual impatient people with low attention spans. Not every movie needs to have the same pace. This movie had an appropriate pace for the subject matter and mood. Not too slow, not too fast. A lot happens. A lot of it is internal to the characters - psychological development represented by their behaviors - rather than extreme narrative turns, but the complaint of "nothing happens" is just...incorrect.
Anyway, the film is intelligently made, suspenseful, respectful of the genre, subtle, meaningful, and beautifully shot and acted. If you like intelligent horror films - and art films in general beyond the A24 mold - you will probably like the movie. If you're looking for something light and brainless you probably will not.
I can't wait for the director's next project and really hope we see more intelligently made horror films like this.
Sandman (1993)
Deserves a cult following!
SANDMAN is an extremely rare little horror movie that deserves a larger audience. For a low budget, independent project, SANDMAN is remarkably effective. Some of the acting is not so good, but the script is smart and creative with all sorts of interesting characters and surreal touches. Even the clichéd theme of "descent into madness" (not the only theme explored by the narrative
I'm not giving anything away) is portrayed in an original fashion (more a "death of affect" or "moral blindness" than yet another Jack Nicholson inspired psycho-trip) Like another reviewer, I think the abrupt transitions contribute rather than detract from the quality of the movie and it has a stylish, disorienting feel which matches the content.
I would love for this to become a cult film so that maybe someday we could get a copy of SANDMAN on DVD and some sort of fitting tribute to the director. Judging by this film, he had a lot of creativity and talent in him and would have likely gone on to great things. I'd love to see something wide screen and cleaned up and closer to what Eric Wostee intended.
I Am a Ghost (2012)
A good effort, but not the arty, sophisticated film it's being billed as
I hate to disparage independent films that are attempting to do something "against the grain" in contemporary horror. I appreciate that "I Am A Ghost" is attempting to be a more intelligent, dialog driven film than the usual horror drivel, but Its many flaws compel me to write something to balance out the reviews I saw which, preposterously, likened it to Kubrick, Bergman and Hitchcock, or even "Lake Mungo." Beyond some interesting applications of After Effects, there is very little style, let alone Kubrick's. The only thing that can be compared to Bergman is the furniture. There is nothing the least bit Hitchcock about any of it. All in all, it feels like the first project of some competent filmmakers with good taste but not particularly good writing skills. Worse, it suffers from some basic logic problems and apparent anachronisms that, rather than elevating it into something fantastic or dream-like, are simply distracting. When did the main character die? The fashion and interior decoration in the ghost's remembered vision of the house (which is inexplicably the same furniture that exists in the clairvoyant's future time-line...did all future residents of the house just keep the same furniture, including the carpet on which an insane woman was stabbed to death?) appears to be from the late 19th century or even earlier. And yet the character listens to radio from the 1930s and there is a reference to electro convulsive therapy which didn't happen in the States until at least the 1940s. Perhaps this can be explained with some alternate interpretation of the ending, but any clues leading to that explanation would be so obscure that even a fan of Bergman would find it baffling. Add to this a ridiculously humorous "monster" (a nude man in gray body paint with a face manipulated by computer into something the Japanese might have been bored by twenty years ago), dialog that confuses awkward formality for intelligence, and moments such as the villain, in response to the heroine's prayers, menacingly proclaiming "Your god is dead," (shades of "Hellraiser), and it begins to become clear that this is, in fact, not the "original," "artsy," "sophisticated" movie that it's being represented as in reviews. Even the plot is nothing new to anyone with passing knowledge of ghost stories. Don't get me wrong, this isn't absolute trash, but if you are an intelligent film fan looking for something sophisticated and original, wait until it's on Netflix...