What do we REALLY want to see in a film? And let’s be honest here, we’re all friends, aren’t we?
Why beat around the bush? It’s not a Disney happy ending, or a Speiberg syruppy blockbuster fix, is it? It’s not a good scare, or a curious mystery. C'mon, film-makers, we’ve seen it all before!
Think! What is it that our primordial minds really crave?
If I was really keen to investigate the truth, top of my wish-list of interviewees would be the famous Lars Von Trier, maker of the recent movie Antichrist -- and other gems such as Dancer in the Dark, and Dogville.
Harv: Lars, what is it that you think people want to see in a film?
LVT: Apart from underagg annhil rape? Which I’m not allowed to show, by ze vee, because apparently it’s conzidered pornographique! Except in Europe; we can show anything in Europe.
Harv: Uhm… OK, apart from underage anal rape…
LVT: I think it’s clear, no? Watch my moofies. I give the owdience what it wants!
Harv: I haven’t seen them all. Is it complex engaging characters in a challenging story who have to change and grow to overcome the obstacles life puts in their way?
LVT: Huh? No! What are you talking abutt?
Harv: Is it cutting edge special effects realizing a world we could never experience first-hand?
LVT: What? No, son, I mean a couple losing their only son and then completely flipping out ya? Then the vife bashes the husband’s balls and he ejaculates blood, hehe, something for everyone! And so she naturally attaches a wheel to his leg with a couple of rusty bolts becoz she thinks he will liv her one day, then she cuts of her own dangleberries for shitz and gigglez, like the Muzlimz, no? and then he strangles her an burnz her before a bunch of people turn up to worship him.
Geddit? Haha! It’s delightful and I’m not crazy!
Becoz that’s what grief does and it’s all a big religious metaphore anyway, seez?
Harv: No, Lars, I really don’t.
LVT: So then you are ztupid, no? You don’t understand my art! Begone with you!
[Lars refuses to respond to any further questions, instead reverting to making fart sounds with his mouth for every response]
In the absence of any explanation from Lars, I’ve got this to say about Antichrist: for the 99% of you, who live in the real world and like normal things, such as puppies or licking ice-cream, just don’t be tempted by this arthouse bullshit when you see it in the video store.
For the rest of you (ie you psuedo-intellectual wanker types who like to be able to say they liked a film just for the buzz of feeling superior to the rest of us poor plebs who never took a literature class in our lives… [breath]…) hey, wank away, we’re all fucking delighted that you hate us!
The verdict
0 stars, for wasting my time pretending it was a down-to-earth story about grief when it was really a ridiculous surreal fuck-fest with inexplicable religious overtones.
A friend and I RAN to see this movie. We were bored, a couple of beers in, so checked the local cinema guide and found the Surrogates screening across town in a little under 4 minutes. We made it heaving for breath having missed the first 3 minutes.
Oh how I wish a bus had hit me on the way.
Surrogates finds Bruce Willis playing a detective in the not-too-distant future where mankind has adopted the use of Surrogates (‘Surries’) – high-tech androids that allows the user to feel, smell, taste, touch, interact and live out their lives from the safety and comfort of their own home. Sounds kinda interesting right? If not a little familiar? Hello, Avatar?
When we first see Bruce he looks like a slightly retarded human size Ken-doll until we realize that, no, it’s not plastic surgery, Bruce’s character uses a Surrie too. He and his wife live out their lives from their separate bedrooms. You see, their son died in a car accident (of course) and his wife is too ashamed to be seen in public without her Surrie because of some radical facial scar. We see the real Bruce when he unplugs, and he’s not looking too bad for a guy pushing 55, no scars… but all he wants is to be with his wife, his real wife.
The movie sets up some interesting ideas. The addiction of anonymity. Being able to do what you want without fear of injury or death. Finally fulfilling that childhood desire to have a pair of breasts, or ride your boss without worrying about cellulite or that bulging belly. Is it only our mind that makes us who we are, or the total package? Some interesting ideas that would make a good movie, right? The kind of stuff that makes great SciFi so compelling. That had to be what director Jonathon Mostow (T3, U-571) and screenwriters Michael Ferris and John Brancato where thinking, right?
Wrong.
Consider writing partners Ferris and Brancato brought us the previously-reviewed Terminator Salvation, Terminator 3, The Net and the genius that was…. Catwoman. Catwoman? Fuck off.
The story is crap. I honestly wasn’t 100% sure what was happening most of the time, so didn’t care. Some guy has a secret weapon that fries Surrogates, and unfortunately whoever’s plugged in at the other end. Brucey must find out who it is, yada, yada, yada – turns out it’s the old crank who invented the Surrogate technology in the first place because he regrets what it’s done to mankind. Toss in a few lame chase scenes, special effects and story devices. The End.
The acting is ok. I like Bruce Willis. He’s, well, likeable. Radha Mitchell is hot. Ving Rhames passes as The Prophet – leader of the human resistance. James Cromwell – always dependable.
I’m a strong believer that anybody can make a movie. Christ, if Ewe Boll can do it so can you. There are so many talented people in the industry – great lighting people, sound, camera, effects, music – you name it. Movies are made with such efficiency that even the back of a cereal box could be made into a slick, glossy looking production if push came to shove (whatever that means). And that’s the problem – these movies get made, and for some god-known reason people (like me) go and see them, they make money… so they make more of them. Making movies is rarely an art-form anymore. It’s just business. And so long as suits can make money out of the system – we’ll keep getting turds like this.
1.5 stars
It ALMOST distracted me from the fact that The Amityville Horror has already been done and was good enough to not need another re-work. It ALMOST convinced me that it's based on a true story and not a bunch of lies by a few skittish morons who all completely wet their beds when their house made a creak or two. And it ALMOST convinced me that I should care about this poor family and their dying boy, with all its violin music and obvious plays on emotion.
But in the end, the only thing it did convince me of with any real assurance was that I bloody hated it.
The Story
There ain't much to this one, folks. Family with cancer-ridden son undergoing experimental treatment move into a house near the hospital, surprised by what a good rental deal they got on the massive mansion.
Turns out the house used to be a funeral home run by some insane mediums and, as a result, there are shitloads of evil spirits trapped in the walls.
Weird events follow and tomfoolery ensues. Twist twist twist: the end!
The problem is that the movie opens with the mother of the family (played with her usual condescending play-on-your-sympathy maternity by Virginia Madsen) talking to camera and EXPLAINING that we should feel sorry for them, because they are such nice people and didn't deserve to have this happen!
Yeah, because when you move into a clichéd scary house with ridiculously low rent, you never expect that it's gonna have issues, do you? Seriously, unless a zombie ate their brains in a previous genre flick, there's just no excuse for the stupidity this family displays.
And, to be honest, that play for sympathy doesn't even make sense. Because somehow cancer-boy is magically cured at the end of the movie and everyone is ok, so what exactly were they victims of? A few shit-stains on their underwear?
And that's really the problem, because that's all this movie is. There is no point, no investment, and it thinks it can sweep all that under the mat by pretending it's a true story!
The Acting
Virginia Madsen, whose shtick I enjoyed in Sideways, needs to learn a new carnival trick. She really grated on my nerves in this movie, playing up the sympathetic victim to the point that I wanted to see her eyelids torn off, her tits set on fire and the house's evil spirits repeatedly raping her for the rest of the film. Instead she just meanders through the movie, looking pathetic, and not really experiencing much danger because she can't see the ghosts anyway. I think the worst that happened to her was a few flashing lights, slamming doors and a bit of a fire at the end.
The actor that plays cancer-boy, Kyle Gallner, puts in a lazy effort that would be more appropriate for a guy who has already achieved Hollywood poster-boy status by starring in 17 Twilight movies. But this dude is a relative newcomer, with a few TV credits and a couple of small parts in films, so you'd think he'd put in a bit of an effort to be interesting. Admittedly, his character is so badly written that you don't know if you're supposed to be sorry he's dying of cancer, or scared of him because he's possessed by an evil spirit, but it doesn't matter what random state he tries to take on, you end up just wishing they'd spent a bit more money and cast Shia LaBeouf in the role.
The father, played by Martin Donovan, is pissy as hell, and as boring as all the others. Sure, he ends up with an alcoholism subplot that leads to a mildly interesting scene where he goes around the house smashing all the light bulbs because he can't afford to pay the electricity bill, but at the end of the day he's forgettable. And in a movie with only a handful of main characters, that's quite a feat.
The sister: boring. The little boy: almost non-existent. And, is it just me, or is the priest who comes to save them all (and ends up making things worse, ha-ha!) just doing a distractingly obvious Robert DeNiro impression the whole movie?
The Special Effects
There are some ok effects and creepy images as we trudge our way through the banal and pointless story. If flashes of ghosts with their eyelids cut off and writing cut into the skin of their entire bodies are your thing, then you'll probably forgive Haunting its other faults.
The prosthetic makeup design and effects are very nice and quite creepy in parts. But at the end of the day, the editing trumps that by adding too many flashy MTV effects.
Some of the spirit photography was pretty cool and creepy, but it was ruined a bit when one of the characters asks what's flowing out of the medium's mouth and the priest answers that it's Ectoplasm and nods seriously. I mean, I guess ectoplasm is probably a real word, but any term used in Ghostbusters is hard to take seriously, so it turned into a laugh out loud moment for me.
Anyway, I don't want to be too harsh. The movie was well shot and well produced. It's just amazing they can spend fifty million dollars on a movie's production but only fifty dollars flat on its script.
The Verdict
It must have been a crushing day in the Gold Circle Films office when they came up with the idea to re-make Amityville Horror, got halfway through pre-production and then one of the photocopy boys checked IMDB and realised there had already been an unsuccessful remake in 2005!
1 star, for a few creepy effects.