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Christ, what a movie. I'm obsessed with it. I own the movie on 3 formats, as well as every other movie in the series, I own action figures (a bunch of 12" Tortured Souls figures are looking at me from beside my monitor right now), a replica Lament Configuration, dozens of Barker's other novels, I could go on. The bottom line is, for me, this has been simply the single most influential movie in my life. At the ripe age of 12 years old, I saw this on TV, alone, in the dark, in my bedroom. Nothing ever has, and most likely ever will, scare me like that again. Only one movie since then has even scared me (Ju-On). I was a devout Christian, and this movie gave me nightmares for around two weeks. When they wouldn't go away despite crap like saying prayers and visiting church daily, it was responsible for me losing faith in and giving up religion. It's responsible for my current lifestyle choice as well (goth, or near enough). It's also responsible for my sexual fetishes, I'll admit. On the surface, it's a monster movie (despite the monsters getting less than 5 minutes of screentime in the entire movie). On another level, it's a horror movie for S&M pervs. On another level, it's an exploration of the depths of the human soul and the concept of desire. From the excellent acting, which included theatrical actors from Clive's days as a playwriter, to the lighting, which ALONE can terrify you, to the sound effects, which will send chills down your spine with every flat peel of that bell, to the props, which have such an attention to detail you have to wonder where they found the sick fucks to make them, to the script, which says surprisingly little yet tells so much, to the makeup, which is legendary, the movie is incredible. Moreso when you find out it was shot for a $1 million budget. Special effects are the only time it falls flat. The drawn-on electrical effects look horribly dated. And in one shot, a beast moving down a corridor can be clearly seen to be sat on a trolly, with two guys pushing it. Still, the beast itself is so hosed-up and repulsive, you won't notice unless you're looking. Over time, the excellent background mythos has grown, and taken on a life of it's own, and the movie's concepts are explored to much greater depth elsewhere. My favourite would be the comic series, which ran for 20 issues and countless spinoffs. Some of the earlier issues took these ideas and ran with them, producing the most starkly adult, yet not at all gory or sexual, comics I have ever seen. The later in the series sadly descended into standard comicbook fare. Ah well. The movie series sadly hasn't fared as well, with only the first sequel getting anywhere near the original's lofty heights. Still, they've produced 6 movies, with 7 completed and awaiting release, and 8 in production. Can't complain about them letting the franchise die off. So anyway. While it may not resonate on so many levels with every viewer, and indeed most people reading this are adults who'll watch it and just see a clever, creepy monster horror with bad 80's special effects, I can't do anything less than rate this a 5.5. It's my favourite movie of alltime bar none. "Enough of this cat n' mouse bullshit."
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May 20, 2004 16:47
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 12:32 |
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