dir Leigh Janiak cast Rose Leslie, Harry Treadway, Ben Huber
Bea and Paul are newlyweds, who, we are led to understand, have both been extremely unlucky in love and are super-excited to have found each other. They're headed to her family's cabin in a Canadian forest to spend their honeymoon. Things are going great until one night when Bea simply disappears from their bed. After a frantic search, Paul finds her standing naked in the pitch-black woods. She dismisses it as a simple case of sleepwalking (which she's never been subject to before), but seems to act strangely afterward as if she's not quite herself. She also has mysterious wounds on her thighs, which she explains as mosquito bites, but which look much more serious. Unfortunately, Paul's feeling that there's something not right here is only too accurate.
The move is well-acted and fine in the technical aspects. I was grateful that it wasn't yet another "found footage" narrative, and the strange events are (kinda, sorta) explained at the end. I appreciated the mystery format and the buildup of suspense without graphic violence (though things get plenty gross by the end), but at the end, it seemed pretty trivial. It was an acceptable time-killer, but didn't really grab me.
Leslie played Ygritte ("You know nothing, Jon Snow!") on Game of Thrones; so it was interesting seeing her in another role. She was quite convincing playing an American.
Sunday, May 15, 2016
Night Tide (1961)
dir Curtis Harrington cast Dennis Hopper, Linda Lawson, Gavin Muir, Luana Anders
On the Santa Monica pier, Johnny (Hopper), a sailor on liberty, introduces himself to Mora (Lawson), a distant young woman who seems to want only to be left alone. However, Johnny's persistence pays off and the two strike up a friendship. Mora, it transpires is an immigrant from a Greek isle, who works as a mermaid, wearing a fake fishtail and lying in a tank of simulated water in an attraction run by an Englishman, Captain Murdock (Muir). Johnny's and Mora's friendship turns into a romance, but Johnny learns a disturbing fact: both of Mora's last two boyfriends were drowned under mysterious circumstances that are still being investigated by the police. Mora eventually tells Johnny that she is the descendant of the "Sea People," the man-killing sirens of Greek myth, who are trying to compel her to return to the sea. Captain Murdock tells Johnny that Mora's instinct to kill will eventually get the best of her and that he will meet the same fate as her former boyfriends if he does not leave her.
This is a slow and talky, but not uninteresting film that effectively builds up a feeling of strangeness and dread amid a laconic atmosphere of jazz clubs, carnival rides, and sideshow attractions. Both the Leonard Maltin and Video Hound film guides say that this is not a horror movie, but it is every bit as much of a horror movie as Cat People (1942), which it closely resembles. Like Cat People, it hints at the presence of the supernatural without insisting on it. Mora meets a mysterious woman who seems to share her ancestry, just as Irena did in Cat People, for instance. In fact, Night Tide, is one of the most successful attempts since the Val Lewton thrillers to make a truly Lewtonesque film. Its not as good as the actual Lewton films, but is a worthy attempt.
On the Santa Monica pier, Johnny (Hopper), a sailor on liberty, introduces himself to Mora (Lawson), a distant young woman who seems to want only to be left alone. However, Johnny's persistence pays off and the two strike up a friendship. Mora, it transpires is an immigrant from a Greek isle, who works as a mermaid, wearing a fake fishtail and lying in a tank of simulated water in an attraction run by an Englishman, Captain Murdock (Muir). Johnny's and Mora's friendship turns into a romance, but Johnny learns a disturbing fact: both of Mora's last two boyfriends were drowned under mysterious circumstances that are still being investigated by the police. Mora eventually tells Johnny that she is the descendant of the "Sea People," the man-killing sirens of Greek myth, who are trying to compel her to return to the sea. Captain Murdock tells Johnny that Mora's instinct to kill will eventually get the best of her and that he will meet the same fate as her former boyfriends if he does not leave her.
This is a slow and talky, but not uninteresting film that effectively builds up a feeling of strangeness and dread amid a laconic atmosphere of jazz clubs, carnival rides, and sideshow attractions. Both the Leonard Maltin and Video Hound film guides say that this is not a horror movie, but it is every bit as much of a horror movie as Cat People (1942), which it closely resembles. Like Cat People, it hints at the presence of the supernatural without insisting on it. Mora meets a mysterious woman who seems to share her ancestry, just as Irena did in Cat People, for instance. In fact, Night Tide, is one of the most successful attempts since the Val Lewton thrillers to make a truly Lewtonesque film. Its not as good as the actual Lewton films, but is a worthy attempt.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)