David
Pure Phase
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2005 7:33 am Posts: 34865 Location: Maryland
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Re: Nightmare Cinema
As with most horror-anthology films by multiple directors, the quality of Nightmare Cinema rises and falls from segment to segment. (Digression: Southbound is the best and most consistent example of this format, at least in the 2000s.) The best is the fourth by David Slade, director of Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night, and the pilot episodes of Hannibal and American Gods. Evocatively shot in B&W, it plays as a genuine nightmare, its sense of reality constantly contorting as its heroine, plays by Elizabeth Reaser of Grey's Anatomy and The Haunting of Hill House, loses her grip on sanity. I would love a feature-length version of this high-test creep-out. To critique the rest:
The first is begins as an over-the-top, poorly acted, homage-to-Friday-the-13th slasher sequence into which we are plunged in media res, and it is modestly fun as such, but it is then elevated or at least distinguished by an absurd and amusing science-fiction twist. The second, by Gremlins and 'Burbs director Joe Dante, is a predictable, but entertaining plastic-surgery satire buoyed by a perfectly cast Richard Chamberlain as a deranged doctor. (It is interesting the 85-year-old Chamberlain accepted this role considering it directly plays on how tightly pulled and otherworldly his face is nowadays. A payday is a payday, I guess.)
The third, a violent possession yarn set in a Catholic orphanage, plays as a perfunctory demonic-child story with a few Mandy-esque, shoehorned-in heavy-metal flourishes. It is the least effective here, with unearned and poorly realized tonal shifts and a story which is unsatisfying from beginning to end. The final segment is by Mick Garris, who has elected himself the unofficial king of the "masters of (nerdy, fan-convention) horror" without ever being too gifted or stylish a director himself. His entry is a bit flat-footed in its portrayal of hoary I-see-dead-people material, but it generates a degree of suspense during its finale, a chase through a hospital at night. Garris also handles the interstitial scenes, turning on Mickey Rourke, phoning in his performance as as a burly projectionist who lures people into his Golden Age movie palace, screens one of their nightmares, and then murders them because...he does. The Rourke-centric scenes are decidedly short on scares, logic, and atmosphere, serving only to very lazily tie together the otherwise unrelated short films. The film honestly should not have bothered.
_________________1. The Lost City of Z - 2. A Cure for Wellness - 3. Phantom Thread - 4. T2 Trainspotting - 5. Detroit - 6. Good Time - 7. The Beguiled - 8. The Florida Project - 9. Logan and 10. Molly's Game
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Tuukka
Indiana Jones IV
Joined: Sun Apr 17, 2005 8:35 am Posts: 1830 Location: Helsinki, Finland
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Re: Nightmare Cinema
David Slade also made the Robo-dog story for Black Mirror, which was pretty great. Felt like a feature film, and was very well directed.
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Dil
Forum General
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:48 pm Posts: 8942 Location: Houston, Texas
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Re: Nightmare Cinema
Watched this last night and yeah it's a pretty solid little anthology horror film. Probably one of the best I have seen in quite a while to be honest. I also agree with David that the David Slade segment is easily the best though. I forget just how talented that guy is when it comes to directing even though Hard Candy is a film I really enjoy. I could be missing something, but it feels like he hasn't really done anything that has stood out in years at least until this. It's a brilliantly crafted short film and like David I would also have loved to see a full feature length film of it. The rest of the shorts just aren't nearly as good as that one, but I didn't think they were bad either. I actually thought they were all really entertaining in their own ways.
B-
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