I just came back from seeing this movie, and frankly, i liked it.
This a psychological thriler, in the style of 'Se7en' and the likes. The serial killer in this movie, does not actually physically kill anyone, but he makes his victims kill themsels, and in that respect I think it was rather good. [SPOILER - highlight to read]: The serial killer is wanting his victims to appreciate being alive basicaly, and gives them the chance to live, but in a very sinistar ways
The movie was rather clever, however, there were a few scenes that were rather unnecessary. What I liked about this movie was the fact that some bits in it seemed cheesy as hell at the time, however, as the movie progresses it appears to be way more complicated than it lead us to believe.
The way it was filmed was also not the typical psychological thriler type and there are no super cool detectives who will come in and save the day. The movie rather contrencates on the victems and the crimes rather than the aftermath, which was also another thing i loved about it.
Its very disturbing, and somewhat gory. [SPOILER - highlight to read]: especially the sawing of the foot bit
I would definitivly recomed it! Again, its not a horror slasher type movie, its a psychologial thriler, and i cant say it was scary, but it was rather disturbing. There were some odd uneccesary bits, but the movie wastes no time in the introductions and the likes, it basically starts as it starts if that makes sense.
see it.
Note
I didnt see this thread anywhere, and its kind of hard to search for it, seeing how it has only 3 characters, so if theres a thread already about this, post the link and I'll merge it.
__________________
في هذا العالم ثلاثة أشخاص أفسدوا البشرية : راعي غنم , طبيب و راكب الجمال , و راكب الجمال هو أسوأ نشال و أسوأ مشعوذ بين الثلاثة
I cannot ****ing wait for this movie.
It's not out here yet...
__________________
I have no speech, no name. I live in the action of death, blood cry and the penetrating wound. I am destruction. Absolute and alone.
Sneak preview? "The Grudge" is out this Friday, with "Saw" on the Friday before Halloween. I'm going to both. Hell, AND "Dawn of the Dead" (2004) DVD is out next Tuesday!
Nevermind...[SPOILER - highlight to read]: He is suffering from a terminal illness and thus hates people blessed with perfect health that are throwing their lives away and have them play his games to teach them the value of their own blessings.
Awh, that's so sweet!
Mother Teresa you b!tch, move over for Saw!
I saw this movie last weekend(sneak preview) and besides the revelation as to where the killer was hiding which i thought was clever the movie didnt do too much for me, i wouldve liked if they had gone a bit deeper into the killers mind, his motivations, how he picked the victims and i also found the guys were pretty stupid not to be able to find a way to cut through the chains plus the killer himself wasnt to healthy to be able to pull elavorate puzzles and ways to kill like he did, it was an "ok" movie, not plannin gon seeing it anytime soon again
__________________
"A lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths." Deep Throat.
Sorry everyone, but bluntly, this movie was bad. It was sloppy, generic, predictable, and obviously amatuerish. It's no surprise that this film was the first from James Wan, it shows.
I'll go ahead and just skip the plot, simply read C-Dics summary of it if you don't already the plot. But I will say this, the story is not unlike the plot in Phone Booth. A bitter crazy guy wants his victims to apreciate life and blah blah blah. So, using very questionable logic, he tortures these people usually to death in order to get them to apreciate life.
The biggest problem of this film was the simple stupidity of pretty much all of the characters. They were all stupid to the point of being mentally handicaped. Danny Glover and his partner are a perfect example of this. [SPOILER - highlight to read]: In the middle of the film when they had the chance to capture the guy immediately after seeing him walk into the room which they had snuck into after figuring out where he was hiding. Instead, they sat and watched him for about 10 seconds, letting him get situated and get near the man he had captured. Then when the guy turned on his drill of death, they ****ed around with him, asking him to turn it off, rather then just immediately shooting the machine to shut it down. It took these cops about 30 seconds to figure out that they should shoot the machine. By then it was too late and Danny Glover got his neck sliced by some hidden knife the bad guy had concealed that sprang out of teh arm of his jacket, not unlike the gun from Taxi Driver.
Something else really dumb is that the bad guy (who is a god damn dying old man who in the end could barely walk) becomes superman when he attacks someone, moving faster and seemingly with more force then anyone else on the earth can contend with. He even managed to ambush Adam, when Adam knew where he was. Another example of using stupid character as an excuse for the success of the villian, something a lot of bad and sloppy movies do.
Another typical amatuerish move was to have the bad guy win at the end. I'm so sick of movies taking the easy way of leaving the audience in a sense of unsatisfaction and frusturation by simply having the bad guy win. A good movie will find a way to have the story feel unfair while still beign satisfying (for a good example of this, watch Se7en. The bad guy dies AND the movie still leaves us frusturated, but not cheated, as this movie does.
One last gripe, the "twist" at the end was really dumb. "oooooh, the dead body in the middle of the room is actually the killer." yeah, way to pull a cheasy gimmick twist out of your ass.
Okay, now to the positives. The movie had a good, grainy and dark feeling to it. Very atmospheric. Some good sets and props. Nifty, little wierd torture devices. That's about all of the positives.
Over all, this movie was very poor, and used the easiest device of leaving the audience frustruated, and unsatisfied, and ultimately, cheated. If you want a good psychological movie, watch Se7en, or Audition. Don't bother with this generic and pretentious movie.
I'll give it 4 our of 10.
__________________
Last edited by BackFire on Oct 30th, 2004 at 12:57 AM
KMC Community Forums
Saw
see it.
Oct 10th, 2004 08:52 PM
