Letterboxd — Your life in film

Lord, how I loved this... and I can't even explain why.

Really three different films united by relentless stylishness: the first act presents a meta-rich, if occasionally mean-spirited, feminist critique of slasher flicks that's intriguing when it's not undercut by the title character's stereotypical girliness/"bitchiness"; the second act yields a surprisingly engaging, albeit macabre, rom-com; and the final half hour has our leads being besieged by monsters in a manner one really can't see coming (hence my deliberate vagueness). With a handful of terrific sight gags, numerous references to horror classics (The Evil Dead), and exceedingly (blood-) slick set pieces, this should be a real crowd-pleaser... for certain crowds, that is.

Sinister cults flourishing among New York's upper crust? You can trace this theme from the 1943 Robson/Lewton The Seventh Victim through Rosemary's Baby and The Believers. The timeless feel of the latter is an aspect I didn't appreciate back in 1987, when I found the film predictable and tepid. Now I love its old-fashioned pulpiness, updated via a '70s-era Lumetesque atmosphere. The jury might be out on whether John Schlesinger, a brilliant director, had a natural feel for horror but there's little doubt he achieves some great moments here while smartly crafting subtext about religious/cultural assimilation.

At once anomalous and solidly at home in Wes Craven's body of work, Deadly Blessing certainly deserves another look. Its theme of a community dealing with sin prefigures Elm Street (as does a silly but memorable bath scene)... while its grand, gender-based twist happens to anticipate a classic '80s slasher. Here Craven tackles rural-gothic elements head-on, without intrusion from the modern world, and as a religious elder the late Ernest Borgnine provides the gravitas that's necessary to avoid outright camp. James Horner's gorgeous score and a fascinating, female-centric storyline are just two other reasons why Deadly Blessing is worth catching.

Yep, there are reasons to be leery of this remake. Alexandre Aja's sensibility meshed with William Lustig's? Joe Spinell's compelling homeliness replaced by Elijah Wood's cuteness? To his credit, however, director Franck Khalfoun expertly leverages these apparent contradictions to create an original and striking portrait of, well, the ultimate "creepy guy." And then there's Maniac's impressive commitment to its subjective camerawork: just imagine Robert Montgomery in The Lady in the Lake except every time a woman enters his field of vision he's tempted to attack her savagely. A flawless pic? Nope. But far more successful than anyone could reasonably expect.

With its intriguing, Scheherazade-like framing story, and its gloss-plus-gore aesthetic, this utterly unpredictable antho is never boring. That's not to say that it's ever really terrifying either, but with generic material that's all over the map (serial killers, cannibals, long-haired ghosts, and bio-zombies all share screentime), this is Halloween-timed popcorn fare at its best. Ignore the poorly translated subtitles--or let them be part of the fun--and settle in for the peaks and valleys that characterize any omnibus. Fair warning, though: a strong strain of the Irrational runs throughout the five stories... something that I personally actually happen to dig.

Can fully understand it if others don't like this as much as I do; my reasons for liking it tend to be idiosyncratic.

...fan of the novel and impressed by many aspects of this production; that said, my star rating will probably decline the more I think about this film. I won't constantly be updating it, so you won't be able to tell; hence the caveat now.