Not all silent comedies were built on slapstick, but movies like this one still went for big, unmistakable gags, benefiting from playing in huge movie houses where even if someone wasn't in close-up, there's still the equivalent of a good, close look at what's playing across their faces.
Take Constance Talmadge in this - her early scenes as a wife losing self- confidence don't really hunt at what a delight she'll be as that same woman impersonates her twin sister…
Folks have been trying to make Steve Alten's novel Meg into a movie since it came out twenty years ago, and you kind of have to wonder what took so long, because it doesn't seem that complicated - there's no piece of it that doesn't come from basically every B-movie about a sea monster ever made, and it's not like you've got to create a whole new monster. Every special effects house probably already has a shark model in their…
A nifty, disorienting sort of horror movie which has the neat idea of combining hypnosis and possession, creating a sense of lack of control and disconnection that many other films like this lack. It's a fascinating way to make what seems very small into something tremendously tense.
It's an unnerving look, too, shot on 16mm in brutalist, run-down locations, with tons of smoke that makes a room both claustrophobic and infinite. The sound is peculiar and synth-y, too loud and out of sync, but it fits, even if it is also often very jarring.
When people who don't like horror movies in general ask those who do how they can enjoy that sort of garbage, they're talking about movies like "Killing Ground". With the good stuff, you can talk about nightmare imagery, stories which allow you to confront fears directly or metaphorically, or just admiring the staging and choreography of a suspenseful scene and the catharsis that comes afterward with the good ones, but sometimes, even with good intentions, a movie is just serving…
