DIRECTOR: Gore Verbinski
CAST: Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, Brian Cox, Amber Tamblyn
HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE: Never.
DID I LIKE IT: It is an odd experience to take in a horror movie not in anticipation of some future podcast discussion, but this one has been a bit of a blind spot on my radar for a number of years.
The images are certainly evocative, I’ll give it that. And there’s a weird undercurrent of nostalgia to see a movie about a print journalist (Watts) fixated on a VHS tape. When she makes use of a payphone in at least one scene, it’s almost like watching a period piece.
But there’s one problem that may have as many as three explanations.
Those image might just be a bit too iconic. I’ve seen that little girl crawl her way out of that well so many times, there’s just no hope of surprise when I finally took it all in with context. I can imagine The Blair Witch Project (1999) will elicit similar response to the uninitiated, but this film doesn’t have anything resembling that earlier film’s unrelentingly unnerving last few minutes.
There may be just a bit too much bleakness in the film for the proceedings to ever really ramp up to genuine terror. Ari Aster has the same problem for me, although in his case it’s virtually impossible that misery porn buffet is not the filmmaker’s absolute intention.
On the other hand, my horror callus might be too rough for anything to ever properly hit a vein. It’s a reality that has to be confronted at some point. But then again there is the hope that the next film around the corner will manage to surprise. Unfortunately, this isn’t that film.
The whys are probably incidental. What we have here is a perfectly competently made film that failed to leave any kind of resonance, or draw out any kind of reflexive response from.