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wolfsong Regular user 190 Posts |
I saw this movie tonoght abd enjoyed it. Very well thought out and a decent story line. After all the remakes of late I found it refreshing!
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wolfsong Regular user 190 Posts |
I saw this movie tonoght abd enjoyed it. Very well thought out and a decent story line. After all the remakes of late I found it refreshing!
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Dr_Stephen_Midnight Inner circle SW Ohio, USA 1555 Posts |
My wife and I saw it last night. Excellent; good source material for effects.
If you liked "The Wicker Man," you'll like this. Steve
Dr. Lao: "Do you know what wisdom is?"
Mike: "No." Dr. Lao: "Wise answer." |
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Leland Stone Inner circle 1204 Posts |
Wait a minute! "The Wicker Man" resides in mouldering memory as one of the first non-Dracula Lee films I remember seeing, as well as having a twisted climax that should have turned Hitchcock enviously green and whose riff on Shirley Jackson's plotting was repaid by its own later rip-offs ("Warlock," w/Julian Sands being most notable).
Nevertheless, since Doc's vetted "Skeleton Key," I'm going to plunk down my two hours and $7.50 for the bargain matinee, buy a six-dollar bucket of popcorn and check this flick out. Report to follow. Leland |
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Mystician Inner circle Wallachia 3485 Posts |
Actually, this sounds pretty good.
Some of my pet peeves with horror or thriller movies in general: 1) Too much suspense. Suspense is tension: stretch it out too long and it just breaks. Usually this mistake is made by a director who simply doesn't have enough real material to work with, so the film is stretched out to it's 90 minutes or whatever by having the heroine or hero slink through a hallway or a maze or the woods for about 10 minutes essentially doing nothing, with absolute minimal dialog. 2) Predictability: Usually ties into the above, all films now employ the "false start"; whereby at the end of the suspense portion, a scare is introduced, only to be revealed as false - often a cat knocking something over; the aim here is to get you to let your guard down, and then it's immediately followed by the actual monster attacking. Done to death. I'm over this overused tactic already. Zzzzz. 3) Helplessly uncoordinated heroine: Fortunately, this is almost never the case anymore, except for the extremely schlocky or older movies. Typically, a girl running from the monster suddenly becomes incredibly inept, tripping over a large blade of crab crass or something, falling down, and pretty much not even trying very hard to get back up and keep running. Pleeeeeease ! I'll walk out of the theatre/ eject the DVD/change the channel if I ever see this again. 4) Excessive gore, and leaving nothing to imagination. Good directors, producers, and filmmakers know that the key to great movie making is to leave certain things to the imagination of the audience. That often is more terrifying than anything the FX crew can conjuror up, and besides, it makes the whole experience a little more personal for each and every moviegoer by allowing them to create a little bit of the world themselves, in their own minds. As to gore, I'm not necessarily directly opposed to it, but it has to make sense in the context of the storyline or the type of movie. Graphic gore, in and of itself, is no substitute for a good, terrifying storyline. 5) Lastly, violence against women: This is a modern trend exhibited by the primary television networks. There is a recent substantial increase of violence against women that is just really distasteful at best. What the heck is our fascination with violence anyway ?!?! It's positively evil to display any form of sex on television, you can't even drink a beer on primetime - but there's no problem with the censors when it comes to raping and hacking up some hapless blonde 'til the cows come home. This is indictative that our society is very sick. Even sicker are movies like "Humanoids from the Deep", which actually came out decades ago, but has spawned a few rip offs since. That entire concept is just disgusting. I guess some moviemaker felt they needed to leave no stone unturned, but it was far more mysogynistic than creative. I think that's one (of many) reason that I liked Buffy the Vampire Slayer so much, at least that was empowering to women, which is off the beaten path. I prefer my monsters to be supernatural, to be extensions of our psyches, our inner selves, and perhaps even vulnerable (like the Frankenstein monster, who was quite pitiful in many ways); not emotionless, despotic psychopathic people - hell, there's way too many people like that in real life as it is, why on earth would I want to "escape" the duldrums of everyday life to get sucked into a world which is just as dull except that a homocidal psychopathic torturer is on the loose ?? That makes NO sense to me whatsoever. whoops.. sorry this is so long, and got a bit off topic I suppose. I'm just glad to read that Skeleton Key seems to avoid the above trappings.
Just hanging out with the rest of my fellow dregs.
http:// www . phrets . com Visit http://www.bizarremagic.net |
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Magickman Elite user St.Petersburg, Fl. 402 Posts |
Take all that away and what do you have?
On golden pond. Magickman
What man knows he calls Science
What he has yet to learn he calls Magick Both are real! _Tony Andruzzi_ |
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Mystician Inner circle Wallachia 3485 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-08-21 16:19, Magickman wrote: Huh ? No, take that stuff away and you have a GOOD horror flick. Everything I listed was the signature of a campy horror flick. I didn't say I was against suspense, just the overuse of it, as with everything else.
Just hanging out with the rest of my fellow dregs.
http:// www . phrets . com Visit http://www.bizarremagic.net |
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Bill Ligon Inner circle A sure sign of a misspent youth: 6437 Posts |
I have to agree with Mystician here, and this applies particularly to his points four and five. Every point is a valid one, and most horror movies are ruined by such shoddy application of formula horror. A case in point is the remake of "The Haunting of Hill House," "The Haunting." The original was good, and one of my favorites in my memory (seeing it again much later made me realize that it was not as good as I had believed). The remake was terrible and (to coin a term) "special-effected" to death. The bedroom scene ("God, God, whose hand was I holding?" was really good in the original, I think.
"I prefer my monsters to be supernatural, to be extensions of our psyches, our inner selves, and perhaps even vulnerable (like the Frankenstein monster, who was quite pitiful in many ways); not emotionless, despotic psychopathic people - hell, there's way too many people like that in real life as it is, why on earth would I want to "escape" the duldrums of everyday life to get sucked into a world which is just as dull except that a homocidal psychopathic torturer is on the loose ?? That makes NO sense to me whatsoever." Again, well said, Mystician! Psychopathic killers are boring at best. Give me something truly frightening, BELIEVABLE, and, most of all, something I can imagine in my mind's eye. Nothing is scarier than your own demons.
Author of THE HOLY ART: Bizarre Magick From Naljorpa's Cave. NOW IN HARDCOVER! VIEW: <BR>www.lulu.com/content/1399405 ORDER: http://stores.lulu.com/naljorpa
<BR>A TASSEL ON THE LUNATIC FRINGE |
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Magickman Elite user St.Petersburg, Fl. 402 Posts |
Skeleton key is NOT a horror movie
Magickman
What man knows he calls Science
What he has yet to learn he calls Magick Both are real! _Tony Andruzzi_ |
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Mystician Inner circle Wallachia 3485 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-08-21 22:13, Magickman wrote: True, it sounds like more of a supernatural thriller, though a lot of the same principles can be held up to either kind of movie. I was not knocking "Skeleton Key", by the way, only citing my peeves with horror movies in general. Those comments were not directed at "Skeleton Key" whatsoever. I haven't even't seen it yet. In fact, the very first line of that whole post was, "Actually, this sounds pretty good. " Then I went on to list some of the things that ruin a good thriller or horror movie, mostly because one of the previous posts, a review of Skeleton Key, indicated that it had mostly successfully avoided those trappings. So I thought, yeah, and here's what really kills a scary movie for me. Just to clear up any possible misunderstanding.
Just hanging out with the rest of my fellow dregs.
http:// www . phrets . com Visit http://www.bizarremagic.net |
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Magickman Elite user St.Petersburg, Fl. 402 Posts |
Mystician,
I don't think you would be disapointed in this movie, even though it's not blockbuster material. But now Im curious as to what you would say lol! Let me know what you think after you see it. Magickman
What man knows he calls Science
What he has yet to learn he calls Magick Both are real! _Tony Andruzzi_ |
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DerekMerdinyan Inner circle 1030 Posts |
I liked the movie, but there were parts where I couldn't help but laugh.
1. When the old lady is using the shot gun. 2. When the old lady falls down the stairs. 3. When the old lady crawls in the elevator thing. 4. "My dear, I believe you broke my legs." and my personal favorite. 5. When the mirror slides across the room and crashes into the girl. It is kind of sad that it is difficult to make that scene serious. I could tell that it was supposed to be serious but everyone (including myself) was roaring with laughter at that part. All in all I liked the movie. It had one of those complicated plots that you have to have a few brain cells to figure out what was really going on. The voodoo theme has inspired me to get back into bizzare magic. Derek Merdinyan |
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Dr_Stephen_Midnight Inner circle SW Ohio, USA 1555 Posts |
That's interesting. Those scenes got no laughs when I saw it. Maybe we Midwesterners are used to eccentric, lethal old gals.
Steve
Dr. Lao: "Do you know what wisdom is?"
Mike: "No." Dr. Lao: "Wise answer." |
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The Curator V.I.P. Beware Vampire, I have 3909 Posts |
Finally, I saw the film and I like it. Good B-Movie with some original ideas (especially if you remember some scene like the hanging of the... children) and the actors are quite good. My favourite (no pun intended) hoodoo movie is still Angel Heart, and some music was re-used in SK.
Now, I have to find the original hoodoo soundtrack ... |
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paisa23 Inner circle 7293 Posts |
AARRGGHH the NEX here is always about 2 weeks behind on there new releases schedule. I hate that. But cant wait to see it. Angel Heart is a very incredible movie.
June 22 2012 9:02 AM baby Usnavi was born!
http://twitter.com/paisa233 http://www.facebook.com/people/Wilder-J-Rua/505202382 http://www.myspace.com/wildrua |
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Clifford the Red Inner circle LA, California 1941 Posts |
I liked it!
"The universe is full of magical things, waiting for our wits to grow sharper." Eden Philpotts
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T-RAY Inner circle 1539 Posts |
It was a great story! I also liked Angel Heart....and The Believers!.....and don't forget The Serpent And The Rainbow!!!!
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Bill Ligon Inner circle A sure sign of a misspent youth: 6437 Posts |
The Serpent and the Rainbow was based on a book by Harvard ethnobotanist (anthropologist) Wade Davis. The book tells how Davis discovered the formula for the zombi drug and penetrated deeply into the vodoun culture. Many of the incidents in the movie are real or based on real events, although the adventure was probably not as exciting as portrayed in the movie. It is a great movie and is based on real events.
Author of THE HOLY ART: Bizarre Magick From Naljorpa's Cave. NOW IN HARDCOVER! VIEW: <BR>www.lulu.com/content/1399405 ORDER: http://stores.lulu.com/naljorpa
<BR>A TASSEL ON THE LUNATIC FRINGE |
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Sean Lough Loyal user NYC 214 Posts |
...and please don't forget that vodoun and all it's different offshoots and incarnations is an actual, still-practiced religion in many parts of the world. The Wall Street Journal had a great article last week about how this often misunderstood religion affects political races (and daily life) in Haiti.
That being said, I love voodoo stories -- if you have an interest, "Best Black Magic Stories" by John Cross is a collection of great writers' best black magic and voodoo stories. Some wonderful pieces. |
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The Curator V.I.P. Beware Vampire, I have 3909 Posts |
But the movie is about hoodoo; a mix between voodoo, witchcraft and occult eurpean magic and many other sources.
I especially loved the muted head in the secret room, with the sealed lips. |
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