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Post by sinbad1971 on Oct 25, 2009 11:35:42 GMT
I saw this last night knowing nothing about it at all, made for $11,000 the storyline is very similar to Drag Me to Hell. After watching it I looked it up on IMDB and while the film is two years old it is currently riding high in the US with a $30 million box office scoop at present making it the most profitable budget/takings ratio film ever. I am actually pretty glad I watched at my mates with just the two of us. I don't think the movie will work as well in cinemas as it relies on silence with not much happening on screen to build tension (which works brilliantly), in fact it positively needs to be seen on the small screen. Aparrently the very end is changed slightly in the theatrical version and from what I've read not for the better. It's a great example though of what can be done on a miniscule budget.
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Post by Dave on Oct 25, 2009 11:43:37 GMT
I remember this being talked about at the same time as REC.... but then only REC seemed to appear in cinemas (Despite it being the foreign language film of the two).
I watched the trailer back then, and it was hard to tell whether the suspense aspect would work because obviously the trailer is too short. Looks like one of those films where not much happens, but it's still spooky.
From the trailer, the actors seemed a bit mainstream in style which I can't imagine is in any way helpful for building a real sense of terror or fright. Not that it would necessarily ruin it, but it wouldn't take it up a notch like realism based acting would.
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Post by sinbad1971 on Oct 25, 2009 11:48:40 GMT
The two leads do I suppose fit the normal horror convention, but the Katie character fleshs out very well during the course of the film. One of the best aspects of it (I thought) was the use of the camera just sat on a tripod for much of the film, it added a lot of authenticity to the set-up.
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Post by Gary on Oct 25, 2009 16:50:20 GMT
Everything I've read about it say how well it works in the cinema environment, and it was the reaction of the crowd in a test screen that won them a distribution deal.
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Post by RydCook on Oct 25, 2009 23:59:06 GMT
Got the poster for this at our cinema. We're not showing it so we checked them out. It kinda looked like something similar to White Noise. I did think to myself though "Perhaps this isn't one of the american, mainstream, bullshit horrors" that thought was right then?
Kind of more interested now.
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Post by sinbad1971 on Nov 3, 2009 10:05:46 GMT
Everything I've read about it say how well it works in the cinema environment, and it was the reaction of the crowd in a test screen that won them a distribution deal. Well i may well be wrong can only comment on my experience, watched with just one other person in the dark it made for a creepy nights entertainment. It doesn't really use any cinematic visuals or anything, no music etc, and I just think if I'd watched it with 300 other people I would not have found it as unsettling
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Post by Gareth on Nov 25, 2009 0:42:28 GMT
just watched it, thought it was shit, heard so much hype saying this was great.
I really wanted to like this aswell
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Post by Salvador on Dec 1, 2009 20:20:10 GMT
Yeah, I really wanted to like this but it was crap. The actors and the "script" ruin it.... however it is complete genius, simple idea, simply done, lots of money. Good on them
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Post by rodwack on Dec 6, 2009 0:08:16 GMT
Just seen it at the cinema. The audience laughed all through the second half, with the biggest guffaw right at the end!
And they weren't laughing at parts that were intentionally funny, like the witty boyfriend ("go play with your friend upstairs"), but at the bits that were supposed to be scary.
I wasn't laughing though, so it kind of spoilt it. But overall, I wasn't that impressed but would give it 3 out of 5 stars.
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Post by Dave on Dec 6, 2009 0:38:27 GMT
I've heard too many bad reports about it now to want to see it.
Not a REC beater then!
rodwack... that is one thing that drives me up the wall... audiences laughing at below par 'scary' films. I don't care how crap I find a film to be, I still want to watch it properly... there may be a good bit coming up... but it will never be good when you're surrounded by a room of self-important, guffawing twats. It's just the sound of un-earned superiority... "We're laughing at a film that has been billed as really scary... we must be fucking geniuses to do this!"
You can find pretty much every horror film pant-gushingly hilarious if you want to. For horror films to work, you have to invest yourself in what the film is trying to achieve, that's why loads of people don't like them or just have to laugh at them to prove a pathetic point (sadly, they think they are making a point of how brilliant they are though). Your average, run-of-the-mill idiot on the street cannot afford to invest anything of themselves in such films because to them, it's just one-step away from dressing up as a Klingon and going to Sci-fi conventions. What will their peers think if they invest anything in a horror film and find it scary! Geek!
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Post by Gareth on Dec 6, 2009 4:29:07 GMT
I think horror is the genre most dependent on what the audience brings to it, I'm dying to see a horror film where nothing too supernatural happens and its just totally suspenseful and creepy, any recommendations???
I'm yet to see a horror film that gripped me and scared the shit out of me all the way through, they've always lost me at some point.
as for laughing in the cinema that really takes the piss but me and my mate were laughing watching it at home and we were both prepared to watch an amazing film that would scare the shit out of us,
I'd say the creepiest thing in the whole film was the time elapse shots off them tossing and turning in bed, also his girlfriend getting out of bed and standing and watching him sleep and walking out of the house and waking up on that outdoor chair,
surely we've all talked to someone whos asleep but is talking and appears awake and really confused and there's something really creepy about that half consciousness, talking to a person you know so well but almost talking directly to their subconscious and when they finally snap out of it they have no recollection of the rubbish they've been talking, thats the place I feel theres great material for a horror film?
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Post by rodwack on Dec 6, 2009 12:38:08 GMT
Dave, I think you should see it, especially as you have an appreciation of film. And now I think about it, the imagery and certain scenes have been floating around in my head all morning, so maybe it was better than I initially thought, and perhaps that's because of the self righteous, giggling idiots in the cinema! Like Gareth says, you have to give a bit to get more out (in horror or any film really).
I'm not a film maker, but always wanted to be and have read a fair amount about what goes on. So from that point of view, if some lad made this film for next to nothing in his own time in his own house and is enjoying this huge success, well then it's quite remarkable. It just becomes so easy to dismiss or praise a film, doesn't it.
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Post by fattaxi on Dec 7, 2009 8:54:38 GMT
One of... if not the... worst films I've ever seen. Boring. Boring. Boring.
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Post by Tash on Dec 11, 2009 18:27:32 GMT
I think horror is the genre most dependent on what the audience brings to it, I'm dying to see a horror film where nothing too supernatural happens and its just totally suspenseful and creepy, any recommendations??? Maybe I can help. But first I need to know a little but more about your triggers. Like...do you have any phobias, and what ratio of blood do you prefer (or not prefer) in a horror, etc. And how do you feel about really low-key creepy stuff that's actually pretty slow as far as movies go?
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