Olga, In Cold Blood was based on a true story. Don't recall feeling the need to lock anything that wasn't locked while I was reading it. Silence of the Lambs is fiction. Does this make a difference in your fear factor? It usually does for me. But if In Cold Blood made you nervous, maybe Silence of the Lambs isn't for you. But it's a very good movie. Very good performances. Not so much creepy as INTENSE.
Ah, Roberta, I'm just a chicken about violence, that's all!
Maybe I had that reaction to "Cold Blood" because I was reading it while alone, at my parent's farm ... An isolated place. A long time ago
Thanks for the advice & concern, though!
I don't think I'd want to read In Cold Blood alone at an isolated farm either, especially when I start to realize that the murders are taking place at an isolated farm!
Yes, LarryBS ... bit close for comfort!
At least "In Cold Blood" is a brilliant adaptation, nearly as good as the book.
Ah, "M", Larry BS -- and here I thought you were disagreeing with me! My apologies -- "M" delves up so manyn feelings that it's hard to describe. One can feel empathy for the psychosis of the killer and dismay and the mob mentality. Lorre's at his creepiest when he approaches the little girl and when he is cornered by the mob.
Lightwizard, I really don't care if millions of people LOVE Tarantino. I detest his work because he exploits violence for cheap thrills and laughs, as you yourself admitted in your post about PULP FICTION. If Alex the droog from CLOCKWORK ORANGE were a film director, he would be Quentin Tarantino. Polanski, on the other hand, is a great artist. When he uses violence--most recently in THE PIANIST--it stings, it hurts, because Polanski makes you feel how awful it is. Polanski NEVER uses violence for cheap thrills and laughs. Possibly because he is a Holocaust survivor who lost his wife and unborn baby to the Manson Gang, not a former video store clerk like Tarantino who has nothing to say but wants to say it anyway.
Sorry, but I don't believe Tarantino used violence for cheap thrills and laughs. That may be your bent on it and your definitely priveleged to expound on it. I did not admit anything but that Tarantino was satirizing violence in our being desensitized to it. He was exploring characters who were desensitize to it and they do, in fact, exist (having lived in the L.A. area, I can only cringe thinking how close Tarantino was to the city's perverseness). The opening line of the musical "City of Angles" just about sums it up:
"L.A. is like a beautiful lady...with the clap." Tarantino holds up a scrutinizing mirror to a section of society that is repugnant in their own set of horribly misguided values. Not many directors have exposed what's inside the criminal mind. If it offends you in a direct way and you're not tuned in to what Tarantino does have to say, I'm not going to really bother to argue the case into the night. I also believe Polanski is, at this point in film history, a more consumate director than Tarantino and, btw, he likes Tarantino's films.
(And actually I find Polanski's "Macbeth" to be brilliantly satirical in basically doing the same thing -- making the violence so outre that it was funny. Many critics don't get that movie either as they carped about Polanski "murdering" Shakespeare).
How could I forget! The Blair Witch Hunt! The whole movie scared me almost to death. I could hardly breathe!
"Blair Witch," of course, borrowed from all horror films where something is occuring just outside the frame of the film that is
metaphysical and threatening. Some think that device was used to excess but I did find it convincing enough to give me the genuine creeps.
Blair Witch didn't do it for me, although it did have its moments. Fact is, I'm not that easily scared or creeped out from films. Real life--a whole other thing.
I recently saw the ghost movie with Nicole Kidman (can't remember the title). What a bust. (Insert Bronx cheer.)
Lightwizard, I agree with you about Tarantino--and Polanski. In some ways, Tarantino's take on violence reminds me of Kubrick's in a Clockwork Orange. Stylized and surreal. Funny and horrible. I guess this idea is linked to Larry Richette's--about Alex directing Tarantino films.
Hi, Roberta -- Tarantino, Polanski and Kubrick show violence for what it is, ridiculous and senseless. I don't get any glorification of violence out of any of their films. Polanski was wonderfully tongue-in-cheek in "Fearless Vampire Killers" and dead serious about interpreting the violence in "Macbeth." Tarantino in "Resevoir Dogs" examined how criminals are birds-of-a-feather and truly enjoy, although excruciatingly difficult to watch for us, violence as a group effort. Kubrick has done this several times but most effectively in "A Clockwork Orange" and none of it advocates violence as a passtime -- they expose it for what it is and it makes for some seriously chilling responses.
Oops -- the Kidman film was "The Others" and it was a little too close to "The Sixth Sense" in concept for me. I guess I was tired at the time I watched in on cable (a good excuse), because I didn't catch on about the ending. After it was over, I thought about the similarity to the other film and it kind of deflated the whole thing even though I did like the way it was filmed and Kidman gave one of her really intense performances. "Blair Witch" didn't really impress me, either, and the technique is "borrowed" from the first "Halloween" film.
Lightwizard, The discussion of film violence has taken my mind to Sam Peckinpaw. If my memory serves (and it doesn't serve well enough to merit a tip these days), he was one of the first directors who really presented a powerful expression of violence. Whatever happened to Sam?
As for The Others, yes, a rip off of the Sixth Sense. Kidman was good, but the movie fell flat.
macsm, I can relate to the seasick factor in Blair Witch. Enough with the bouncing up and down!
Blair Witch Project? Biggest con in ages. Terrible film, great marketing.
Sam Peckinpah? Wise man, solid director, long time gone (dead in '84).
fbaezer, Thanks for the info about Peckinpah. (Also the correct spelling.)
SOYLENT GREEN - I watched it again this afternoon and all of the scenes are scary to me.
Sugar wrote:"The Shining" always gives me the creeps. Men dressed up in bear costumes, the twins the the hallway, rivers of blood bursting through the doorways, his presence in the photograph at the end.
Love that movie though.
one of my favorites!!! The best part is when Jack peers through the opening in the door "heeeeeeeeeere's Johhny".
Jack was meant for that role.
