Yes, that pun was too easy.
We all have our own tastes. It's what makes sites like this fun and keeps the debates raging. It's what allows us to feel superior to others when we like a movie that we're sure is too smart for most people, or when we hate a movie that the "sheep" will flock to love. Often, with these sort of "cult classic" films, they get the moniker for a very good reason. A minority will treasure the movie and consider it to be a 10-star classic, while most are not going to understand the appeal. I have plenty of my own cult classic loves. This just isn't one of them.
I consider myself to be a horror junkie. I love horror dating back to silent classics and up through this year's releases. I love major studio and indie, domestic and foreign. I say this not to feel that my opinion is any more valid than anyone else's but to say that I think my ratings and reviews prove that I'm not narrow minded to one time era or style of horror. I would say, though, that there are few horror movies from the first half of the 70s that really stand out. Romero changed the game, in 69, with NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, introducing an amazing mixture of gut-churning gore and intelligent social messages in horror. It was revolutionary, but it also left horror struggling to figure itself out for a few years. There isn't a straight "style" to horror of this era. Most that I have seen fall into this genre, like LET'S SCARE, of looking low budget, feeling amateurish and trying very hard to inject artistic and social style, while playing for subtle creepiness. It's not an easy mixture to get right.
This film is about a hip young woman who leaves the big city with her musician husband and their hippie pal, setting out for the country to get her mind correct after a breakdown. We get a little bit of DELIVERANCE style scare as the townies don't take kindly to new flower children, driving around in their hearse. They settle into an old farmhouse, on an orchard, that happens to be inhabited by a squatter. The bulk of the picture spends its' time trying to spin a web of chilling frights where we're meant to question whether the events are real or in our heroine's mind. She starts unraveling as events get more terrifying around her until the final nefarious plot is revealed (or was it?).
The problem with the movie is that it's not half as clever as it thinks it is and spends far too much time boring the audience to death. I'm all for psychological horror. Some of my favorite horror films of all time would fall into that realm, but I need something more than a woman who talks to herself. That's basically the movie in a nutshell. Our heroine talking to herself. The two men in the house spend most of their time trying to get into the pants of our squatter, who is only marginally attractive and a little bit creepy. Shallow criticism, for sure, but if the whole plot is that I'm supposed to believe these men are falling over themselves to do her bidding, I'm not buying.
There is no atmosphere built and the movie is begging for it. Use the orchard. Use the creepy attic. Use some fog and the lake that surrounds their island home. Use some dreamlike cinematography. There are so many missed opportunities in this movie, that I just can't recommend it for most people. I see all these 10 star reviews and just can't understand it, at all, but to each his own. I rarely give movies a rating this low. I find that most movies fall into an medium of mediocrity that gets them an average rating, but I was so bored by this one and just waiting for it to end.
We all have our own tastes. It's what makes sites like this fun and keeps the debates raging. It's what allows us to feel superior to others when we like a movie that we're sure is too smart for most people, or when we hate a movie that the "sheep" will flock to love. Often, with these sort of "cult classic" films, they get the moniker for a very good reason. A minority will treasure the movie and consider it to be a 10-star classic, while most are not going to understand the appeal. I have plenty of my own cult classic loves. This just isn't one of them.
I consider myself to be a horror junkie. I love horror dating back to silent classics and up through this year's releases. I love major studio and indie, domestic and foreign. I say this not to feel that my opinion is any more valid than anyone else's but to say that I think my ratings and reviews prove that I'm not narrow minded to one time era or style of horror. I would say, though, that there are few horror movies from the first half of the 70s that really stand out. Romero changed the game, in 69, with NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, introducing an amazing mixture of gut-churning gore and intelligent social messages in horror. It was revolutionary, but it also left horror struggling to figure itself out for a few years. There isn't a straight "style" to horror of this era. Most that I have seen fall into this genre, like LET'S SCARE, of looking low budget, feeling amateurish and trying very hard to inject artistic and social style, while playing for subtle creepiness. It's not an easy mixture to get right.
This film is about a hip young woman who leaves the big city with her musician husband and their hippie pal, setting out for the country to get her mind correct after a breakdown. We get a little bit of DELIVERANCE style scare as the townies don't take kindly to new flower children, driving around in their hearse. They settle into an old farmhouse, on an orchard, that happens to be inhabited by a squatter. The bulk of the picture spends its' time trying to spin a web of chilling frights where we're meant to question whether the events are real or in our heroine's mind. She starts unraveling as events get more terrifying around her until the final nefarious plot is revealed (or was it?).
The problem with the movie is that it's not half as clever as it thinks it is and spends far too much time boring the audience to death. I'm all for psychological horror. Some of my favorite horror films of all time would fall into that realm, but I need something more than a woman who talks to herself. That's basically the movie in a nutshell. Our heroine talking to herself. The two men in the house spend most of their time trying to get into the pants of our squatter, who is only marginally attractive and a little bit creepy. Shallow criticism, for sure, but if the whole plot is that I'm supposed to believe these men are falling over themselves to do her bidding, I'm not buying.
There is no atmosphere built and the movie is begging for it. Use the orchard. Use the creepy attic. Use some fog and the lake that surrounds their island home. Use some dreamlike cinematography. There are so many missed opportunities in this movie, that I just can't recommend it for most people. I see all these 10 star reviews and just can't understand it, at all, but to each his own. I rarely give movies a rating this low. I find that most movies fall into an medium of mediocrity that gets them an average rating, but I was so bored by this one and just waiting for it to end.