I am a really big scaredy cat so I watch my scary movies with all the lights on and the washing machine going and chores to do – I try to distract myself in as many small ways as possible so that I can watch the movie and get the story without really getting horribly affected so I can’t sleep. I can see how this might seem counter productive – why do I bother, right? Well, I like the creepy stories and, if the movie is really a good one, I still manage to get scared despite all of my efforts and this one has at least one really scary scene even with the lights on doing laundry. And though it may seem campy to my jaded 21st century eye I am subconciously able to let that slide because I know that it wasn’t campy back in 1960. In 1960 this was it. So I can really suspend the disbelief that is virtually impossible for me with most modern horror or suspense movies – I can see the danger coming but instead of irritating me it’s just all that much scarier. And the nice thing about this movie is that it rides the fence between slasher teen date flick and arty esoteric nonsense flick and ends up with something that says something that’s really honest about human nature without falling over into sentimental or too abstract; it’s totally accessible. I like that. I like the main character. He’s really tortured and, though I don’t have the same morbid fascination that he does it’s hard to argue that the success of shows like CSI, Criminal Minds, Bones and the rest (all of which fill up my NetFlix queue) don’t fulfill some similar, fear based desire. What does that say about me? What does it say about me that I understand how desperately he wants his neighbor to understand how he feels about his movies – I feel like that about movies, too. In fact I was just thinking a few weeks ago that probably the best, clearest way I have to communicate my feelings with people has always been through the movies. What does that say about me? I won’t say that I watched the movie feeling someone finally understood where I was coming from – I mean, despite all rumors, I’m not a crazy serial killer with a camera -I have my criticisms (I think they sort of glossed over his childhood suffering a little but that’s probably an indication of my modern over exposure to horrible horrible stuff – I don’t believe it unless I see it in graphic detail) but I don’t think they are valid for this movie. It was good and I miss my movie nerd friends! They’d watch it and analyze it with me! Bassett hounds just don’t cut it! Where are you Sara Brown?!? Where are you Jake James?!? I know where you are, Elson.
October 1, 2008...11:25 pm
Review: Peeping Tom (1960)
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October 16, 2008 at 5:47 am
Hell, I don’t even know where I am right now.
But if you want a little insight on where I came from, here’s this–You can trace everything that’s wrong with me straight back to the day when I accidentally picked up someone else’s videos at our local mom & pop VHS/Beta store. See, I had brought Time Bandits and Star Wars to the counter, and while my dad paid for the videos, I inadvertently snagged someone’s copies of Videodrome and I Dismember Mama.
I remember watching them in short bursts, being terrified not only of what was happening onscreen, but of being caught. My folks would have murdered me for real if they knew what I was looking at. And really, I was way too young to properly digest what I was seeing, and to put it into the proper context. That said, I must have rented Videodrome eleventy times from that place. Cronenberg had me at hello.
Then a place opened up that was about half a block from where I lived, and it made it so much easier to get my fix–There was always a horror movie in there, but I started branching out to foreign horror, which led to foreign comedies, which led to foreign dramas, all at the prompting of the nice little lady who ran the place. She’s the one who really fed my apetite for the hard-to-find stuff, because those were all from her personal collection. I’m the only one who rented them, and she knew where I lived, so we had an understanding when it came to late returns. Hell, most of those, she didn’t even put a box out. She usually just said, “You seen this one?” and I’d say no, and she’d throw it in with my rentals. When I came back, we’d have these long conversations about movies. She told me about her kids and where she grew up in Sweden, and when it got to be late, she’d scoot me out and told me to take it easy.
When I got into high school, I didn’t go as much. Chain stores were popping up, and soon, you could buy a movie for $20, and that’s what I ended up doing.
I popped in one day, and there was this really, really pretty lady taking all the posters down and putting the tapes in boxes. She told me that she was the daughter of the lady who owned the place, and that she was shutting it down because she had been stabbed and robbed a few nights before. She was still alive, but she wouldn’t be coming back.
It had been years since I had felt that particular mixture of fake horror-movie fear, and real-life panic, but it all came back, and it made me a little sick, just like it did back then.
And to this day, I can’t watch Videodrome without feeling a little ill. Honestly, I still don’t know if I’ve properly digested that one. I’ll have to see it again.