I've never seen the original, so yes I guess I'm doing this backwards. I'm experimenting with a sort of extreme reader response criticism, by writing notes while I watch the movie (and, incidentally, eat the most amazing spicy chicken cacciatore I just made up).
Opening credits: not particularly interesting, so far, but this cover of "Time of the Season" is taking liberties with the lyrics, I swear. Isn't it time OF the season FOR loving? Isn't that REALLY different from "time FOR the season OF loving"?
Cast: Blondy girl, and her wholesome black friend girl.
They talk about the Back Story, letting us know that for Some Reason, blondy girl's mom doesn't think she should join the [I didn't catch what team].
Hm...in the picture on the mantle, blondy girl doesn't appear to have the visible scar she now has. I'm full of suspense about the back story!
Action starts fast. Where's Joey? What's this baseball bat doing here? Joey's dead, blondy hides under the bed and watches mom get brutally murdered by a dude with scraggly brown hair and ugly boots, then...
(OMG, you'd never guess...)
...then she wakes up! In the therapist's office, where she is undergoing Plot Exposition Therapy.
Cut to hair salon with black friend and slutty friend. I have something to say about how sex is treated in this movie - I'm interested in comparing it to the original (my guess is that the original is less preoccupied with sex but at the same time does not bother, as this movie does, to make the point that it's Okay not to Do It. I could be wrong about this, but it seems to me that contemporary movies are more and more likely to make some big political deal about how some character is Choosing To Wait). In this scene black friend asserts that she has sex with her boyfriend and redhead friend (who I called slutty friend before, and I guess I was wrong, so I'll switch to her actual name, Claire) says how he's not getting any tee hee hee.
Back at home, blondy is getting ready for prom, with the cheerleader's mom, who gives her a very meaningful taupe scarf of some sort. Her mom would have wanted her to wear it.
This girl is surprisingly ordinary looking. What's with white teeth? I mean, unnaturally white. I'm pretty sure the uncle just asked the date if they were going to Do It, and the date assured him that they are not. "No sir, you have nothing to worry about."
Cut to police station, where nerd/hipster white cop gives a fax of Charlie Manson to tough black detective, who rewards him with a lot of plot exposition. Turns out Charlie Manson was a teacher (how come this dude could get hired and I couldn't?) who became obsessed with blondy, then killed her mom so they could be together. The detective explains that they expected the death sentence but the jury came back with insanity (NB: I'm pretty sure that's not how the legal system works. Aren't you usually not competent to stand trial if you are Technically Crazy?) and he's been in a mental institution until he did some thing that involved a neat little splatter of blood and an air duct. The scene ends with "We should go tell the aunt and uncle. This is gonna rock their world." Which to me seems like an odd choice of words.
Back at prom, charlie manson has cleverly disguised himself with a baseball cap and will now check into the hotel. Hilariously, a lady teacher seems to have a crush on Lisa (black friend). Good thing lesbian teachers don't get all obsessed and cut up people's moms! Chrissy, the "rich-bitch" who planned the prom, is at least thirty. (note: actually, she's 26 .) Everyone dances ironically. Oh no, Lisa's boyfriend went to the desk to pick up keys to the room, and accidentally revealed to Manson which room they are staying in!
Our first non-flashback death is of the maid. Maria. Yeah.
I think I have a lot more to say, in addition to my thoughts about her unnatural teeth, about the beauty ideal this lady represents. It seems to me that she not so much is beautiful as signifies beauty through artificial means. Beautiful girls have blond hair - she has blond hair. Beautiful girls have blue eyes - she has freakishly blue eyes. She's wearing a pretty dress, but it fits very oddly.
Blondy goes to the room to get Midol for Claire (OMG cramps! period!) and they have an extraordinarily brief heart-to-heart (we don't have to see an actual conversation or evidence of intimacy, only the thing that signifies intimacy: Midol and Boyfriend Trouble). Blondy: "Do you want me to stay here until you feel like going down?" Claire: "No, thanks, I'll stay up here by myself and get murdered instead."
Detective Wynn is at the front desk. "Have you seen this guy?" "No," says the front desk clerk, "I've only seen a dude who looks exactly like that dude, but in a baseball cap." (He didn't actually say that.)
Claire's prick boyfriend says "Where is Claire?" and blondy is like "You gotta stop being a prick or you're gonna lose her" and prick boyfriend is like "yeah right, I doubt that." Irony! She's dead! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Joke's on him! During and after the ensuing death of prick boyfriend, there is some cool juxtaposition of corpse clean-up with dancing, to cheery dance music.
I swear horror movies used to bother to explain the preturnatural strength of their villains, when they were preturnaturally strong. They were imbued with supernatural abilities by some catastrophic event, or they are truly evil, or they are demons. It seems like anymore, bad dudes are just able to do whatever evil they want, by virtue of being bad dudes.
(Not to keep harping on this, but is this girl pretty? She doesn't seem pretty to me.)
(Whoa. Turns out the dykey teacher is the gym teacher!)
Lisa goes upstairs to make out with her boyfriend. She sees Manson in the hall, but can't place him. Making out with her boyfriend, she suddenly places him, and runs out of the room to get murdered. The murderer steps on her dress, and she runs away, leaving approximately two thirds of her dress behind. For some reason, portions of the hotel are under a sort of construction that involves lots of creepily floaty plastic tarp and many easily startled pigeons. Obvs, the black friend is toast. Trademark neat little splatter of blood.
Detective Winn pulls a fire alarm and the nerd/hipster cop tells everyone to leave. But blondy can't leave yet - she has to run upstairs and get her taupe scarf thing. While she is in the room alone, the Manson dude comes in, and he seems to have a special power of making lights flash in a weird way. It's as if a light bulb on a string is swinging back and forth (this happened in both Them and The Evil Dead, but in a supply room and a basement respectively, I think, not in a fancy hotel room) interrupted by random flashes of bright blueish light. She manages to shut him out of the room, then hides...under the bed! Which is where Manson stashed the body of Claire. Actually, I think it's sort of cute that she's under the bed again. But she gets away, goes home, lots of boring pursuit ensues. The cops find the body of the bell boy Manson killed. Back at Donna's house, she's in bed with Bobby, then wakes up and goes to the bathroom (never wise) where the killer appears in the mirror behind her! And then...she...wakes...up. Yeah.
I forgot to check the rating, but this movie seems extraordinarily tame for a slasher movie. It's a problem that the market for this sort of movie is young enough to require a PG-13 rating, but at the same time they are attracted to these movies by the very things that caused them to be rated R in the days before PG-13 ever existed.
I just figured out that it's not a remake of the Jamie Lee Curtis movie at all, but coincidentally has the same title. I still want to compare them.
Actual ages of the cast:
Ronnie: 21
Donna: 22
Claire: 22
Lisa: 24
Chrissy: 26
Bobby: 29
No comments:
Post a Comment