57 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
57 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
the tagline for this film is : " some houses are just born bad " .
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so i didn't expect too much from this .
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but i had preserved a little spark of ope as i entered the theatre .
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i thought : liam neeson , cathrine zeta jones and jan de bont .
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i thought , mabe it will be fun ?
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and in fact the beginning was rather intriguing .
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but by the end of it i thought : why liam neeson and cathrine zeta jones , jan de bont ? .
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these great actors are basically helpless with this muddled mess that defies any rationality .
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here is the story : in the monstrously over-decorated mansion known as hill house , visitors are tricked by an unknown doctor ( liam neeson ) into being guinea pigs in a fright experiment under the guise of an insomnia investigation .
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among them is a sophisticated bisexual ( cathrine zeta jones ) , a cynical dope ( owen wilson ) and a gentle and emotional lady ( lily taylor ) .
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actually , the doctor is researching the " primordial fear reaction " and intends to plant disturbing ideas in his subjects and watch !
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what happens .
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but he gets unexpected help from the house itself .
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it rumbles , hums and belches forth remarkable sights .
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portals become veiny stained-glass eyeballs .
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a fireplace guarded by stone lions gapes like a sinister mouth .
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filmy cherubic spirits take shape under sheets and billowy curtains .
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but the computerized spooketeria rarely feels real , placing an emotional wall between audience and screen .
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the second half of the film is basically about the main heroine running back and forth from the sinister lamps and evil furniture .
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is that exciting or what ?
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the worst thing about it is that it didn't have to be bad .
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it's based on a great book , ``the haunting of hill house , '' by shirley jackson .
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a 1963 adaptation of the book was scary and intelligent .
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it played with the greatest fears of our sub conscience .
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" the blair witch project " , that cost less than an old car , managed to shock and terrify the audiences from their senses .
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and with a $70 mill .
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budget , de bont and screenwriter david self make hash out of a perfectly lovely piece of terror .
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de !
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bont has a style of filmmaking so out of line with the material that it is , in itself , frightening .
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he is the master of the extravagant special effect and the big visual adrenaline rush .
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but why give him a more serious material ?
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in the end " haunting " will only haunt its fledgling studio ( dream works skg ) and de bont's career as a director .
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yet it wouldn't be fair to say that everything is bad .
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the effects are truly impressive and the house is wonderfully decorated -- beautiful , mysterious , magical and spooky .
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but this is where the good things end .
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the music is blaring , the floors moving , the ceiling morphing and the pictures on the walls screaming -- and all of this , every second , every moment of screen time , is absolutely without life .
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it's nothing more than a special effects-extravaganza ; visually impressive , but intellectually hollow thriller that simply doesn't engage .
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at first you do not know what's going on .
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is this part of the experiment ?
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are these hallucinations ?
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projections of the subconscience ?
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paranoia ?
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but in the end it shows out that this is actually happening .
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the house is actually possessed .
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it is at that point when all your hopes for a good entertainment disappears out of the window .
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for ever , i sat in anticipation for a decent climax and that's what i got ?
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i believe hichock once said that " it's !
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better to wait for a climax , than to see one " .
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this may be true , and it might actually work , but there is only one problem -- jan de bont is not hichock and the things that he shows are not scary , only stupid .
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they are impossible to take seriously .
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any paralells that you might have heard before , linking this picture to kubrick's " the shining " , are absolutely baseless .
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" shining " had class , style , story , acting , but most of all talent and originality .
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" haunting " has only special effects and art direction to boast of .
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and those elements alone are not enough to make it a good film .
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casting good actors for small , pale parts only makes things worse .
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but i guess that no matter what i or other critics say or write , most of you will see this film anyway , even if the tagline would say : " some films are just born stupid " .
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