( Non si sevizia un paperino / Lucio Fulci / 1972 )
As entertaining as Fulci can be when he's commanding an army of flesh eating zombies his command of the language of cinema itself is rudimentary and somewhat awkward. Thus this giallo, about a rural police force and a journalist trying to track down a child killing serial killer before superstitious villagers lynch another innocent weirdo, exposes his weaknesses in handling a film that relies on developing a narrative and creating suspense and intrigue rather than films - like his fine GATES OF HELL trilogy - which can sustain themselves by merrily chugging along from one gory splattering to the next.
Friday 25 November 2011
ONE MISSED CALL (T Miike)
( Chakushin ari / Takashi Miike / 2003)
A group of teenage girls receive voicemail messages featuring recordings of their sudden and violent deaths in Miike's 2003 mainstream J-horror offering. Daira's script never manages to make the premise seem anything but faintly ludicrous and as the film begins to reveal the psychological underpinnings of what's going on ONE MISSED CALL comes dangerously close to just being incomprehensible. It is to Miike's credit that this is not an awful film.
Apparently used to working with whatever script comes his way (the man averages at around 4 films a year) Miike is firmly in control, creating a plethora of eerie, gorgeously shot sequences. At one point a TV crew persuade one of the intended victims to be filmed during the minutes leading up to the time of her predicted death and this finds Miike in his element: perverse and horrific but with just the right touch of black humour. So whilst the script is rife with the issues and cliches that plague J-horror, Miike's command of cinema works to make it an entertaining (if distinctly not great) flick anyway.
A group of teenage girls receive voicemail messages featuring recordings of their sudden and violent deaths in Miike's 2003 mainstream J-horror offering. Daira's script never manages to make the premise seem anything but faintly ludicrous and as the film begins to reveal the psychological underpinnings of what's going on ONE MISSED CALL comes dangerously close to just being incomprehensible. It is to Miike's credit that this is not an awful film.
Apparently used to working with whatever script comes his way (the man averages at around 4 films a year) Miike is firmly in control, creating a plethora of eerie, gorgeously shot sequences. At one point a TV crew persuade one of the intended victims to be filmed during the minutes leading up to the time of her predicted death and this finds Miike in his element: perverse and horrific but with just the right touch of black humour. So whilst the script is rife with the issues and cliches that plague J-horror, Miike's command of cinema works to make it an entertaining (if distinctly not great) flick anyway.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)