8/10
A local film centre (a loft space with a projection screen, really) was showing a 16mm print of this 1976 Canadian thriller and I decided to check it out...and was very glad I did. This is a movie that, for all its weirdness, is a lot better than anyone should expect it to be. Jodie Foster plays a 13-year old girl named Rynn who just moved in to a new house with her perpetually absent father, and she quickly becomes terrorizes by the neighborhood pervert Frank, played by Martin Sheen, clearly relishing the role.
Given the premise, one might expect a typical "girl in peril" movie involving lots of chase scenes, disturbing phone calls and powerlines being cut, but it's actually not like that at all. The film is very theatrical, with the living room of Rynn's house being centre stage, and much of the action (consisting of chilling conversations face-to-face between Rynn and Frank) taking place therein. The movie takes an unexpected detour into the relationship Rynn forms with a slightly older teenage magician, and while this would have been a distraction in many other similar movies, it actually works really well here. Their budding relationship is dealt with far more respectfully and with more maturity than any number of 70's camp horror flicks would have done.
It's not a perfect movie - there is some laugh-out-loud cheese, some bizarre editing, and an ill-fitting soundtrack, and anyone expecting bravura shocks and scares will be left bored, but I found it very entertaining.
Apparently Foster isn't quite as big a fan of it (she was given a rough time in production, from what I read) which may explain why it was buried for so many years, but I think it's finally out on DVD now. Worth investigating if you're a horror fan into something a bit different.
No comments:
Post a Comment