Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

Curious, and with $12 in leftover gift card money burning a hole in my pocket, I picked up this, which is region free. The sequel is by the same director and came out in '08. Will let you know what I think.



More Canadian movies worth your while:

Anvil! The Story of Anvil
Exotica
Leolo
Love and Death on Long Island
My Winnipeg
Siege
The Grey Fox

Seen and enjoyed the following.

After seeing so many letterboxd reviews go, "there's AI generated art in this, so it has to be one star, but it was an alright movie otherwise," your review makes me feel seen.


Especially since I also caught the use of Ironside because, out of principle, I stuck around for the ending credits in the theater.


Somehow, I didn't notice the AI generated art while watching it, but also being unaware, I wasn't paying much attention. I suspect if I paid more attention for a second viewing that won't happen, I'd notice, but who knows since I can't see myself rewatching it.


The main I wondered afterwards, if they addressed the over-expository dump of the intro narration, would they have had a movie that would have seemed more passable?

I thought it was fun (?)

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Captain's Log
My Collection

I have that same disc, but have never watched the sequel. I think there is a part of me that feels it's likely really embarrassingly bad, and might end up casting a light on the original.


As for the original, it is still one of the guiding lights of film for me. But it does come with the caveat that, much like Tragically Hip or Degrassi Jr. High, it's appeals come from something that is distinctly Canadian about it that might not appeal to anyone who isn't from here. But my experience with it was one where I believed it was the first time I had ever seen 'truth' in a film. How something like those who first discovered Italian neo-realism might have felt. But this is just a little rougher around the ages, and has that domestic beer stink that comes with anything truly Canadian.


Plus, don't overlook the SCTV parody on this. That was actually my first experience with the movie, as I had no idea what they were making fun of at the time. But it piqued my curiosity over what this dopey movie must be where they just keep going down to Yonge Street to wander around Sam the Record Man. And when I finally came upon the real thing, laying in bed with the flu, not going anywhere as it came on the television three times over the course of 24 hours, I watched it every time with a mixture of nausea, fever and confusion as to why this was even a movie. But each time starting to understand it a little better, and as a result, began to understand all sorts of other similar movies as a result.


Hooray for the flu!

They were basically just Halloween wallpaper they'd put on the screen whenever cutting between scenes of the show and behind the scenes scenes. And they reminded me of old Halloween cards I used to buy as a kid. And that was the only slightly good feeling I had during the entire 90 minutes.


And I don't think anything could save this movie outside of a different script, director, and actors. The opening crap was the least of its problems, even though it was definitely also really crap.

I can't stress enough how much I thought absolutely everything in this movie was bad. All of it. The only salvageable thing was the concept, which I thought sounded promising, until I realized they were going to do it in the hackiest and least imaginative way possible.



They are going to invite the Devil to a talk show? Great! Except what it really is is the answer to someone asking themselves the question "What if the girl from the Exorcist got invited to do late night". Which already is probably the worst way to do this, but especially so when the execution is so terrible, and the movie is so empty of any actually interesting ideas.


badbadbadbadbadbadbad

Is this post how we now know the body snatching has been completed?


#showsNotReallyCaptTerrorthedoor

I think this is where we're disagreeing. It's hard for me to imagine an attempt to treat this premise seriously that wouldn't result in a terrible film. I thought the concept was inherently not to be taken seriously, so as far as I'm concerned making it a deliberate cheez-fest was the way to go and on that level I was entertained. It's an empty calorie snack but I don't think the film's goals were very lofty to begin with, so I'd have a hard time mustering any hatred for it.

As a member of the generation that was actually taken in by Uri Geller and that other bowl-headed guy who's name I've forgotten, I just thought it was a fun riff on that era/mindset.

I thought the premise could have either played as really great satire (which I think this movie at times believes it is doing, except for all of the times it suddenly isn't), or great camp or maybe even been done completely straight faced successfully (although maybe a tougher hill to climb). And instead it just seemed like a really underthought rush job where, honestly, even it's cheap thrills didn't seem cheap or thrilling enough to amount to anything.




So was I. But it was more on the level that I was sort of fascinated with how consistently it didn't work for me. At least with something like Babydriver, my issue was more that I didn't even like what it was trying to do....but I suppose it vaguely kind of did what it wanted to do competently. This movie though, just kept doing things I didn't want it to do, and then kept doing them laughably badly.






Riffing on that era and these sort of shows has all sorts of possibilities to be fun or great. But I don't even think it riffed on the look and feel of these kinds of shows very well. It always felt like a really superficial take on 70's late night. It felt....lazy.

I disagree re: seriousness, but this is still a good post and well argued and all that, and I still like the film a fair bit despite this failing.

What I wanted from this film, I think, was a slow burn and reluctant realization from all the characters about what was really happening. A sort of refusal to believe (and all the wrestling with it that this entails), with the talk show and audience itself acting as a thumb on the scale to delay their acknowledgement of what's happening. A sort of "this can't actually be what's happening, there's too many people here." It would make for an interesting contrast with most horror films, where you have the opposite, a small, closed-off group and/or place that the larger world never learns about, which is scary for its own reasons but also exceedingly common.

Which isn't to say it shouldn't have been cheezy and have corny jokes in it, too. If anything I think the contrast there would've been great.

Right, a longer version of my post would've said that a good writer can make anything work, and I certainly would welcome such a thing. But my cynical side was imagining all the ways I would hate a (presumably poorly-made) straight-faced version of this. (see: any exorcism film from the past 20 years)

So the cheezy approach wasn't the only option, but it was the option I expected and the one I felt like the trailer adequately prepared me for.

Yes. By a substantial margin. It doesn’t even have the craft to prop up its flaccid husk of pastiche.

Dastmalchian is very good though.

I don't think Dastmalchian was good, but a lot of that very well could have to do with how bad the script was. How unbelievably bad.


But at least you understand that it is worse than the other worst movie ever made though. Your soul has been saved.


For now!

I think as a riff on that era and the zeitgeist of the 70s, it was absolutely spot-on. It definitely brought back a lot of (mostly) happy memories.

It seems like a lot of people who are posting about it in the last week or so only watched it on Shudder; I think the experience of watching it in the theater with an audience absolutely elevated it and created a truly unique experience: a riff on watching late-night TV that could be shared with an appreciative audience in the theater.

The audience reaction alone probably makes it a whole lot more fun in the theater than it probably is watching it at home (individually or with a few other folks).

I think it was a very low budget movie. The lead character's suit didn't even fit well. I disagree with Captain Terror, I too enjoyed it, but I thought it took itself somewhat seriously as satire. I just didn't like that they did the Amazing Randi dirty. He was a charming guy, not like the de-bunker in the movie. I thought it was intentional that the producer looked like Hyde from that Seventies show. It's not saying anything to deep. Just that everything is in our culture is evil.

I think you're probably right - and it's amazing what a huge hit it has been at the box-office - it has made well over $10 million worldwide.

I mean, for a low-budget Australian movie, without any major stars, I think that's really amazing.

He kept me watching (along with the peculiar performance of the possessed girl) while the filmmaking was letting me down.

I went in with a lot of good will due to seeing him in a lead role and appreciating the concept. Even came away thinking I liked it a little when I turned it off and went to bed. That it was entertaining enough and it was merely disappointment on my end due to the hype. But it sours more the further I get from it.

I simply can’t abide that there’s not an ounce of verisimilitude to the concept nor a sense of effort to deliver anything beyond the premise itself. The look is wrong, the CG effects are terrible and jarringly out of place, the b&w behind the scenes footage are a lazy out when the concept breaks, and completely giving up on the format in the final act is something I haven’t seen since the Pyramid (a much worse film but at least it has an Anubis).

Just a thoroughly broken film.

Unlike Baby Driver. Which coasts on a thin concept through the sheer power Wright’s virtuoso filmmaking.

At the very least, when it comes to Conjuring or Babydriver or even Malignant, as much as those movies are not for me, if I squint a little, I understand why some people might respond well to that kind of trash.


But this one just seemed like amateur hour. The kind of thing I might be more willing to champion, if it also wasn't so lifeless and goofy and consistently unfunny when it tried to be funny. I literally have no idea what these average movie goers and critics are talking about when they call it tense or disturbing or whip smart or well made. It just seems like such a colossal failure that I for once should be on the same side as the dummy critics. But these dummy critics just keep outfoxing me with this ninja level terrible taste they have.


At least Captain Terror has the decency to claim he didn't take any of it seriously. That it was just a goofy good time. Like, I still don't think it passes muster when we even lower the bar that low, but I at least grasp that. I remember once being hungover and enjoying Deuce Bigelow in the middle of the afternoon one day. We all have our bad moments in movie watching.


But for anyone who takes this absolute pile of low rent nonsense seriously, I've got a bunch of horror scripts I can scribble out in ten minutes that I want to sell you.


Once again, critics do not know how to rate horror (or at least, they do it even worse than everything else they do badly)

The critical consensus makes a little bit of sense when you realize that Dastmalchian has developed something of a cult following via constant promotion and podcast appearances, which have ingratiated him to them by the simple virtue of being genuinely good guy and affable weirdo. Folks are rooting for him. I’ve seen Rian Johnson place himself in a similar role.

The critical consensus also makes sense because it's a good, fun movie to watch. I don't think anyone has suggested it is the greatest horror movie ever made, but if you went to the theater looking for something more original than the average American horror film, this move was just a lot of fun to watch and people in the theater had a lot of fun.

The audience reaction really made it a lot of fun, unfortunately folks watching this at home aren't getting the benefit of the audience reactions.