Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

Yah, I think this is the basic thing that should be taken from the film. While this is the type of movie that really isn't meant for me, there is value in having a purely Hollywood type crowd pleaser that I don't find obnoxiously terrible. It of course doesn't reinvent the wheel, but that's because it's more about reminding you what a wheel could once do and that we now take for granted.


There is also a glimmer of hope that this may make studios more aware of the value of practical effects and actually having real people do real things on camera. I'm not going to hold my breath, but if this philosophy can now be brought back to a lot of mainstream films, maybe there is even more value here than the actual quality of the film (which, ultimately, I found to be average with some good moments)


EDIT: And it also should be added that my criticisms towards this film (mainly, that I don't like stock characters and I found it emotionally manipulative in ways that generally annoy me) are entirely fine for what this movie wants to do. I don't think nuance or any kind of artistic or narrative complications would serve any great purpose here. They would make it less the movie that it probably should be, even if that would make it appeal to me more.

I will add that McQuarrie’s direction is a huge part of why the film works as well as it does. The guy gets the basics of directing clean, sturdy, concrete action in a way that increasingly few directors do, and I think that approach pays dividends when paired with the scale and audacity of the action sequences here and in the last Mission Impossible movie.

I'd say McQuarrie's writing, too. And yeah, as I watching I thought "he basically just did a third of a Mission: Impossible movie." The heist's just in the air.

Any good?

It's hard not to feel it's chomping at the same bit as Berberian Sound Studios, and a few other movies I can't place at the moment. But it's definitely worth watching and I liked it a lot.

lol turns out it was directed by Joseph Kosinski, not Christopher McQuarrie. The point still stands though.

Yeah, I think the existence of BSS by a decade and the fact this one felt like it went a more conventional route (or more expected route) towards the end made me receive it less enthusiastically than what I'd have liked, but I'd still recommend it as something people should watch.

I think I'm in love with Strange Behavior.

I have to admit, after I finished it and thought it was a clunker, the further and further I got away from it, I have wondered more and more, if there's a viewing angle that could really make this one shine.

It seems like every new person who watches it likes it a little more. We need one other person to watch it and declare it their favourite movie.

It's very much calibrated to my frequency. Just such a quietly weird and baffling thing. It's not the sort of film I think I could ever recommend to anyone, at least not beyond myself for a second viewing.

I haven't seen Strange Behavior in a while (and apparently didn't rate it on IMDb), but I remember my reaction being positive.

Two of my favourite things about Legend of Boggy Creek


1) When during one of the climactic bigfoot attacks, our trusty narrator explains this particular night of horror built to many flower pots being smashed. And we don't even get to see that! Clearly many flowerpots were not going to be within budget.


2) "Fouke-boys"


This is basically a really unique take on a monster film. Reducing horror to what seems mostly like a nature documentary, where occassionally a big hairy and hulking shape can be seen standing off in the distance. This is almost enough to carry the entire film. Almost.



Being a Canuck, I couldn't not think of these the entire time I was watching.





3.5/5

Pierce took Val Lewton's "less is more " philosophy to its logical conclusion, where less becomes less again.

The opening scene before the credits is legit fantastic. Not that anything happens. Of course. But who cares.


And the whole first half hour, as it just starts recounting stories, works amazingly well.


Even when it starts getting samey as it goes along, simply how it keeps the film focused on these usually inconseqential sightings of Big Foot is almost startling as you come to realize that this is just the movie.


And then it even had the good manners to give us a climax and conclusion.



To me it's an almost great movie. I really can't think of anything else like it, beyond those Ontario Hinterland who's who commercials that haunted Canadian brains all through the 80s.

Correct

If you ever scroll through reviews of this film you'll find lots of "it scared me when I was a kid" comments. That was the case for me as well, but it's not very helpful to mention that to someone who's watching it for the first time in their adulthood so I try to avoid doing that.
But one thing that I do think is important is that I didn't really approach it as a scary movie back then. As far as I was concerned this was just an extended episode of Leonard Nimoy's In Search Of TV show. It was being presented to me as fact which was much creepier than watching a guy in a suit chasing victims around the woods. Even as a kid I laughed at that kind of thing. So it's hard to predict how an adult in 2022 who presumably doesn't believe in Sasquatch is going to react, so I'm pleased to hear that you appreciate the novelty of the approach at least.

That's for sure.

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I can definitely see it as being frightening for a child, even for one who naturally gravitates towards horror and the weird as I did. There is something about the scenes where he is just standing a little ways away and watching that would be particularly effective