Verhoeven Club - Hollow Man

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May as well get a thread going...


Master Thread here: https://www.movieforums.com/communit...ad.php?t=48644


Hollow Man is the Movie Of The Month for the Verhoeven Club, well technically till April 30th to round it all up to month's end so we can then do Paul's other movies.


There's also not an actual Hollow Man Thread on MoFo either so basically you can use this thread as well for all other Hollow Man talk



Watching right now... you could say that the film is a slasher, rather than a straight up horror... yet slashers don't often delve into the point of view of the antagonist.


With this film there's a dual side to things throughout acts one and two.
It's not shown directly and only from the point of view of Sebastian or from only the point of view of Linda (Shue) and the rest of the crew.
Sebastian's character is set up... he's a genius level egotist... calls himself God... thinks of himself as a lady's man... has buckets of confidence...
The others, all have treatments to make them slightly different, but, well, they are just there.


Then, Sebastian's confidence leads him to lie to the bosses... and ends up in the situation he's in: Invisible, with no way back... and only the crew of lesser scientists to rely on.
After the viewer sees what happened to Isabelle the Gorilla's behaviour, Sebastian starts showing the same aggression.
You witness his downward spiral into madness, and internal suffering, frustration, which he keeps from the others.


The rest of the crew, have to work this out from various odd things that are happening around the bunker... and the viewer goes through that discovery with them.
The horror of what Sebastian is becoming may not be a surprise to the viewer as they have been watching it and screaming at the screen "it's Sebastian!" whenever something odd happens... but it's still a journey of discovery as you're now seeing how the others are uncovering his various adventures and mischiefs... then by the third act when Sebastian changes all the codes and shuts off outside phonelines, the viewer and the other characters all realise at the same time that Sebastian has now reached critical madness.
The "Oh sh*t" moment.


It's like the movie shows both sides in acts one and two... then in the third act becomes a rollercoaster in which neither side of the story is shown to the viewer, and has to play out in sequence, revealing itself to the viewer and the characters at the same time... making it exciting in a "what will Sebastian do next?" sort of way.


Most horrors don't do this... In past horror movies and slashers like, say, Halloween, Scream, or Friday The 13th, we see things from the protagonists' point of view only.
Running, hiding, fighting... then they discover, along with the viewer, some sort of backstory which explains to an extent why these things are happening.
Hollow Man, I think, isn't as revered as other slasher movies simply because it has a different layout to the screenplay.



Not great. Memorable images. I had fun with it.



Well, Verhoeven himself did bash the movie, and then returned to the Netherlands.
His own words were that "anyone could have made Hollow Man".


I agree to an extent... it's not a "Verhoeven" movie in the sense that Hollow Man lacks the satirical edge and the taboo subjects that most of his other movies are packed with.
I called it an anti-RoboCop the other day... simply because it is almost an exact opposite to RoboCop. Less violence, less gore, less comic in style, less satire... but the same basic premise of a guy who undergoes a body transformation and deals with it in his own way... and again, like polar opposites, Robo deals with it in a good way, Sebastian in a bad way.

The other thing I spotted with Hollow Man, was the lack of nudity. Verhoeven is renowned for having naked bodies in his films... even when Kevin Bacon gets his kit off, he's always either back-to-camera or covered by a part of the set or cut off at the waist.


Still though, there are a number of things like the sexual violence and certainly the gore... and Hollow Man does have the ultraviolence, albeit in tiny amounts, that you tend to see in bucketloads in his other films.
You can see Verhoeven's fingerprints on the film... but it's certainly a movie that anyone could have made.


I still rate it though.



Hollow Man has a special place in my had, because it was one of the first movies I had on my computer when I was a kid.

The CGI was really cool at the time, and I had always liked Kevin Bacon, so I watched it over and over. It's not a materpiece by any means, but the movie does work quite well in a silly, formulaic way. So yeah, I liked it.

I never considered it to be a slasher or a horror movie though. To me it was always a sci-fi movie with an insane twist.But I didn't like slashers at the time (still don't btw), so maybe I was fond of it because it was in disguise
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Well, Verhoeven himself did bash the movie, and then returned to the Netherlands.
His own words were that "anyone could have made Hollow Man".
I agree with this, too, it's the least Verhoeveny Verhoeven movie I've seen. Seems like a weird choice to kick off discussion about his career

The other thing I spotted with Hollow Man, was the lack of nudity. Verhoeven is renowned for having naked bodies in his films... even when Kevin Bacon gets his kit off, he's always either back-to-camera or covered by a part of the set or cut off at the waist.
Doesn't this movie have a close-up of Kim Dickens' breast being fondled by an invisible hand



Well, there is a couple flashes of nudity in Hollow Man, but the film seems much more held back. It's as though the studio meddled with the movie.
There's a director's cut as well, and there's a couple quick scenes added back in with a few boobs and stuff...



Hellloooo Cindy - Scary Movie (2000)
This is a great idea for a thread, i'm a big Verhoeven fan and look forward to revisiting his other films.
In terms of Hollow man, returning to it since initially watching it at release, I would say it's a good film that turns to a average film in the last third.

Verhoeven, together with cinematographer Jost Vocano and editor Mark Goldblatt really know how to put their visuals together. Checking IMDB they worked together on other Verhoven classics (Showgirls, Basic Instinct, Robocop, Starship Troopers) all which boost A class sensory spectacule. The CGI, barring a few stumbles, does hold up which is an impressive feat given the 17 year old age of the film.

As for the story, what has it asked us? If we look deeper what do we find. On the surface, it may seem the serum physiologically changed Sebastians mind, that as a direct result of the chemical he became a degranged mad man. The aggressive escaped Gorrila may indicate this as it rampages through the halls in one of the first scenes. Or is there more to it. The gorrilla, a captive, isolated, experimented on (tortured). Would it have behaved this way without the serum? Remember the invisible dog, it was docile before its demise, no other animals where shown to exhibit extreme aggression. If it's not the serum, it's must be the power that had been given to the genius deviant Sebastian. Someone who had already exhibited signs of rebellion prior to acquiring this "gift". What would you do? What would you do if you could get away with it?

Themes of jealously, rage, isolation, sexual desire, control and lack of compasssion "animals do die. its simply a fact of life", create a tense theme that goes wayward once all parties return to the lab for the final scenes. I don't know how it could have been done better but whilst the action ramps up, I felt the pace slowing and my attention drifting. A cat and mouse chase with reclyced slasher movie tropes.

There was an underlying intelligence here, the story did make sense even to the end but I wanted more. The violence, the acting, and the visuals I couldn't fault. Not a movie I would recommend for a second viewing though.

3/5



3/5 is actually a fair rating. I can understand why it isn't higher but there was something unhinged aboutvthis film I really dug. It is one of the most uncomfortable "superhero" films I've ever seen.