legostargalactica wrote:rkolter wrote:I like M. Night Sham's works. I don't care if I don't react the way he wants me to react.
I seem to like every other work of his, cause I liked sixth sense, and signs, but not unbreakable or the village. this prediction implies i will like his next film, we shall see.
Shalaman amuses me to no end. I consider "Signs" one of the most ridiculously bad films in recent years. His atmosphere simply doesn't work for me, and once you strip it off that atmosphere that everyone talks about, you are left with story full of gaping plot holes (that he later claims were intentional) and scenes stolen from here and there and placed with no purpose. That's too bas, "Signs" really have a good idea with making supernatural things appear in the corners of the eye and all, but for that you have to be subtle, and having kids standing in the middle of the corn field and staring hollowly - is not subtle.
And anyways that was no reason to leave the story so hollow. Filmmaking is the serious and well-payed job, you can't just skip essential parts of that process claiming that they aren't so important for your vision.
What is worse is that after he was criticized for that in "Signs", he went and repeated it in "Village".
Incidentally I curiously didn't watch "Sixth sence" yet. Maybe some day, to see if it's any better than the last two.
...I like them and watch them a lot...but there are very few that are actually that good. Even some of the "greats" in the genre aren't that great.
Horror is pretty much a thing of fanbase. There are more cult films in horror than in any other genre. I respect good exploitation films because I respect devotion and passion that usually stands behind them, and that includes horror. But if we were talking about something of a "Citizen Kane" reign, well, I wouldn't put most of those films in the same range.
But there are still great horror films, and some of them are greatest films of all times. When an author moves from the pure intention to scare you and moves to the questions of why something scares you, why scary things attract you, etc, then we can talk about great films. That happens often but I think that, like with many other genres (particulary SF), great directors don't limit themselves to a genre, so when they make a horror film, that film doesn't fit perfectly into the genre mold, so it slips out of view when talking about genre.
But here you have it: "Cabinet of Doctor Calligary", "Nosferatu", "Freaks", "Psycho", "Birds", "Peeping tom", "Don't look now", "Rosemary's baby", "Shining"... Some of the greatest films of all times by any standard.
Altered States, also by Russel, is a fun one, though it is perhaps a touch more sci-fi than horror (lots of drug-induced hallucinations in this one too).
Ooo, I liked that film. I was actually on the edge of the seat while watching that film, some of halucinations were rather scary.
I freaked out.
