So let's do "Get Out" first.
Back in the 80's, I think, Anthony Perkins got to direct another movie after "Psycho III." I read about this movie, but never saw it. It was called "Lucky Stiff," I think, and it was about a beautiful blonde woman(Donna Dixon, then and now Mrs. Dan Ackroyd...HE's the lucky stiff) who romances an extremely overweight man and takes him home to meet her family.
Who turn out to be cannibals.
Ha ha. "Lucky Stiff" was no horror comedy classic, evidently, and didn't contribute to Anthony Perkins career very much (though he landed the Ackroyds as deathbed friends helping his family through Perkins death in 1992.)
At a certain point in "Get Out," I started thinking about "Lucky Stiff," even having not seen it. Pretty girl(white) gets black boyfriend. Takes home to meet family. Hmmm...
Now wait. That's "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." But "Get Out" opens with a scare scene and sets its thriller tone early on. You just KNOW things are going to get creepy. You just KNOW the black guy(who is NOT overweight -- he's quite handsome and trim and bright and witty) is going to come to some sort of potential bad end at the hands of these affluent whites who live all alone in the woods, miles away from anyone else...
"Lucky Stiff" is too obscure a reference, I think, so suffice it to say that "Get Out" eventually picks up a Rosemary's Baby vibe(a group of mainly elderly white folks -- and one Asian! -- come to a "meet and greet" party at which they size the protagonist up in scary ways.) And a "Stepford Wives" vibe (Hey wait -- Ira Levin wrote BOTH Rosemary's Baby AND "Stepford Wives.") And even an Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein vibe. (Recall how Dracula wanted to put Costello's brain in Frankie's skull.)
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ecarle (14979)
7 years ago
There's also a borderline "Manchurian Candidate" vibe, what with an evil mother using mind control techniques on her victims.
But she's also HYPNOTIZING them (our hero in particular), and I can't help recall what Hitchcock told Truffaut about why he dropped a film of "The Three Hostages":
"The story depended on a person being hypnotized, and I just don't think you can do hypnosis on the screen and it holds water. The audience doesn't believe it."
Or something like that.
Ya know what? Hitchcock was right.
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I expect that young audiences have little to no knowledge of Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives, A/C Meet Frankie, or certainly Lucky Stiff. So the box office has been good and so were many of the reviews.
Not to mention: the RACE thing. It can be said that "Get Out" uses familiar horror tropes to investigate how African-American's feel around Euro-Americans, and gets a great deal of discomfort out of the mutual distrust that can exist today. And the villains' villainy ends up being quite strange, indeed. Recall that the Stepford Husbands wanted as wives, Playboy Playmates with servile housewife skills. THAT was pretty bad, but THIS is worse.
The tension runs high in "Get Out," more of it earlier rather than later before things get too familiar. But I felt it had a nice little twist at the end(how it looks like it is GOING to end isn't how it DOES end -- I'm talking about the police car.) And many Hitchcockian suspense techniques are used, none better than when our hero's friend -- suspecting kidnapping -- goes to the police with his tale and gets laughed at. "They don't believe me!"-- the greatest suspense gimmick in the world. Well, one of them.
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ecarle (14979)
7 years ago
Demerits: one key reveal about a character is handled so bluntly and clumsily that I took it as kind of a joke: "We're not going to waste time setting up this plot twist item, we'll just have somebody leave the big reveal answer lying around for easy reading." The comic tone that competes with suspense in "Get Out" suggests this isn't bad writing...just joke writing.
I hope.
Next up: Split.
The Hitchcock roots are deep here: split personality. Here we go. But Kevin's got 23 of 'em! They come in various ages, sexes and temperments, and one of them is REALLY SCARY: The Beast (a physical change occurs that I liken to the werewolf bit in American Werewolf in London.)
I expect that James McAvoy will get serious Oscar consideration for his personality switches (Norman Bates will be avenged again if he does.) But honestly, I found the pile on of different personalities...coupled with the same old/same old "girls held captive in underground windowless rooms" motif (hey there Cloverfield WHATEVER) terribly familiar and grinding.
I've spoken before to my problem with movies that are "too suspenseful." This is such a one: trapped with three terrified girls(well, one has more going on) in a pit that brings back memories of Silence of the Lambs along with everything else. I kept waiting for something major to happen that would be different than expected but...alas, no.
There's even a nod to the film version of Stephen Kings Misery when an "outside" character finally comes into the villain's lair and discovers one of the captured girls. Its Richard Farnsworth finding James Caan...but with perhaps a more sad and sickening end for the would-be rescuer. (This traces back to Arbogast as well, of course.)
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ecarle (14979)
7 years ago
SPOILER
Split doesn't end with a big twist like most M. Night movies (The Sixth Sense, Signs) but it ends with "something big": the outta nowhere introduction, for one shot, and one line, of Bruce Willis in his Unbreakable role, saying "They called him Mr. Glass."
Whoa.
Its a nice kicker of an ending...something I've never seen before. Better for me: Unbreakable is my favorite M. Night film and to see that he will get to sequel this one COUPLED with a sequel for "Split." Well, that's somehow a creative way of being uncreative. Sequelling movies made 17 years apart TOGETHER?
I'm there. Note in passing: well before the Willis reveal, the music from "Unbreakable" comes on the soundtrack. I recognized it as something that moved me and that I knew from somewhere. Once Willis turned up...bingo.
All the punch of "Split" is in its last minute.
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