Don’t get the love

I’ve become a big Polanski fan but this one didn’t work for me.

It was reasonably entertaining and amusing but for a ‘comedy’ it was light on laughs, too goofy, like it was aiming at a child audience (except with indulgent shots of Sharon Tate bathing and getting spanked)

The constant dubbing really threw me off, it just makes everything weird and artificial, and it was often hard to make out what the hell people were saying. The Tenant had some dubbing but not nearly as egregious.

The pacing was slow and because it was goofy you could never really invest in the characters or story. Polanski is better at making serious films with a dose of humour added in, as exemplified by his follow-up project - the masterpiece that is Rosemary’s Baby.

Where the film worked was in atmosphere once the action moved to the castle, and an appropriately Polanski ending.

I was shocked to see this had 7.0 on IMDB, I’d give it 5.8 max.