Anyone Else Think This Movie Sucks?

I don't believe either watched the same movie I did----this is a classic,it's scary,and it's not a damn SAW ripoff, and it definitely isn't "overlong, messy, bloated, and way overrated" the way you claim it is. Sounds like you just hate the film because it's cool to hate it, that 's all!

I like this movie, and in no way do I pretend it is perfect as it is not, nor would I try to talk anyone else into liking it but so many of your comments/observations do not make any sense to me that I wanted to comment or ask what exactly you mean by some of this stuff.

1. "this was a 'horror' movie for people who HATE horror movies. It's a facsimile of what someone who REALLY doesn't like or even 'understand' horror or ghost stories would make; it's bloodless, devoid of tension, has no REAL atmosphere of dread or helplessness..."

I don't really get this at all. Horror is my favorite genre and I really like this movie. I do not, however, consider it a horror movie. I am not arguing how it was marketed, I am just saying I do not consider this a horror movie and it is not in the horror section on my DVD shelf. I saw it in the theater and it was pretty much what I expected it to be, so I don't recall thinking the ads were misleading or anything like that but it was 13 years ago, so I also will not pretend to remember precisely what the ads were like.

As far as being bloodless...so what? Gore and blood does not make a movie horrific or scary. Two of the scariest horror movies I have ever seen have just about no blood in them at all. Although, again, I do not consider this a horror flick. Devoid of tension and atmosphere...I guess that's a matter of opinion.


2. "witness the 'dead body' of the murder victim - it is perfectly preserved and with the trendy clothes it is draped in, look like it's ready for a photo shoot!"

The body was rotted. I don't know what you are talking about when you say it was ready for a photo shoot. The only time the body turned fully "normal" was after it was drifting away after the struggle and that was not really what it looked like in reality, that was just supposed to be symbolic or whatever you want to call it. It is shown at various stages of rot from beginning to end but that's about as close as one can get to saying it was perfectly preserved and again, the segments where it appeared preserved or normal were not "real." As far as the clothes--well the body was strapped/lodged in place, it was not bouncing around the ocean getting hammered and beat up. And even so, the clothes were not pristine as you imply, until the shot of the body drifting away after the struggle, as already discussed.


3. "As opposed to Stir Of Echoes which was released one year earlier, and better in every respect to this movie, but had NO big pretty-looking stars, a believable run-down and grim urban environment, a scary rotting corpse for a ghost"

SoE is one of my all-time favorite ghost movies, but your statement about the ghost being a scary rotting corpse is just flat out untrue. The ghost was just that of a girl who looked pale and had somewhat dark circles under her eyes. She was absolutely in no way rotting, decomposing, wasting or anything like that, you are just completely wrong, so either your memory fails you or you are deliberately making a false statement in order to make your argument seem more valid. I don't know which it is, but the statement is inaccurate and that is a fact, not a matter of opinion.


4. "At NO time in this movie's running length did I feel that the main heroine was in any kind of danger at all."

She was never in danger until the end so I don't know why anyone would feel that way anyway. The presence of a ghost automatically means there is danger and threat of violence or death against the hero/heroine by said ghost? At no time did the ghost ever try to harm her, that was never her intent; she was trying to communicate with her, not hurt her. Sounds like maybe you yourself do not "understand" ghost stories. I would be scared to death if I saw a ghost, but that would be the case even if it was not intending to hurt or threaten me. The only individual who wanted to hurt her was the human villain and even that was only in the end when he felt he had no other choice, not through the rest of the movie. If you truly never felt she was in danger by him in the end even as she sat immobilized, by his hand, drowning in a tub, then I guess that can be chalked up to either you being so disengaged by the time it reached that point (which is fair, I mean if you didn't like it then you didn't like it) that you simply checked out and didn't care or you already figured the bad guy won't win and she will be okay (also fair, because that is usually what happens) and therefore just didn't buy into it at all.


5. "everyone involved thinks that they're involved in some innovative, ground-breaking piece of cinema - especially the director, who compared this movie to something Hitchcock would do now..."

I do recall being really irritated at the commentary on the dvd, and I do remember the director being kind of arrogant over this film and having it turn me off a bit, so I am not arguing that, nor am I arguing that it was groundbreaking. And I agree that the director comparing himself to Hitchcock was silly. Kind of reminds me of when that crap band Oasis said they would be bigger than the Beatles, the band they were clearly trying to imitate. Even so, I don't think this is a crap movie.


Again, everyone is entitled to his opinion, no arguments here but some of the things you point out are just flat out untrue and some other things you point out really sound to me like they are coming from someone who is saying that this movie is made for and by people who don't understand horror or ghost stories yet himself does not seem to "understand" those things either.



"It's Minnie Pearl's murder weapon."

OMG....the dead body in the ocean isFord pinned down, in thecwaterot normally "perfectly preserved". She's rotted put. HOWEVER, whenever Claire was in danger, she more or less came to life, in order to save Claire from her husband. She actually had be one C L aire's pritectrice, from the beginning. She "became decrepit" once agsin, only AFTER she was able to keep Harrison Ford in the water, and allow Claire to swim up and escape to safety.

I thought this movie was very well made. Yes, it's a horror, slight fantasy/supernatural/spirit - world mystery, but it was very well made. With all the TECHNICALCGI/slash'em-up crap that's made, and Batmans, and other crap, this film is WAAAAYYYY better.

thank you for this thread, I enjoy What lies Beneath but completely forgot Stir of Echoes.