Reviews

I signed up for AMC+ to watch "Interview With the Vampire" and I'm already regretting it. I knew going in that changes had been made to the story, most notably the race of some characters and also the time period, but I was still not prepared for THIS. The story of an ambitious and well-to-do gay black man in a relationship with a white man in the racist and segregated South could have been compelling enough in its own right. I see no good reason why it had to be shoehorned into Anne Rice's vampire tale. All of the racial aspects of the story, as told in this series, just draw things out and detract from the vampire story which itself feels almost extraneous at this point. I have to remind myself that I'm watching something based on Anne Rice's novel.

For those who are familiar with the book, I have watched up to the episode where we are introduced to Claudia. I was compelled to turn the show off at this point. The character of Claudia was only five years old in Rice's novel and a bit older in the original movie. In this series she looks to be a teenager but still behaves like a whiny, bratty child. It's quite jarring. And annoying. Not really feeling this show. Such a disappointment.

I didn't understand this movie the first time I saw it although I liked the overall mood of it. But then I read an explanation of the movie somewhere (maybe here at IMDb) and it makes perfect sense. SPOILER AHEAD!!!!

After the opening credits with the swing dancers and up to the point where the guy in the cowboy hat says, "Hey pretty girl, time to wake up", you have been watching a DREAM that the main character is having. After she wakes up and the reality of her life is exposed we are shown--in a bit of a non-linear fashion--some of the recent events in her life (and the people involved) that served as material for the dream we have just watched. That's it.

I thought that this was another "Lost Highway", a movie that I have never been able to make sense of, but "Mulholland Drive" turns out to be a lot more straightforward and accessible than it initially seems to be. Once I understood what I was watching I really enjoyed the movie and also appreciated the fact that it tells a very sad story. Don't give up on this movie.

The movie kept hinting at a climax that would take place at or near the grand opening of a new, tallest-in-the-city skyscraper in Center City Philadelphia only to have the big showdown with the three "superheroes" take place in a parking lot about a mile or so from downtown. The whole thing was ridiculous. And boring.

***WEE SPOILERS***Can the people who like this movie please stop assuming that those of us who didn't like it were disappointed because it wasn't a "Dawn of the Dead" or standard slasher type flick. I knew going in that it was going to be no such thing. I stated in an earlier post that it is NOT a zombie movie. And I might add that I WASN'T disappointed that it was not a zombie movie. I found the premise of a virus that reduces people to pure rage far more disturbing than any run of the mill zombie. Also, please stop assuming that we didn't like it because we went in with our brains turned off, ready to be spoon-fed typical horror movie cliches and crap. Finally, stop assuming that we didn't like it because it was shot on digital video and had a "gritty, grainy" look to it rather than the standard Hollywood gloss. I have no problem with that type of "raw" looking photography.

I didn't like this movie because I just didn't like it. I don't think it made the most of its premise; it was poorly paced (which is not to say that I wanted it to be paced like a "Terminator" flick); there were HUGE plot holes, some of which I mention in my earlier post; the characters did things that made no sense (and didn't do things that would have made perfect sense); and the movies central theme about man's capacity for violence and cruelty is not especially earth-shattering. Hasn't anyone ever read or seen "Lord of the Flies"? Finally, beneath the "grit and grain" of the digital video photography there IS a typical Hollywood flick lurking--just a slower paced on. Near the end when Jim finds Selena after his wet, shirtless Rambo-like adventure around the estate they end up embracing and kissing, finally acknowledging their attraction--how cute and romantic and Hollywood. I love the fact that he lunges at her without first reassuring her that he was not infected--this, despite the fact that she is holding a machete and he has previously seen her in action with it.

If you liked this movie that's fine. I would never begrudge anyone something that provided them with enjoyment and food for thought. But we folks who DIDN'T like it weren't necessarily sitting in the theater in a brain-dead stupor waiting for a British version of a Jerry Bruckheimer or Wes Craven movie--which seems to be the prevailing assumption. You are wrong. An actively engaged brain can decide that it likes something or that it doesn't. I, along with others, did not like this movie. That doesn't make me (or them) dolts.

***POSSIBLE SPOILERS*** Some of us plebes munching on popcorn were able to determine that this movie didn't make a lick of sense and that is was not the "horror movie" that the reviews and commercials had promised us. "Scary as hell"??? Huh? "Thinking man's horror movie"??? Puh-leez. First of all, STOP calling it a "zombie movie". There isn't a single zombie in the entire flick. A zombie is a reanimated corpse. The infected victims in this movie don't die and then come back to life; they are simply consumed by an uncontrollable rage. Other "thinking" critics describe the infected as being "zombie cannibals" or "flesh-eating zombies" when it is never established that the infected actually ate human flesh--or ate anything for that matter. They may very well BITE in the same way that a raging dog will but do they even think to eat? Or are they so utterly consumed with rage that they don't notice or recognize hunger? An early scene in which two of the infected are set afire while chasing the protaganist and yet don't waver in their pursuit pretty much establishes that their instinct for self-preservation is gone.

And why don't they attack each other? They seemed to "hunt" in packs which is something that a social animal would do and yet these monsters are infected with a very antisocial rage; a rage so intense that swarms of rats flee the infecteds' approach. Yet the infected operate almost like a gang. People who need people...

As for the film's "man's inhumanity to man" subtext or its exploration of our darker nature and instincts,blah,blah,blah...so what? Haven't you people ever seen a war movie--particularly a Vietnam war movie. These are not new themes and they are not handled with any real panache or originality in this movie. And why do the people in this movie assume that the virus has gone global and that there is "no future". It would be next to impossible for a virus that manifests itself quite vividly within seconds to jump from an island nation like Great Britain to "Paris and New York". Only one character in the entire movie questions the possibility of this and he is a minor character who is chained to a radiator, ignored, and eventually killed. The predicament of the two female characters, who are surrounded by men, hinges on this perception of "no future". It is a perception that the movie failed to acutely convey, in my opinion and I couldn't understand why the characters seemed to have a last-people-on-earth mentality. It seemed inevitable that some "uninfected" country would eventually come to the rescue--as they in fact do. In the meantime, the "infected" become almost peripheral to the numbing story that is being told and I can't figure out for the life of me what people found so scary about this movie. Spare us the sequel.