Today's film: well. No matinees that suited - all films left that I haven't seen are for a MUCH younger demographic. So I broke it to my mother that it'd have to be an early-evening film. So she'd have to do without me for a few hours in the evening. Now, going on IMDB ratings, the top two films in the area are - films I'm just not interested in. Third up is The Courier, a Cold War spy film with Benedict Cumberbatch - but the showings are later than I'd hoped, heading towards the 7pm mark.
Would you believe, next on the list was a horror film! The Night House has a rating of 6.9, which is much higher than horror films typically reach.. Rebecca Hall is a young woman whose husband inexplicably committed suicide. She seeks meaning behind what happened by going through his things, in the lake house he built for her. Things get weird. Watch some pretty scary trailers, you'll see what I mean.. I'm not going to give anything away, I'll just say that it reminds me of a seriously weird book I read, whose name escapes me, which was recommended on a list of scariest books of all time. The subject was a house of multiple dimensions.. I booked that film, at the Omniplex.
Ah, it was really nice to have a relaxing afternoon, not rushing to do anything - I even got some overdue work done! Headed off in good time, and had time to run to Tesco before it started. No annoying usher to greet me this time, and I made my own way to the screen, taking my seat, dead centre. 10 seats had been blocked off around me - three back and front, and two to each side. Not that that stopped a couple who came in slightly late taking seats right in front of me - or another couple of girls taking seats in the row in front of them. Nor the teenage girls, probably below the film's age rating, who snuck in after a while - although one jumped up and nearly left at a scary scene, both eventually left during a quiet bit, after deciding that it wasn't thrilling enough.
Sure enough, it's a slow burner: although I did enjoy the scene where the young widow returns to work - she's a teacher - just in time for the end of the school year. She's been sleeping badly, and dozes off in her classroom mid-afternoon, to be awakened by a mother who's come to discuss her son's grade. She can't initially remember who he is, but it comes to her that this student never submitted his final assignment - hence the low grade. The mother explains that he did, on the last day of teaching - the widow explains that she was out that day, for personal reasons. "You know what?", she says, "Let's just excuse him." She ups his grade to a B. The mother protests that that's not why she came - the teacher calls her on it. "That's not why you came?" The mother starts to say that she just wanted to know.. the teacher interrupts her to tell her that on that particular day, her husband blew his brains out. The mother is shocked. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know." "Yes, that's why it's a personal reason." Yeah, something like that is a handy way to get around annoying parents (said the ex-teacher).. It's about the only way of doing it. I'd hate to be in the business again.
Rebecca Hall does a really good job of being almost the scariest person in the film - intense throughout, she's impatient with people tiptoeing around her, and alienates most of her friends that way. Finding some weird stuff among her husband's belongings, she is determined to get to the truth - well, she does that and more. The "night house" of the title isn't actually the house she's living in - it's one across the lake, whose lights she can see at night, and which turns out to be a mirror image of her own! Funny though, it's almost impossible to find in daylight, and when she eventually does, it's a ruin..
It's actually a really well-made film, with a coherent plot and some absolutely kickass special effects, the likes of which I haven't seen before. Some genuine jump scares, mostly flagged in the trailers. But it seems to shy away from truly scaring the audience, apart from a couple of scenes. What a missed opportunity.. I can only hope to see this level of originality in SFX in horror films from here out.
Back to my mother's again, and the evening film on tv was Spanglish, in which a wealthy couple, Adam Sandler and Téa Leoni, hire a Mexican housekeeper who doesn't speak any English. The wife, here, is a real problem - demented, probably bipolar, flying into panic attacks for no reason, rapid bouts of depression, fits of manic behaviour. Her husband is a mild-mannered chap who's stressed out from having to handle her, and is protecting their daughter from her as much as he can. It's no wonder that he falls for the more level-headed housekeeper.
It's enjoyable enough - the problem is that it takes nearly 2.5 hours to resolve itself. Which is easily more than an hour too long for something with so basic a plot. Things happen REALLY slowly in this film - to the extent that I got bored waiting for anything much to happen, and started reading the paper. When I checked in, every now and again, it was to discover that I could pick up anything I'd missed in under a minute. Yawn - where were the scissors when they were editing this? For a comedy, it also has few laughs. I like Adam Sandler, I liked the plot - I just couldn't have stuck giving it my full attention for that long.
Well, on Saturday I guess I'll try the car guy again for valeting - which means I'll be sourcing a film in Ennis. Whatever that might be..
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