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March 29, 2024, 09:02:04 AM

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Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)

Started by Small Man Big Horse, August 25, 2019, 09:50:34 PM

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Small Man Big Horse

Co-written by Guillermo del Toro and from Troll Hunter director André Øvredal this was a bit of a disappointment really. It's not a terrible movie by any means but a distinctly average one, as a bunch of kids back in 1968 discover a haunted house and a book of scary stories written by a long dead woman, and suddenly new ones foretelling their deaths start appearing. There's a few cute moments but it's easily half an hour too long (despite only being 108 minutes) and oddly bloodless, with one of the monsters in it bizarrely laughable, and I expected better given those involved. 5.4/10

BritishHobo

I'd agree it felt a little long, and there were a few clunky bits of dialogue, but I really appreciated the touches throughout attempting to say something slightly bigger about America of that era - Reagan and Vietnam. I also liked the Yellow Wallpaper-esque twist regarding the main villain - that reveal and the chase through the house were very effectively claustrophobic to me..

I think my tolerance for it is because I went in expecting a fairly kid-oriented film. Being based on a series of kid's books, I was expecting something a bit Goosebumps. I didn't actually realise it was a 15 until the mad straw bit. So I was in a more forgiving mood. But I do appreciate that it at least tried to have something to say. And I thought that hospital bit was great. The fat old woman looked comically gormless, but the oncoming nature of her, pressing in from all directions, that really got to me in a way nothing has in horror in a while.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: BritishHobo on August 25, 2019, 10:17:43 PM
I'd agree it felt a little long, and there were a few clunky bits of dialogue, but I really appreciated the touches throughout attempting to say something slightly bigger about America of that era - Reagan and Vietnam. I also liked the Yellow Wallpaper-esque twist regarding the main villain - that reveal and the chase through the house were very effectively claustrophobic to me..

I think my tolerance for it is because I went in expecting a fairly kid-oriented film. Being based on a series of kid's books, I was expecting something a bit Goosebumps. I didn't actually realise it was a 15 until the mad straw bit. So I was in a more forgiving mood. But I do appreciate that it at least tried to have something to say. And I thought that hospital bit was great. The fat old woman looked comically gormless, but the oncoming nature of her, pressing in from all directions, that really got to me in a way nothing has in horror in a while.

I guess I feel a bit frustrated as the first 45 minutes are pretty fun, I liked the way they set the story up and the scarecrow bit with Tommy was fun, but then it slowed down a bit too much after the bit with the spiders (which I did like) and there was a bit too much filler. I was actually surprised it was only an hour and 48 minutes too, it felt longer, and the fat old woman bit just didn't work for me, but the person I was with liked it a lot so I guess it's a "Your Mileage May Vary" kind of situation. The ending was decent enough at least, and I was amused by the weird creature with detachable body parts.

Noodle Lizard

I thought it was fine, could've been a lot worse, and there were some decent enough scary bits.  Like British Hobo, I was under the impression that it was based on a kids horror thing like Goosebumps, so was quite surprised by how grim some of it was.

To disagree with you, though, I thought the crowbarring in of Nixon and vague shit about Vietnam was embarrassing.  There's a tendency now to inject some sort of social/political commentary into anything set in the past, but in cases like this it felt properly superfluous.  Haven't read the books, mind you, but it feels like a Hollywood addition.

BritishHobo

It's possible that was another side-effect of expecting a fairly kid-focused film. I appreciate ambition and attempts to say something in films that you expect to be generic, even if it doesn't totally work. It felt genuine to me, just an attempt to reflect some real issues of that era rather than pass off a generic nostalgia-fest. And I think it dovetailed nicely into the actual themes of the main story.

A weird parallel if like me or SMBH you saw this and Crawl is that both films have a major emotional moment right before the climax, where the female protagonist's emotionally distant father tells her tearfully that she isn't to blame for her mother leaving, and must let go of the guilt - it's just that life is complicated, and the mother wasn't happy. I like catching daft bits of uncanny symmetry like that.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: BritishHobo on September 03, 2019, 11:09:18 PM
It's possible that was another side-effect of expecting a fairly kid-focused film. I appreciate ambition and attempts to say something in films that you expect to be generic, even if it doesn't totally work. It felt genuine to me, just an attempt to reflect some real issues of that era rather than pass off a generic nostalgia-fest. And I think it dovetailed nicely into the actual themes of the main story.

A weird parallel if like me or SMBH you saw this and Crawl is that both films have a major emotional moment right before the climax, where the female protagonist's emotionally distant father tells her tearfully that she isn't to blame for her mother leaving, and must let go of the guilt - it's just that life is complicated, and the mother wasn't happy. I like catching daft bits of uncanny symmetry like that.

I saw both on the same day within a few hours of each other, so it was indeed a day of emotionally distant dad's finally doing right by their offspring!