Movie rental tip - Close Your Eyes (& The Exorcist III!)

[rrmorton]

New on DVD and worth a rent:



Fans of creepy, occult, gruesome serial killer thrillers might want to check this movie out. It got really mixed reviews but Ebert & Roeper were enthusiastic about it so I gave it a shot and enjoyed the heck out of it.

Goran Visnjic of ER fame plays a hypnotist who reluctantly gets involved in a police investigation into some occult child murders. As he gets deeper and deeper into the mystery, he gets haunted by evil visions, pursued by creepy stalkers, and winds up putting his family in danger. Miranda "Eowyn" Otto plays his wife and Paddy "the Father from In America" Considine has a small role as a wargaming/modelling enthusiast who helps with the investigation.

Close Your Eyes has hints of Silence of the Lambs, Angel Heart, The DaVinci Code, but most of all, it's very reminiscent of The Exorcist III which is more than enough to recommend it if you've seen that movie. Yeah, you know what I'm talkin' about...

<SCREECH SCREECH>

<SCREECH SCREECH!>

Close Your Eyes is not a great movie but if you keep your expectations modest, you'll have a grisly good time.

[Asharak]

Sometimes, Rob, you recommend weird things.

Since your recommendation was genre-specific, and I'm not fond of the genre, I'm gonna pass. But I'm glad you enjoyed it.

- Ash

[triggercut]

Ooh! Cool.

I'll give it a spin, looks interesting enough to me, and that screen shot is just *creepy*.

Sometimes, Rob, you recommend weird things.

Since your recommendation was genre-specific, and I'm not fond of the genre, I'm gonna pass. But I'm glad you enjoyed it.

- Ash

Are you just padding your post count?

[rrmorton]

I know I wasn't very clear in my initial post but that image is from The Exorcist III, not Close Your Eyes. But if that means you haven't seen ExIII then consider this a great double feature rental tip!

By the way, your excellent Gravest Hits mix is playing in the background as I type this. Echo & the Bunnymen to be exact.

[Freezer-TPF-]

Which Echo song? The Killing Moon?

[triggercut]

Which Echo song? The Killing Moon?

Of course!

[triggercut]

Allrighty. Got some friends over, and we're about to make a movie run. The idea this Halloween: movies none of us have seen before. Lets out a lot of old favorites, y'know?

CLOSE YOUR EYES: on the list.
EXORCIST III: on the list, though I remain dubious. I've never seen any good impressions of any of the Exorcist movies save the original. You havin' me on, Morton?

Finally, the one I think I'm most excited for: THE DEVILS BACKBONE. Spanish movie, directed by Guillermo Del Toro.

[rrmorton]

Regarding The Exorcist III, I think it's got more than enough going for it to recommend it as a fun rental. Vincent Canby said in the NY Times back in 1990:

This may sound like heresy, but ''The Exorcist III'' is a better and funnier (intentionally) movie than either of its predecessors. That's admitted by someone who was not keen on William Friedkin's original ''Exorcist,'' a huge box-office hit in 1973, and who thought that the barrel's bottom had been scraped by John Boorman, who was responsible for ''The Exorcist II'' (1977).

Now he might lose credibility for not liking the brilliant original, but hey, it's a favorable review!

It's got two terrific, scenery-chewing performances from George C. Scott and Brad Dourif. It's got some genuine scares and a few good laughs. It's a sentimental favorite from 1990 which I enjoyed on video because I thought it would be garbage and it turned out to be pretty good. It's all about expectation management.

As for Close Your Eyes, Gwen and I just watched it again and 20 minutes from the end she gave up because she was too scared and it was too close to bed for her to "properly wind down". This, of course, annoyed me because this is not the girl I married. The girl I married could watch any scary movie you put in front of her and ask for seconds. But apparently motherhood has made her a softy. (To be fair, the movie plays hard on the deep-rooted parental fear of child abduction.) Of course, last night I subjected her to the new Dawn of the Dead movie so it is quite a lot to ask in one weekend.

I haven't seen The Devil's Backbone yet but it's been in my Netflix queue since I signed up. Should be coming soon.

A few other ideas you may not have seen:

Prince of Darkness
Dark Water (Japanese version with English subtitles if you have a good video store)
Near Dark
The new Dawn of the Dead remake. Fun, campy gorefest. Not scary.

[rrmorton]

Over at Roger Ebert's new website there's a guy named Jim Emerson writing essays and whatnot. He recently wrote about his four favorite underseen horror movies.

Jim Emerson: The critics were horrified!!!! 4 undervalued scary movies on DVD

[PR_GMR]

Now, Rob, I know you've a great taste in films.. but I gotta go 'Mmmmm' at your reccomendation of The Exorcist III. From what I recall, Exorcist III is one of the longest, boring films I've attempted to sit through. In fact, I remember falling asleep through it.

Close Your Eyes... I've seen the trailer for it and will have to check it out. Though, I'm very weary at its premise: It looked like yet another film about Satanic killings. Films with such premises are made a dime a dozen and are dumped straight to video; most of them aren't worth the rental.

About the article on Roger Ebert.com... Yeah, The Brood and Prince Of Darkness are undervalued horror classics.

[PR_GMR]

Oh, Triggercut and Rob Morton--Both of you must watch THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE as soon as possible. It's truly one of the best horror films made in the past decade or so. Guillermo Del Toro is one hell of a talented director.

[The Evil Dead]

Yeah, The Devil's Backbone was pretty dern good. What I really liked about it is that it didn't rely on cheap scares, but it built up a solid atmosphere, a good story, and well-done characters for it to really work.

And I loved The Exorcist III

[rrmorton]

Thank you, Evil Dead! I thought for sure we'd have more Exocist III love in here by now. We talked about it a while back on Gone Gold and I recall more than a few fans coming out of the woodwork.

A few more notes about the other E3...

It was written and directed by Willliam Peter Blatty who wrote the original novel of The Exorcist. He had nothing to do with The Exorcist II and thought it was terrible so he took matters into his own hands and decided to adapt his novel Legion as the "true sequel" to the original... Which is strange because its police investigation plot is so totally different than the first.

The studios insisted on including the word "Exorcist" in the title to captialize on the popularity of that series (or what was left of it after part II). Then they said you can't have an Exorcist movie without an exorcism so they insisted on tacking one on at the end and it feels out of place. The movie would be better if it was just called Legion.

There's some delicious dialogue exchanges in the movie, especially between George C. Scott and Brad Dourif. You can tell there's a novelist at the helm.

I admit the movie has its share of detractors, but it also has a sizable following of fans such as myself who consider it (despite a few weaknesses) an underrated gem.

[The Evil Dead]

Werd.

When I first saw the cover of the movie, I was expecting something in lines of an actual sequel to The Exorcist, not one or two characters reprising some roles in a movie that, by and large, isn't that related to the original. It probably throws off a lot of people. But I really, really enjoyed, and that one scene Rob posted in the original post got me like none other. Agreed, too, that the tacked on exorcism just seems weird. But other than that...

Recommended!

As for Close Your Eyes...I'm gonna have to pick that up when I go to Hollywood Video next time, which should hopefully be soon, so I can finally rent and watch Jacob's Ladder.

[Odin]

Exorcist III is one of the longest, boring films I've attempted to sit through.

Ditto. Totally not the movie I'd expected it to be. Hated it. I'm very surprised to hear there are actually people who liked it.

Sith

[PR_GMR]

Ditto. Totally not the movie I'd expected it to be. Hated it. I'm very surprised to hear there are actually people who liked it.

Werd.

It was written and directed by Willliam Peter Blatty who wrote the original novel of The Exorcist. He had nothing to do with The Exorcist II and thought it was terrible so he took matters into his own hands and decided to adapt his novel Legion as the "true sequel" to the original... Which is strange because its police investigation plot is so totally different than the first.

The studios insisted on including the word "Exorcist" in the title to captialize on the popularity of that series (or what was left of it after part II). Then they said you can't have an Exorcist movie without an exorcism so they insisted on tacking one on at the end and it feels out of place. The movie would be better if it was just called Legion.

There's some delicious dialogue exchanges in the movie, especially between George C. Scott and Brad Dourif. You can tell there's a novelist at the helm.

I admit the movie has its share of detractors, but it also has a sizable following of fans such as myself who consider it (despite a few weaknesses) an underrated gem.

I hear you, Rob. At least, you admit that it's a film with weaknesses. The film could've sincerely used a bit more action and a bit less dialogue, regardless of William Peter Blatty having scripted and directed the film. I think the studio, at the time, made the mistake of tacking The Exorcist title to the film, which has a lot of expectation attached to it. In general, all Exorcist sequels, specially the recent 'prequel' which opened in August, have suffered from shortsighted film studios meddling at all levels of the production.

[rrmorton]

Gwen and I just finished the last 20 minutes of Close Your Eyes. She liked the movie all the way up until the end but found the finale a bit hard to swallow. Still, two thumbs up from the Morton household.