Posts Tagged ‘Brian De Palma’

Let me preface this by saying that the moments I often find scariest are those that are more unnerving than shocking. It’s not the moment when a masked murderer pops out from behind a door that scares me, but rather the moments that are grounded in reality and play on natural human paranoia that make me pause before I turn off the lights to go to sleep.

Freaks (1932)

I’m going to start old school and pick a moment from this infamous 1932 Tod Browning film, which is tough because I find the movie seriously disturbing. I first watched it a few months ago and I was utterly horrified during the scene in which the “freaks” take their revenge. After discovering that the aloof trapeze artist Cleopatra has only married fellow “freak” Hans for his money and intends to kill him, they decide to punish her and her secret lover/accomplice. As the lover tries to crawl away from his crashed wagon in the stormy night, the “freaks” stalk toward him with weapons in hand and menacing expressions on their faces. No music plays over the scene, the only sound is the rain and the slow movements of the “freaks” as they circle their prey. Browning films each “freak” in an extended take that shows them slowly moving toward the camera. It’s a technique that ensures that even the audience feels it can’t escape the oncoming violence. However, the scariest shot for me is the moment we see one of the “pinhead” characters crawling through the mud with knife in hand. Throughout the rest of the film, the “pinheads”—so named because a genetic defect called microcephaly has caused a narrowing of their skulls—are characterized as childlike and loving. So to suddenly see that innocence turned to silent, vindictive rage is incredibly unnerving and it expresses just how committed the “freaks” are to protecting their own.

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With Robert Rodriguez’s Predators (a remake of 1987′s Predator) opening very soon (July 9th) we here at Movie-Thoughts thought it would be appropriate to bring up the topic of remakes and reboots. A looming remake besides Predators that has had the attention of the movie world is 2012′s reboot of the grossly successful Spider-Man franchise. Why is this?

Many fans on the blogosphere have expressed some downright odious sentiments about the idea of rebooting a movie franchise as successful as Spider-Man, especially so soon after the original trilogy was completed (Spider-Man 3 came out in the summer of 2007). In case you need to play catch-up on the topic, here is the full press release from Sony Pictures about the new Spidey project: Read the rest of this entry »