billys
Joined Apr 2000
Welcome to the new profile
We're still working on updating some profile features. To see the badges, ratings breakdowns, and polls for this profile, please go to the previous version.
Reviews15
billys's rating
I don't know how to explain what it is about Jaws 3 that I really, really don't like. The bad special effects, acting, direction, writing, etc. have all been mentioned to death. And yes, it was a really big dumb mistake to go all 3-D gimmicky. That's probably why they picked Joe Alves, the production designer from the first Jaws movie as well as others (Escape From New York, for example, another very grimy-dark and somewhat shoddy looking movie) to direct--the guy was obviously better with everything other than the human portions of the scenery. Or maybe not. The whole movie looks very flat and colorless...lifeless. It's strange.
No, I think what really kills this movie for me is that seems very...I don't know...UNPLEASANT. There are ways to take even the most misanthropic horror, the silliest and most glaringly fake special effects, and make it compelling, interesting, and somehow cool to watch. It's a very subtle thing which I can't put my finger on. Jaws 3 doesn't come close. As ridiculous as the movie is, it tries to be relentlessly dark, and there are hints of a kind of nastiness or something which doesn't scare me, or even horrify me, but just make me feel very uncomfortable instead, like I need to take a shower afterwards. Perhaps it tries to be too literal when it begs to be stylized. Perhaps it's too dead serious when it's obviously claptrap. There some kind of jarring collision going on, something isn't working right. Basically the thing is the visual equivalent of indigestion.
I will admit that certain things like sound effects work almost too well--the crunching as another vapid Floridian becomes fish food, the muffled underwater groans and shouts. But it's not horrifying in a good, entertaining way, you know? There is one very inventive shot, I also have to admit--the one prick cameraman diver gets eaten, and you watch the poor bastard getting chewed from INSIDE the shark's gullet.
I think I may have an answer. It seems like unlike many horror movies, which simply like to show off gore effects and photogenic ways to kill people, Jaws 3 seems to revel specifically in helpless suffering, prolonging people's pain while they die. Even that poor fish at the beginning doesn't just get eaten...the severed head floats there half-alive for half a minute, uselessly working its mouth, just to drive the point home. It's a distinctly sadistic movie. Perhaps we need to coin a new movie genre for films like this: loathing movies. As such Jaws 3 would probably rank up there with The Passion Of The Christ or something as one of the all-time greats. It's a crappie (pun intended), extremely unpleasant movie to watch overall, but it does achieve its dubious goal unnervingly well. I will give it that.
No, I think what really kills this movie for me is that seems very...I don't know...UNPLEASANT. There are ways to take even the most misanthropic horror, the silliest and most glaringly fake special effects, and make it compelling, interesting, and somehow cool to watch. It's a very subtle thing which I can't put my finger on. Jaws 3 doesn't come close. As ridiculous as the movie is, it tries to be relentlessly dark, and there are hints of a kind of nastiness or something which doesn't scare me, or even horrify me, but just make me feel very uncomfortable instead, like I need to take a shower afterwards. Perhaps it tries to be too literal when it begs to be stylized. Perhaps it's too dead serious when it's obviously claptrap. There some kind of jarring collision going on, something isn't working right. Basically the thing is the visual equivalent of indigestion.
I will admit that certain things like sound effects work almost too well--the crunching as another vapid Floridian becomes fish food, the muffled underwater groans and shouts. But it's not horrifying in a good, entertaining way, you know? There is one very inventive shot, I also have to admit--the one prick cameraman diver gets eaten, and you watch the poor bastard getting chewed from INSIDE the shark's gullet.
I think I may have an answer. It seems like unlike many horror movies, which simply like to show off gore effects and photogenic ways to kill people, Jaws 3 seems to revel specifically in helpless suffering, prolonging people's pain while they die. Even that poor fish at the beginning doesn't just get eaten...the severed head floats there half-alive for half a minute, uselessly working its mouth, just to drive the point home. It's a distinctly sadistic movie. Perhaps we need to coin a new movie genre for films like this: loathing movies. As such Jaws 3 would probably rank up there with The Passion Of The Christ or something as one of the all-time greats. It's a crappie (pun intended), extremely unpleasant movie to watch overall, but it does achieve its dubious goal unnervingly well. I will give it that.
Knight Rider was one of the staples of my TV diet as a preteen back in the wonderful (?) '80s. The main attraction to this young car fanatic was that...CAR. I swear, back then, that jet black Trans Am was awe-inspiring. It wasn't an '80s car in the sense that we know now, but an *'80s car*...new, ultra-high-tech, computerized! All those flashing buttons and lights and monitors were, like, so sophisticated. It even had a steering wheel that was a cross between an airplane's and a dragster's. Never mind that this Knight Industries 2000 talked with a voice like a somewhat more streetwise version of HAL 9000. Wow!
It still has an air of futurism in my memories--it seems like it should still seem fresh now in the year 2004--but then of course I haven't seen it since its original run ended. Maybe better that I shouldn't, or risk ruining my memories.
What I do remember, outside of having a minor crush on Bonnie and the chemistry between all the leads, is that as much as I enjoyed this show it had a distinct thread of creepiness running through the whole show. Technology had part of it--remember KARR, KITT's evil doppelganger? Or the episode where someone's voice had been cut apart and "reassembled" to say something different? But what I remember the most was the explosions. Funny how many shows I liked back then had lots of things blowing up (like The A-Team, another Universal TV favorite).
Knight Rider's creeped me out for some reason...the one non-KITT image I remember over any other from this show, for some reason, is a large stack of fuel drums set ablaze by bad guys in a factory or airplane hangar, and a long, long scene of these drums exploding and shooting into the air like rockets, accompanied by a repetitive stock explosion sound effect right into the commercial break. I dunno, I still get the willies thinking about that one. Then again, there's that Lear Jet getting blown up in the opening credits...that one WAS kinda cool.
Very strange what twenty years can do to one's memories of a show...some things are cystal clear, others (like the stories) I'm not sure I ever really paid attention to. Such is TV. KR was one of my faves once upon a time.
It still has an air of futurism in my memories--it seems like it should still seem fresh now in the year 2004--but then of course I haven't seen it since its original run ended. Maybe better that I shouldn't, or risk ruining my memories.
What I do remember, outside of having a minor crush on Bonnie and the chemistry between all the leads, is that as much as I enjoyed this show it had a distinct thread of creepiness running through the whole show. Technology had part of it--remember KARR, KITT's evil doppelganger? Or the episode where someone's voice had been cut apart and "reassembled" to say something different? But what I remember the most was the explosions. Funny how many shows I liked back then had lots of things blowing up (like The A-Team, another Universal TV favorite).
Knight Rider's creeped me out for some reason...the one non-KITT image I remember over any other from this show, for some reason, is a large stack of fuel drums set ablaze by bad guys in a factory or airplane hangar, and a long, long scene of these drums exploding and shooting into the air like rockets, accompanied by a repetitive stock explosion sound effect right into the commercial break. I dunno, I still get the willies thinking about that one. Then again, there's that Lear Jet getting blown up in the opening credits...that one WAS kinda cool.
Very strange what twenty years can do to one's memories of a show...some things are cystal clear, others (like the stories) I'm not sure I ever really paid attention to. Such is TV. KR was one of my faves once upon a time.
I first saw this movie as a somewhat hacked up, scratchy, blotchy, variably-colored, crapophonic late movie on a then-independent station (now a FOX affiliate) when I was a teenager in the '80s, and that is still how I remember it. Even the gorgeous print available on home video doesn't dull "Jessica"'s ability to make you feel really uneasy.
Make no mistake, horror fans brought up on Freddy and Jason are going to think this is supremely lame. There are no wisecracking psychos, unless you count Mariclare Costello's mildly swaggery hippie-vampire Emily, and there is very little in the way of gore, no nudity to speak of, hardly any profanity, and no ass-kicking. It's SLOW. So what gives?
I'll tell you what gives. This movie is SCARY. Not gross, but scary. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but there is a thread that runs under everything that put you slightly off balance and makes you feel icky inside, something that makes even broad daylight seem deathly black and menacing. Credit Bob Baldwin with some nicely atmospheric photography. I'll say this much: a lot of it is in the sound. From the constant wind to the creaks in the farmhouse, from the plaintive minor-key acoustic guitar plucking to the WONDERFUL, unsettling electronic noises by synthesizer pioneer Walter Sear-one of my absolute favorite aspects of this movie-what you hear is almost as important as what you see (or don't see, in this case). The rough edges caused by a miniscule budget make for plenty of continuity errors for the movie buffs to catch, but also somehow make it all seem that much more real.
You keep waiting to be impressed with the slick Tom Savini or Rob Bottin special effects and there are none, you could be watching a documentary road-movie-gone-amuck the way "Jessica" is shot.
And what about Jessica herself? As played by Zohra Lampert, who I believe was primarily known as a comedic actress and did Broadway a lot, she is the portrait of a pointedly average lady who is coming apart at the seams after a breakdown and can't seem to escape from whatever it is that drove her off the cliff. Lampert projects frailty, indecision, optimism and despair, and above all paranoid terror, but managing to keep herself from falling into cliché hysterics and making her character absolutely believable, even if her inner-voice monologues sound pretty hokey. Someone else mentioned that her performance was Oscar material...well, if they had a separate Oscar for B-movies she'd have won hands-down for 1971.
Surrounding Lampert are a bunch of equally talented character actors you've seen many other places, not given as much to do. Barton Heyman (the doctor in The Exorcist) comes across well as the somewhat asshole husband who's had it up to here; Kevin O'Connor appropriately spacey as a laid-back quasi-hippie friend of the family, Alan Manson aggressively square as the local antique dealer, and Gretchen Corbett (yup, from "The Rockford Files") ethereal but pitiable as a mysterious mute girl wandering through the countryside like a warning ghost. Most interesting is Jessica's friend/nemesis, red-haired hippie chick Emily. She's charismatic, hip, funny, far-out, and very pretty...except that she's maybe a shade too pale of skin...and she scares the bejesus out of poor Jess. And those awful things she does, well, does she really? Mariclare Costello plays Emily perfectly; I really wish she had done more major movie work as she is a very appealing actress, although I understand she was a regular on "The Waltons."
The problem with all these characters is that, compared to Jessica, they seem artificial. In particular, they are all almost, but not quite, sorta-hippies--they're too old, and they seem to square for the hip dialogue. Either miscasting, or bad writing. The clumsy insertion of every horror cliché in the book (seance...check; empty rocking chair rocking...check; jump out of the silent shadows...check) doesn't help, nor does some pretty hokey dialogue. It's too bad, because there's a lot of good, cerebral stuff in here, subtext, but it seems like a sloppy first draft script rather than a polished, tight, finished one. Given more work, the script could have been A-list.
Finally, credit must be given to director John Hancock for pulling these uneven ingredients together and making a masterful job of it. The guy hasn't made many films ("Prancer" is probably his best-known), but he certainly is a talented fellow and he pulled off a major hat trick with this bleak little chiller.
One more thing, people: lay off the '70s accoutrements. Yes, you can make fun of Heyman's sideburns and O'Connor's greasy mop-I'd join you-but does it really make a difference?
Make no mistake, horror fans brought up on Freddy and Jason are going to think this is supremely lame. There are no wisecracking psychos, unless you count Mariclare Costello's mildly swaggery hippie-vampire Emily, and there is very little in the way of gore, no nudity to speak of, hardly any profanity, and no ass-kicking. It's SLOW. So what gives?
I'll tell you what gives. This movie is SCARY. Not gross, but scary. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but there is a thread that runs under everything that put you slightly off balance and makes you feel icky inside, something that makes even broad daylight seem deathly black and menacing. Credit Bob Baldwin with some nicely atmospheric photography. I'll say this much: a lot of it is in the sound. From the constant wind to the creaks in the farmhouse, from the plaintive minor-key acoustic guitar plucking to the WONDERFUL, unsettling electronic noises by synthesizer pioneer Walter Sear-one of my absolute favorite aspects of this movie-what you hear is almost as important as what you see (or don't see, in this case). The rough edges caused by a miniscule budget make for plenty of continuity errors for the movie buffs to catch, but also somehow make it all seem that much more real.
You keep waiting to be impressed with the slick Tom Savini or Rob Bottin special effects and there are none, you could be watching a documentary road-movie-gone-amuck the way "Jessica" is shot.
And what about Jessica herself? As played by Zohra Lampert, who I believe was primarily known as a comedic actress and did Broadway a lot, she is the portrait of a pointedly average lady who is coming apart at the seams after a breakdown and can't seem to escape from whatever it is that drove her off the cliff. Lampert projects frailty, indecision, optimism and despair, and above all paranoid terror, but managing to keep herself from falling into cliché hysterics and making her character absolutely believable, even if her inner-voice monologues sound pretty hokey. Someone else mentioned that her performance was Oscar material...well, if they had a separate Oscar for B-movies she'd have won hands-down for 1971.
Surrounding Lampert are a bunch of equally talented character actors you've seen many other places, not given as much to do. Barton Heyman (the doctor in The Exorcist) comes across well as the somewhat asshole husband who's had it up to here; Kevin O'Connor appropriately spacey as a laid-back quasi-hippie friend of the family, Alan Manson aggressively square as the local antique dealer, and Gretchen Corbett (yup, from "The Rockford Files") ethereal but pitiable as a mysterious mute girl wandering through the countryside like a warning ghost. Most interesting is Jessica's friend/nemesis, red-haired hippie chick Emily. She's charismatic, hip, funny, far-out, and very pretty...except that she's maybe a shade too pale of skin...and she scares the bejesus out of poor Jess. And those awful things she does, well, does she really? Mariclare Costello plays Emily perfectly; I really wish she had done more major movie work as she is a very appealing actress, although I understand she was a regular on "The Waltons."
The problem with all these characters is that, compared to Jessica, they seem artificial. In particular, they are all almost, but not quite, sorta-hippies--they're too old, and they seem to square for the hip dialogue. Either miscasting, or bad writing. The clumsy insertion of every horror cliché in the book (seance...check; empty rocking chair rocking...check; jump out of the silent shadows...check) doesn't help, nor does some pretty hokey dialogue. It's too bad, because there's a lot of good, cerebral stuff in here, subtext, but it seems like a sloppy first draft script rather than a polished, tight, finished one. Given more work, the script could have been A-list.
Finally, credit must be given to director John Hancock for pulling these uneven ingredients together and making a masterful job of it. The guy hasn't made many films ("Prancer" is probably his best-known), but he certainly is a talented fellow and he pulled off a major hat trick with this bleak little chiller.
One more thing, people: lay off the '70s accoutrements. Yes, you can make fun of Heyman's sideburns and O'Connor's greasy mop-I'd join you-but does it really make a difference?