film criticism by maryann johanson | handcrafted since 1997
Striking sci-fi mood piece, all eeriness and ookiness, wonder and dread. Explicitly Twilight Zone–esque, summoning a midcentury-America innocence in order to shatter its narrowness (and our own).
Nothing here is terribly haunting, but at least someone is trying to make something like a horror movie these days that isn’t about gore and torture.
Damn, I’m gonna have holiday sugarplum nightmares about that scary Santa. I bet he inspired Rod Serling’s creepy Twilight Zone ventriloquist dummy. *shudder*
As pure drama, these are still fascinating to watch, especially to see the early work of some now very famous names. But as a look at what TV was doing half a century ago, it’s riveting.
Frank Darabont’s adaptations of Stephen King’s writings are not just some of the best mountings of the writer’s work but some of the best films, period, of recent years. So I don’t think it’s too outrageous — or too surprising — to say that ‘The Mist’ is not only one of the best movies of 2007, it’s one of the best horror movies ever made. Period.
Phone booth? When was the last time you saw a phone booth? I mean, a quarter of a century ago, Christopher Reeve could already get a laugh when his Clark Kent looked askance at the little kiosk that was his only public telephonic refuge for quick changes. But here’s an entire movie, set in the 21st century, that expects us to accept not only that a phone booth still stands in Manhattan but that its glass panels remained unbroken until a dramatic moment here in the very course of events that unfold before our eyes.
