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I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
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Summary: Underestimated
I didn't expect much, big mistake. This one's great - better than 'Scream', better than its first sequel. This might be due to the cast, featuring Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy), and to the fact that this is a somewhat new concept. It really is horror, and we see the friends struggling with the decision, and breaking apart because of it. There are some fine new actors here, with great potential.
The movie starts with a terrific title sequence, flying over the coastline. As every good horror movie, the future victims are portrayed believably and with some depth and edges, and out of a sudden, the message arrives: "I Know What You Did Last Summer". The search for the stalker, the quest for his identity gets somewhat lost when you know the sequel in advance, but that's naturally my own fault. This movie isn't comedy, it isn't slasher, it is horror - something rare these days in the theaters. It might contain some stereotypes, but it stays shocking till the very end.
August 9th, 1999
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In Dreams (1998)
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Summary: Intense
Serial Killers seem to have come to belong to our cultural topoi very well, and lots of stories have been told fictionalizing them, some clichéd, some original, some embarrassing, some rather good - to which latter category 'In Dreams' belongs.
Neil Jordan has created a chilling and gripping, nightmarish tale fusing dreams with reality, telling it with the help of incredible and believable acting, shocking us and not caring about taboos. This is a horror film worthily called so, a sublime mixture of beauty and horror, elegance and the grotesque.
February 4th/5th, 2001
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In the Mouth of Madness (1995)
Summary: Sick and terrifying With some exceptions like 'The Thing' for instance, Carpenter movies usually enjoy this kind of trashy B-movies feeling attached to them. Mostly, they feel nicely minimalistic and simple in their conception and concoction, rarely transcending to an utterly complex level, mostly being rather easily accessible in terms of story complexity and the concept behind. Not this one. With 'In the Mouth of Madness', Carpenter has succeeded in going beyond the simple and somewhat primitive scares usually found in the B-sphere and takes on a concept more philosophical, perhaps even post-structuralist and provides us with a serious and malicious horror film which can easily be counted amongst the all-time greatest of the genre. This is no nice film, it isn't pretty, neither is it one of these odd and pseudo-intelligent teen dramas like 'Scream' or 'Scream 3'. This is made to be nasty, and it succeeds in that. It is sick, raving madness told with startling images and a meanness rarely found in cinema. Nothing for the faint-hearted, and for those breathing horror movies on a regular basis, a pleasing delight and a perfectly executed, terrifying nightmare.
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I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)
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Summary: Pointless yet solid
Not having seen the preceding part, it nevertheless seemed I knew enough in order to be able to watch the movie. I would consider this a positive element, but then you could also attribute this judgement to the not-so intellectually demanding character of this film. But this is somehow a matter of expectation, and I expected not too much. I was proven wrong, this movie was better than I thought. Not only didn't it pretend to be anything but a little slasher movie, but it could also create some feelings of horror. And to be precise: Slasher flick usually doesn't mean horror film. This one's sort of a mixture of both.
During the first part of the movie, the horror is mostly in watching Julie reliving the past with everybody around her doubting her mental sanity. But then it turns out to be a very graphic movie, with little or none niceties around. The acting is much better than some critics suggested, and there is a real sense of suspense in the air. And then it is always fun to have such a great actor as Jeffrey Combs on the screen (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Weyoun and Brunt).
This movie might not go into great depths, but neither did I suspect that nor is that necessary all the time. Sometimes you just wanna lean back, laugh a little bit, and be a bit scared. These functions are performed quite well by this movie, and it doesn't try to soften the horror - and it is not a teenie flick. The atmosphere is great, so are the pictures. Relax, until you've seen the end. Let's wait for part three...
(see also: Diary Entry #47)
May 21st, 1999
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