danjay reyganah latonah
Cristoforo Kanoy
To my surprise, I find myself recommending "The Haunting" on the basis of its locations, its sets, its art direction, its sound design, and the overall splendor of its visuals. The story is a mess, but for long periods of time that hardly matters. It's beside the point, as we enter one of the most striking spaces I've ever seen in a film.
That space is Hill House, the haunted manor selected by a psychology professor (Liam Neeson) for an experiment in the mechanics of fear. He recruits three people who are told they'll get help for insomnia, and installs them in the ornate and gloomy gothic pile, where alarming things start to happen immediately. We assume the frightening manifestations are manufactured by the professor (last name: Marrow), but perhaps not.
The three patients are played by Lili Taylor, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Owen Wilson. Prof. Marrow is joined by two assistants, but in one of the screenplay's several clumsy moves, one of them is injured during the first night, the other takes her to the hospital, and that's the last we ever see of them. Taylor's character, named Nell, is the key figure in the film, a woman whose life has been on hold until the ghosts of Hill House start to tell their story.
The exteriors of Hill House were shot at Harlaxton Manor in Nottinghamshire. Its architectural details look like a shriek from hell; now I know what a building looks like with its hair standing on end. (It's a bit of an anticlimax to discover that the building is currently used as a foreign campus of the University of Evansville, Indiana). The interiors I gather are mostly sets, although some of them are inspired by Harlaxton and Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire.
The production design is by Eugenio Zanetti ("What Dreams May Come," "Restoration") and he has done a masterful job of creating interiors that seem to be alive with menace. One of the great moments in the film comes when Taylor and Zeta-Jones explore their bedrooms, which are so rich with detail that you want to wallow in them. The great hall of the house features a walk-in fireplace not unlike the one in Citizen Kane's Xanadu, and indeed when Zeta-Jones first enters Hill House, she murmurs, "It's like Charles Foster Kane meets the Munsters." The horror story itself is based on things that go thump (and bang, and wheeze) in the night. The cavernous halls and ominous corridors reverberate with great groaning echoing noises, as if the house has gas pains. Doors are hammered on. Ghostly manifestations appear. One or two moments are truly scary, including a recycled version of the classic "Carrie" end shot. We enter this space and feel enclosed by it; it's not like a set, but more like a virtual reality.
Lili Taylor struggles valiantly with her character, the movie's juiciest, and has some effective scenes, mostly by herself. "I can be a victim or I can be a volunteer," she tells herself, when the going gets really rough. The rest of the characters are underwritten, including Catherine Zeta-Jones' beautiful Theo, who does some bisexual lip-smacking at the outset but never follows up, and spends most of her time running to the rescue. Owen Wilson, as the guy, asks obvious questions and helps tug open doors, etc., but is not made much of, and neither is Liam Neeson's professor, whose motivations are explained in some flat opening scenes, and who then goes adrift in the plot ("All right, you two! Enough about pharmaceuticals!").
But the special effects are original and effective, evoking a haunted house in unexpected ways. A floor-level gliding camera is insinuating. Scenes set in a huge old conservatory are creepy in the way they use dead vegetation, and there's a nice scene on a shaky spiral staircase. To enter these rooms, to move among them, to feel their weight and personality, is an experience. I am reminded of the abandoned subway station in "The Mimic" (1997), another space with a personality of its own.
The movie often edges so close to being truly scary that you wonder why they didn't try just a little harder to write more dimensional characters and add the edge of almost plausible realism that distinguished Shirley Jackson's original novel. The movie does not, alas, succeed as a horror film. But it succeeds as a film worth watching anyway, and that is no small achievement.
Scary Movie 2 is a 2001 American supernatural parody film directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans. It is the sequel to Scary Movie and the second film in the Scary Movie film series. The film stars Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans (all reprising their roles from the first film, despite their characters having been killed), as well as Tim Curry, Tori Spelling, Chris Elliott, Chris Masterson, Kathleen Robertson, David Cross and James Woods. The film is the last in the series to feature the involvement of stars Marlon and Shawn Wayans, and director Keenan. Marlon would eventually go on to produce a similar horror-themed parody, A Haunted House, and its sequel, both starring himself. In the latter film, Wayans pokes fun at the Scary Movie series' decline in quality after his family's departure.
At the haunted mansion Hell House, teenager Megan Voorhees becomes possessed by the spirit of Hugh Kane, the house's cruel, wicked previous owner. She interrupts a formal dinner party, thrown by her mother, who seeks help from two priests, Fathers McFeely and Harris. After an unsuccessful attempt to exorcise Kane's ghost, McFeely pulls a gun and shoots Megan.
One year later, Cindy Campbell, Brenda Meeks, Ray Wilkins and Shorty Meeks are at college, trying to live new lives after surviving the events of the first film. Cindy and Brenda are tagged by socially maladjusted Alex. Shorty is still the same stoner he was before. Ray, still confused about his sexuality, has two new male friends, Tommy and Buddy, the latter of whom becomes romantically interested in Cindy. She rebuffs him but agrees to be friends.
The sinister Professor Oldman and his charming paraplegic assistant, Dwight Hartman, plan to study the paranormal activity at Hell House. They recruit Cindy and her friends as test subjects under the pretense of a psychological experiment on sleep paralysis. On her drive to the mansion, Cindy listens and sings badly along to "Graduation" by Vitamin C whom through the radio tells her to shut up. At the mansion, Cindy encounters a foul-mouthed parrot and Hanson, a creepy caretaker with a badly malformed hand. Later, the attractive Theo joins the group. They sit down for dinner but soon lose their appetite due to Hanson's repulsive handling of the food.
That night, Cindy hears voices directing her to a secret room, where she and Buddy discover Kane's wife's diary. Seeing her portrait, they note Cindy's (slight) resemblance. Meanwhile, the others also experience bizarre encounters. Kane's ghost has sex with Alex in her bedroom and quickly departs at the mention of commitment. Cindy gets into a fistfight with the house cat, Mr. Kittles. When Cindy tries to tell Oldman, he dismisses it and sends Theo to take Cindy to bed.
Later, Cindy is possessed by Kane's wife, and she seduces Oldman. She quickly returns to normal, with no memory of the event. A toy clown attempts to kill Ray, but in a strange turn of events, the doll is molested by him instead. A weed-monster rolls Shorty into a joint. It proceeds to smoke him (to his enjoyment), but gets distracted and lets him escape.
The next morning, Oldman tells Dwight that no one is leaving the house despite the attacks and shows his lecherous nature. Dwight is given the only house keys and told to give them to nobody. Theo offers oral sex to no avail; Dwight does it to himself. She knocks him out and takes the keys.
Oldman is seduced and killed by the ghost of Kane's mistress, Victoria Crane. Shorty later encounters the same ghost but charms and has sex with her. After Dwight equips the teens with weapons that can injure their spectral enemy, they are pursued throughout the mansion, Alex attempts to win Kane's love, but is killed by Crane's ghost. Buddy and Cindy are locked in the walk-in freezer. Cindy uses a collection of random objects to produce a Caterpillar 2-Ton tractor and escapes the freezer. Hanson becomes possessed by Kane and kidnaps an inebriated Shorty. Cindy, Brenda, and Theo team up to battle him with highly stylized fight choreography but are defeated. Dwight regroups with the teens, and Cindy volunteers to act as bait to lure Kane into a device that will destroy him. The plan succeeds, freeing the group from the house's curse.
The film is a sequel to Scary Movie. According to director Keenen Ivory Wayans, the filmmakers watched over 130 horror films for background research.[5] Marlon Brando was originally cast as Father McFeely and completed one day of filming before he had to leave the production due to illness.[6][7] He was replaced by James Woods who was paid $1 million for four days work.[8]Charlton Heston had also turned down the Woods role. At one point, former President Bill Clinton, who had just left office the year the film came out, was also considered.
The film was released on VHS and DVD by Buena Vista Home Entertainment under the Dimension Home Video banner on December 18, 2001,[9][10] with an array of special features, including commentaries and various deleted scenes.
On Rotten Tomatoes, Scary Movie 2 has an approval rating of 14% based on 112 reviews and an average rating of 3.50/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Instead of being funny, this gross-out sequel plays like a sloppy, rushed-out product."[4] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 29 out of 100 based on 25 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[14] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[15]
Parents can be essential in their kids' lives, no matter how imperfect they are as people. Teenagers can be trusted to make decisions for themselves. Doing the right thing can sometimes require skirting the rules.
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