Quote:
Originally Posted by favabeans
For one thing, the acting is super over the top and unbelievable, and - while it was probably on purpose - I just don't think it worked. While watching it I just kept thinking about the actors and the way in which they were acting, and for me the sign of a good film is that I forget these things and am able to believe that the characters are real. Dialogue was nothing special. I found it difficult to invest in any character or believe what they were going through, perhaps because of very little character development. And while I would understand the focus being more on the horror and the gore or the kills for this genre of film, there is minimal horror and the gore is really very mild. The effects aren't great (but what can you do, it's a low budget film from the 70s - so I'm not so bothered about that one). I get that it's a classic piece of cinema, and by no means do I think that it is a terrible film, but to me it doesn't quite live up to/be deserving of its hype.
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Ah, cool, thanks, Fava! I know what you're saying about lack of character development.
As you just said yourself, about TCSM as a Horror film, rather than a "Film", so to speak... I think that's where TCSM is receiving its praise and notoriety.
As you already know, Horror films are often assessed differently, like the way Comedy films are assessed by 'how funny they are', rather than the traditional cinematic benchmarks of acting and whatnot.
Specifically the acting -- and this is just my opinion of course -- overall I thought it was effective and otherwise believable. There were some lines delivered that sounded stagey, but I think that's partly the audio -- strange as that sounds -- because the stylistic way this was shot was pseudo documentary, where the mic pickup direction was (often) from the camera POV. To produce a "you are there" effect.
That "you are there" effect was very effectual on me.
Likewise, I thought the lead role of Sally was extremely effective, in that her visceral emotions seemed raw, accessible and authentic to me.
The villains were generally over-the-top, but if "real" you'd expect them to be. Plus, at the time, many people openly acted more animated in public.
I agree, there's little character development, which makes it harder to care about the characters (in a traditional story way); but again, the Cinéma vérité style effectiveness comes from you (viewer) dropping in abruptly, rather than a traditional character-driven story ramp.
Horror-wise... it was extremely horrific to me. I felt trapped. Obviously I thought it was effective as a Horror genre film.
Gore and special effects... it's interesting, Hooper (director) was shooting for a PG rating. Hooper often used traditional shot techniques to infer the violence, which I generally prefer & find more effective. Still, the (inferred) violence is straight-up over the top... I mean it's a freaking nightmare. The content is so not PG.
Anyway, I just thought I'd share with you why I thought it carries high ratings and notoriety.