The 1995 Film "Kids" directed and written by Larry Clark, is a story about an amoral young teenager named Telly, who unknowingly has HIV, and has an addiction with having sex with as many virgins as possible. The film begins where he's convincing a 12 year old girl to have sex with him, and telling her sweet nothings about how he cares about her.
After he takes her virginity, he leaves instantly and meets up with his friend Casper. He transforms from seemingly caring and a sensitive person to a dirty immature teenage boy as he brags about how he just added another girl to his "deflowering list". The camera pans the two boys walking down the streets of New York, talking about their plans to find more virgins to sleep with, using vulgar language describing what they fantasize to do to more girls.
(Telly is in red and Casper is in white)
After the 3 minute dialogue between the two, they patronize an Asian clerk at a convenience store and steal 40 oz beers. They proceed to go meet up with other male drifters in a grungy apartment building, to smoke pot, inhale ether, and drink, while continuing conversing with the other people about their sex lives, and how girls are nothing but objects. In between this scene, emerges another scene of a group of girls hanging out at another apartment, also talking about their sex lives in a rather vulgar manner, but not as vulgar and explicit as what the boys are talking about. The movie switches between both scenes, in a comparison of the two sexes. One of the girls, Jennie, mentions that she had sex only once with Telly, and says that after she lost her virginity to him, he never spoke to her again. She seems a little shy to talk about sex, and implies that she liked Telly. When the film switches back to the apartment where the boys are, Jennie calls and Telly says he's not interested in talking with her. The conversation in each apartment continues, and finally leads to one of the girls, Ruby to say that she and Jennie went to the clinic to get tested the week before and were going to find out the results that day. Afterwards, the boys say to each other, "Yeah STDS don't exist" the camera shows a shot of Telly listening and grinning like a fool, implying that he is carrying one. After the two scenes of the groups of boys and girls talking, Ruby finds out she has no STDS although she had sex with 9 men, but Jennie is HIV positive.The film seems to have a documentary feel to it, because a lot of the dialogues seem improvised. The movie takes place in the course of a day, and primarily focus' on Jennie searching for Telly to tell him that they both have HIV, while Telly engages in scandalous actions. She seems to show up at places where Telly just was, but is too late to catch him.
a gang of the boys Telly spends time with
This movie gives a glimpse into the lives of recluse teenage boys, suggesting reality. Telly is seen walking around with gangs of other teenage boys, with a few cheaply dressed teenage girls, committing crimes, beating people, flirting, stealing and doing drugs. Jennie seems to be the only "innocent" character, and gradually turns into an emotional mess as the day ensues by drinking. By the end of the night, Jennie finally catches up to Telly, only to find him having sex with another virgin, reminiscent of the beginning scene. "Close the fucking door", he shouts to Jennie without knowing it's her. Without saying anything, Jennie proceeds to cry herself to sleep on the couch, in a living room full of passed out teenagers and beer cans. As the sun rises, Casper rapes Jennie while she's passed out, adding to the over all obscene mood to the movie. There is no resolution, just happenings giving insight to irresponsible teenagers. I feel that it was made to be a wake up call to youths, and not showing much censorship. The films soundtrack consisted of mostly sounds of the city and music playing on the streets, as if a camera man was following these kids without them knowing, adding to the authenticity to the film. The authenticity makes it shocking, and an all in all depressing yet insightful movie.
He sees a number of characters per apartment building: an attractive ballerina he calls 'miss torso', a childless couple with a scottie dog, a lonely middle aged woman who has dinner at her mom with an imaginary date, an old lady who spends her time sunbathing, a single male pianist, and a middle aged couple. His attention is focused on the middle aged couple, and he sees them have confrontations. He seems to hear sounds from all the separate homes in the complex, except for theirs. He can only examine their stressful body language.
The different windows serve as different channels on a television being Jeff's rear window.
Jeff falls asleep at nightfall and is suddenly awakened by a womans scream. He looks out the window onto the dark night to see it's raining, and suddenly spots the husband of the couple leave his apartment with a giant suitcase. Jeff immediately suspects that he has murdered his wife.
Instead of being frightened and calling the police, he only consults a detective, who seems to think Jeff is jumping to conclusions. Jeff tries to tell his girlfriend what's going on, and is surprised to know shes interested when usually she is only interested in herself: fame, beauty and money. Jeff keeps seeing suspicious activity happen: the husband washing the suitcase, staying up late in the dark smoking a cigar, and no sign of the woman. The scottie dog belonging to the childless couple sniffs around a nearby garden patch as if something was recently buried there. The dog is later strangled to death, and Jeff assumes it was the murdering husband.
Jeff finally convinces his girlfriend Lisa to sneak into the murdering husbands apartment to find any clue to the supposed murder. Jeff watches in fear, but does nothing to save his girlfriend. It's as if he is watching the windows of the apartments like it's the climax of a movie. The murderer eventually finds Jeffs girlfriend and beats her, until the police arrive and arrest him.
It is through this experience of watching Lisa step out of her 'perfect world' to visit a forbidden territory, that Jeff falls in love with her, and decides to marry her. She is somewhat of a hero to him now, instead of just an object of luxery.
I found this movie to be predictable, and not very frightening. It's interesting that Jeffs point of view is usually seen through his rear window, as he sees the lives of the other tenants while his is on hold. There aren't many surprises though, perhaps because this film was parodied in many television shows (i.e. the simpsons) and made in 1954. The only eerie parts were when the soundtrack played a roll. During the rainstorm where the murdered wife screams, there is a muttered fog horn in the distance, perhaps signaling a warning. Other than that, I found the film dull for a Hitchcock film, and underdeveloped.
The Strangers, written and directed by Bryan Bertino, is a horror film based loosely on true events such as The Manson Family murders in 1969. A young couple (James and Kristen) retreat to a Jame's families vacation cabin in a desolate area, where James hoped they would celebrate an engagement, although Kristen declines. The film begins to take place around 4 am at night, where the couple awkwardly try to save their relationship, so the audience is preoccupied by the sadness between the two. Finally they start to make amends and begin to make love until they hear a loud bang on their front door. They open the door to see a 20 year old blonde haired girl in the shadows creepily asking them, "Is Tamara home?" Not knowing what this girl is talking about, they say "no you have the wrong house" and after a period of silence the girl asks, "are you sure?" Without the couple answering, the girl says, "see you later" and walks away. After that random interruption, the couple both seem tired and continue with small chit chat. Kristen says at one point, "I'm out of cigarettes..." and James offers to go buy some for her. After making a fire for her in the fire place, he leaves to go pick them up. Kristen is left idol in the house, puts on an eerie record playing the song, "the sprout and the bean" by Joanna Newsome http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHgyaVmkFzc. Kristen wanders around the small cabin looking at family pictures of her boyfriend, and plays a few notes slowly on an old piano. While looking closely at a corner of a wall in the house, marked with James heights, an even louder knock is heard on the front door. The song fades eerily as she slowly approaches the door, and without opening it, asks whos there. All she hears is the same girl asking, "Is Tamara home?" "You already came by here" Kristen replies. "Are you sure?" She hears back.
The night continues in real time; a minute by minute account of Kristens and James point of view. It turns out there are two women and one man terrorizing the couple for fun, in unexpected ways. When they try to escape, the find that James' car windows have been broken and the tires slashed. They soon discover that although the doors in the house were locked, they find signs that the intruders were already in the house, and are toying with them. Some scenes show Kristen oblivious that the male intruder is right behind her in the house. As time goes by, James and Kristen come across all of the intruders. The two women are wearing pin up girl masks with dark hollow eye holes, and the man has a gray sack over his head with eye and mouth holes. At one point the two hide in a room with a loaded gun. At one point one of James friends comes to pick him up, because he got news of Kristens rejection. He soon notices that someone has broken into the home, yet slowly walks inside to see what's going on. As he proceeds into the home, an eerie country song plays on the record player, and there is a shot of the friend walking down a hallway with the male intruder quietly following him with an axe. As the friend approaches the room the two are hiding in, he is mistaken for one of the intruders, and shot in the head and instantly dies. After this part in the movie, the subtle scares turn into the couple literally running from the intruders to hide in a barn or the woods, with no way to call for help.
The directer was successful in distracting the viewer before unexpectedly scaring the audience, which makes for a great horror movie. Finally the couple are seen tied up to chairs in their living room, with the three intruders staring at them with knives in their hands. Kristen and James don't know these people and try to plead with them, but to no avail. One of the women opens the curtains and for the first time in the movie, it's daylight, and the early rays soak up the dusty cabin. The three mythodically remove their masks, yet the audience doesn't see their faces. They brutally stab and kill the couple. The camera shows the outside of the cabin in it's secluded area, and the sounds of gut wrenching screams echo in the distance.
The movie ends with two Christian boys going door to door to give out pamphlets. A beat up truck rolls down the quiet road, and one of the women killers gets out to talk to the boys. "Can I have one?" She says to one of the boys. He asks, "are you a sinner?" "sometimes" she responds. The audience only sees the back of this girls head. Afterwards, she gets back into the truck, where only the backs of the heads of the killers are. As they drive away, one of the women says, "It'll be easier next time." The boys later discover the cabin with the open door, and finds the bodies of the couple.
Though it is a slow paced film, it captures the moment by moment suspense of a home intrusion victim. The audience is constantly sympathetic to what the couples fears are, and find themselves thinking, "what would i do in this situation?". You want the couple to escape but the sad yet somewhat gratifying truth is, they don't survive. There is a lack of gore, fictitious
demons, and fast action. The main mood is constant fear and suspense, in one setting, leading the audience to only focus on the points of views of the victims. This is one of the best horror films I've seen in a long time.
By the fifth day, Aron somehow gathers the strength to come to the conclusion that if he has any chance of surviving, he has to cut off his arm. With the sounds of the bones and flesh breaking, it makes the audience unable to watch or listen to. Eventually he climbs out of the canyon and is more happy to be alive than regretting that he no longer has his right arm. He walks away with a story, an experience, and knowledge, and gratitude for people and things in his life he took for granted before.
The canyon scene is always dark with only a crack of sunlight, in a narrow space going at a slow pace. In contrast, when Arons free (before and after) everything seems to move at a radically swift and spontaneous pace, in an open desert drenched in sunlight. This gives the theme that you don't know what you got until it's gone. Though mostly boring, it was a true depiction of what Aron went through as a 2 hour summery of 127 hours caught in a canyon. I found it a moving film.
Unlike most horror films, a lot is left to the imagination for a majority of the film is the three students reactions to being lost in the woods, and hearing suspicious noises at night. The witch is never shown, but as each night passes, the three discover clues around their tent that the witch has been watching them. The subtlety adds to the fright. By the 6th night, Heather and Mike awake without any sign of Josh. The next two nights, they only hear his voice calling for help amidst the pitch black. By the last night, Heather and Mike try to follow his screams and come across an abandoned shack they did not notice before. It wasn't until they reached the basement of the shack that Heather starts screaming and Mike drops the camera. Heathers camera drops at the very end too implying the Blair Witch killed her.
Mike being turned against the wall while Heather is being murdered. Earlier one of the interviewees said the Blair Witch would make some of her victims face the wall while murdering another person. This shot is seen right before Heather dies. The audience never sees the witch. This is where the movie ends.
In most of the film, Heather is holding the camera, and shooting the two men, while carrying on a dialogue. In the beginning they crack jokes. i.e. Heather zooms in on a dead mouse in the woods and says, "What killed this mouse, witch craft?" The film continues into stressful situations where the two men are yelling at Heather because they are lost, and each day becomes more chaotic. The three of them look dirty, tired, and scared as more time passes. In the beginning Mike and Josh used the camera more, and as they realize they may not ever escape the woods, Heather is the only one using the camera, because Josh and Mike are sick of doing the film.
Most of the film is shot in black and white, with only a few color shots in the beginning. With the random clips and cuts and unsteadiness of the camera, it gives an even more of a sense that "this is real raw footage".
For it's time, I find this film successful because of the "home video" type look, and the lingering presence of the unseen witch, leaving the audience on the edge of their seats.
http://youtu.be/cMQQpmm5u3w
Nick's soul with Annie, in the process of trying to communicate somehow.
Even though I found the plot to be interesting, I felt that the characters were predictable and did not
make the best use of their characters. The shots of the film are usually 5-15 seconds each, leading
the audience to feel a sense of mystery and suspense. The lighting of the film is dim until Nick is brought
back to life. The sun is never shining until his body is found. Most shots take place in small enclosed
spaces aside from the woodland area where Nicks body was left, adding to the suspense. It comes off
as claustrophobic to the audience, symbolic of Nick being trapped in limbo. In the end when Nick
has fully recovered, he is seen talking to Annie's little brother in a wide outdoor space on a sunny day
flying a model airplane. This is the only time where the audience feels the sense of freedom and relief
because of the bright sun and the wide space, aside from the rest of the film.'
Though some of the actors lacked in experience and bored me a little, the movie was shot beautifully
and gracefully giving a depressing mood to the film, until the very end. All in all, I would say it was an
Ok movie.
