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La bête (1975)
If subconscious desire and human psychology are inaccessible, why should i watch it?
Walerian Borowczyks La Bete (1975) was obviously received in different ways: Some were appalled, some were shocked others applauded the courage. I however am completely untouched, bored and cannot stop asking myself why the display of incoherent, inconsistent images which vaguely orbit around a central theme are considered an intellectual journey.
What was this movie actually about? Growing sexuality in a woman? I've seen great films on this subject, but this is not one of them. How can one attempt to portray a growing sexuality in a girl without at least trying to characterize her as a person not only as a narrative device to dream (in the nude) of beasts. Where there are no characters, there is no character study. The woman persecuted by the beast was not adolescent, the girl having sex with the black butler (is he also characterized as a beast?) has a very grown up attitude to sexuality, so where is the consistency? Is it a movie about religion? If yes we would need a bit more thematic material than a priest without function, character and charisma, but with a strong desire towards two young boys.
Is it about bestiality? The metaphoric feel of the movie forbids any realistic examination of bestiality, especially as realistic examination requires realistic characters. So no real bestiality here. Some mythic beast and two priests talking to each other about the sin of bestiality. Enough for a college essay on the topic? I don't think so.
Is it about sex? Is it about anything? I don't know. I only know that showing a fired gun doesn't make a film a war movie. Dealing with a topic must mean more than displaying its own associations with the theme.
So look across the controversy. Don't be scared by the bestiality, nudity, ejaculations, masturbation and stuff. I am not. Look at it as you look at any other story and you might discover that this is a poorly made, poorly edited, poorly acted, really poorly written (okay, some pictures are quite nice, and the main character is a really good looking girl) cerebral masturbation of a director who thinks beating around the bush in a hypnotic slow manner will make a story intelligent. It doesn't. It makes it boring.
Cabin Fever (2002)
Quoting may cut both ways: Honor or insult the original. !!SPOILERS!!
Many great horror movies can be found quoted in Cabin Fever, but while I was watching this I could not loose the feeling that these classics were ripped off only superficially. Cabin Fever lacked both their dramaturgical tension and (if existed in the originals) their philosophical implications.
I consider myself a horror-fan and the most important fact in horror stories for me is the question why people feel frightened watching, reading or listening to them. It seems not to be enough to include gore and blood, some of the archetypical fears of the viewer should be included.
This is exactly what Cabin fever lacked. Some examples:
1) The "Texas Chainsaw massacre" theme: The main point in this classic (although I didn't like the dramaturgy on that one) was the fear of the rationally enlighted, urban (in the sense of the french revolution) man to be lost in the land of the savage southern states of America which seem to be the apotheosis of nonrationality, brutality, racism, fascism, etc. All the negative Properties the Enlightment tried to rule out (if they managed is a different point). Another supporting fact for that theory is that the movie is set in the 60s. Similar motives can be found in Deliverance, 2000Maniacs and other southern states horror movies. Cabin fever however, starts with similar premises (the N***er episode) but turns them around at the end (the shop owner likes the black people, it was all a misunderstanding) to obtain a cheap laugh, but also to lose this narrative approach.
2) The "Thing" theme: While the Hawks/Nyby Original portraits the monster of outer space as a metaphor of the (at the time of the movie most feared) communism, the carpenter approach (which i think is copied in Cabin Fever) twists this premise to show the paranoia produced by the monster in the classic "It could be anybody, There is no one to trust"-scenery. This approach is not only a tension building one it also is quite a smart comment on the US-Politics in the 50s (although i'm sure carpenter wanted to scare in the first place). Cabin fever uses the mistrust atmosphere to scare, but it lacks any deeper interpretative Level on that and fails also in scaring.
Many other great movies could be named which may have inspired this one (the evil dead series for example, because of the cabin. But there is no other connection to evil dead) but the fact prevails that cabin fever didn't honor them... It couldn't because it obviously didn't understand them. If the director did he didn't put it in his movie. What remains is an nonhomegenous, untense horror-camp flick which is harmless, mediocre fun in the first half (as this half is so standard, its hard to get this wrong) and gets messed up, boring and senseless in the second half and the finale. It includes some blood and breasts, which are nice, but can't support a weak movie.
If you're in for some sex and some gore watch it, if you think horror could be more avoid it.