Peter Medak
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Connections, in both directions
Legend has the additional Shakespearean element of the twin brothers, mirrored but also contrasted and at odds (Peter Medak’s 1990 The Krays played up the Oedipal angst around the boys’ dotty mother).
Peter Medak’s 1990 film The Krays previously took a chilling stab at their story, but Helgeland’s take is altogether sleeker, flashier and more glamorised, tapping into the mythic celebrity image they created for themselves and pandering to a certain peculiar nostalgia.
The story of the Kray twins was the subject of an excellent 1990 movie, "The Krays," that starred Gary and Martin Kemp from Spandau Ballet as the brothers and Billie Whitelaw as their creepy mother.
The Krays’ older brother, Charlie, is never mentioned, while mum Violet (Jane Wood) was considerably more present in 1990’s The Krays .
Their story was told previously in the superior 1990 film “The Krays” starring siblings Martin and Gary Kemp of the band Spandau Ballet.
The material provided here is paper thin: After a tragic prologue lifted from the screenplay structures of "The Changeling" "Don't Look Now" and "Dead Calm", "The Descent" settles into it's main narrative of six young ladies who decide to reclaim a sense of youthful danger in their responsible adult lives by going on a caving expedition in the Appalachian mountains.
All right, so I never figured out exactly where all the copper pipes came from (an itinerant plumber maybe?), but the scene is quick, nasty and manages to evoke both Peter Medak's The Changeling (1980) and Paul Verhoeven's The Fourth Man (1983).
Some of the material also borrows from the superb George C. Scott supernatural thriller, "The Changeling" (I won't explain how, but after you see the film, you'll see the similarities in some pivotal discoveries and revelations).
The year, by my reckoning, is 1981, since “Blow Out” and “Zorro: The Gay Blade” are advertised on cinema marquees.
Set in the Gotham City of 1981 (we know this because a movie theater is showing Blow Out and Zorro: The Gay Blade ), this stars Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, who’s been beaten down by life — and beaten up by everyone around him — from Day One.
Modern Times, Blow Out and Zorro: The Gay Blade should give you an idea of what the director is going for.
For now, her talents will remain in horror’s pantheon of stellar performances next to The Changeling ‘s George C. Scott and The Entity ‘s Barbara Hershey.
The other feel is that The Night House is a throwback to late 1970’s horror films such as The Amityville Horror , The Changeling , or Don’t Look Now , which all deal with couples or characters haunted by loss.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Directed by Gore Verbinski
influenced by Romeo Is Bleeding (1993)
The strengths of Pirates of the Caribbean lie mainly in Verbinski's sincere tributes to boy's life pirate operas, from volumes of unnatural fog to the good teeth/bad teeth barometer of morality, to parrots on shoulders and characters who mutter "Arrrrrgh, shiver me timbers"--benefiting, as well, from Verbinski's and wonderful cinematographer Dariusz Wolski's (Dark City, Romeo is Bleeding, and Verbinski's own The Mexican ) colour schemes and lighting, which provide Pirates of the Caribbean with a rich texture that again reminds of Gilliam.
There are unsubtle nods to Rosemary’s Baby, The Changeling et al, but for the most part it’s back to the de rigueur “quiet-quiet-quiet-BOO!” formula popularised to money-spinning effect by James Wan. Director John R Leonetti served as cinematographer on several of Wan’s films (including The Conjuring) so it’s no surprise that this looks much the same – although to be fair the scares are orchestrated with more flair than usual, even if the best of them are all spoiled in the trailer.
The film is littered with references to genre classics — Poltergeist, The Changeling, Robert Wise’s The Haunting — but they’re never foregrounded.
It’s a well-worn scenario of intense grief set somewhere lusciously photogenic, like Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now or Peter Medak’s The Changeling —only this time extremely British.
Where Ari Aster remixed Ingmar Bergman’s domestic dynamics within the skin of The Changeling , The Lodge finds itself more preoccupied with its contrived plot twists than any form of psychological interrogation, delivering a ponderous affair that remains far too subdued for its own good.
Even more remarkable, I read recently that "Gran Torino" is the highest-grossing film Eastwood has ever made, remarkable when you consider he's done things like "The Outlaw Josey Wales," "Unforgiven," "Mystic River," "Letters from Iwo Jima," "Million Dollar Baby," and "The Changeling" to name but a few in addition to the "Dirty Harry" series.
Yours truly won’t be a part of the “good bones” club, that’s for sure, having been effectively unnerved by cinematic yarns where the abode is alive, both as a vessel and as its entire self, such as Poltergeist, The Changeling, original Amityville, Crimson Peak, mother!, et cetera.
But what Aster does differently is infuse the familiar with the unsettling and the haunting, similar to ’70s and ’80s-esque features like The Changeling.
And just as The Changeling gave sex symbol Anjelina Jolie an open door to play a mother in iconic and perpetual suffering, World War Z makes her real-world husband into the messianic family man warrior.
Like the cyber-villains Captain Kirk vanquishes on the original Star Trek ("The Changeling," "The Ultimate Computer"), Euclid blows a gasket, but not before spitting out a page-long, seemingly arbitrary series of numbers.
SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL: A nightmare of grief and single motherhood, The Babadook takes some unsettling, intensely gratifying risks with a horror formula familiar from films like The Others, The Orphanage, and the movie that scared me most as a kid, The Changeling.
Most luminous in her role as a sensitive Polish woman who is more than a little impressed by the pianist's talent is Emilia Fox ("David Copperfield", 1999) as Dorota.
Edgar, Gran Torino, Hereafter, Invictus, The Changeling etc), is fluid, mostly using intimate close-ups which capitalise on Lawrence’s full range of emotions and expressions.