Joseph Ruben
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The Invisible Man (2020)
Directed by Leigh Whannell
influenced by Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)
Plot Visuals Themes
Touches of Sleeping With the Enemy (1991) and Hollow Man (2000) aside, Whannell’s rebirth of The Invisible Man feels like a fresh take blending the most minimal of threads from H.G. Wells‘ novel with more urgent themes from today.
In the movie’s breathtaking opening (one seemingly modeled after “Sleeping With the Enemy”), she carefully, with disgust on her face, lifts the hand draped over her in bed.
One is a thriller about escaping an abusive relationship, in the vein of Sleeping with the Enemy or Enough .
The result is a film that is less like Hollow Man (though there are some similar and less convincing visual effects at play) and more akin to Sleeping With the Enemy with the paranoia and trauma cranked to 100 as it focuses on the long-lived affects of gaslighting and abuse.
The narrative is a mix of Sleeping with the Enemy , The Entity and Hollow Man .
The terrors of escaping from an abusive relationship have been depicted in films before—there are similarities here to 1991’s Sleeping with the Enemy—but the unknowns that underpin so much of this film make its themes come alive.
(One movie not referenced is Joseph Ruben ’s terrific “Dreamscape,” from 1984, which had a lot more fun with some of the same concepts.)
Similarly themed films have been produced over the years -- such as the 1984 Dennis Quaid thriller "Dreamscape," the 1999 blockbuster "The Matrix" and Jim Carrey's 2004 indie hit "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" -- though none with as quality a cast or as much dramatic oomph as "Inception."The…
"Dreamscape" (1984) featured a man who could enter and manipulate dreams, and, of course, in "The Matrix" (1999) human beings and machines battled on various reality levels created by artificial intelligence.
It lacks the nimbleness of Spielberg’s Minority Report or the Jungian-carnival bravado of Joseph Ruben’s Dreamscape or the eerily clean lines and stylized black-suited baddies of The Matrix?or, for that matter, the off-kilter intensity of Nolan’s own Insomnia.
The Bigger Picture: Though there will undoubtedly be (valid) comparisons made to The Matrix and Solaris , a more blatant antecedent for Inception is Joseph Ruben's 1984 thriller Dreamscape , in which Dennis Quaid must enter the President's nightmares to prevent an assassin from doing likewise.
The idea of entering dreams to manipulate someone isn’t new — “Dreamscape” did that back in 1984 — but Nolan raises the stakes with brilliantly deployed effects (Gordon-Levitt walking on ceilings is just one “wow” moment) and a fast-moving, globe-spanning story.
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
Directed by Lynne Ramsay
influenced by The Good Son (1993)
Characters
Although based on a novel by Lionel Shriver, it seems to be a direct descendant of The Bad Seed, the 1956 thriller with Patty McCormack's Oscar-nominated turn as a murderous moppet (let's not waste time on 1993's similarly themed The Good Son; as a homicidal brat, Macaulay Culkin was about as menacing as an inchworm).
(His pathological coldness recalls Macaulay Culkin’s character in “The Good Son.”) Kevin’s idea of playing with his younger sister (Ursula Parker) consists of turning the vacuum cleaner on her hair.
But those going into Safe Haven expecting The Notebook redux will come out of it terribly disappointed as it quickly degenerates into a Sleeping With The Enemy rip-off and is undone by a convoluted story, contrived characters and a lot of shameless manipulation on the part of the filmmakers.
The set-up's ridiculous (and done much better in Sleeping with the Enemy starring Julia Roberts ) and the characters are of the one-dimensional variety taken to an extreme level.
Though never far from resembling 1991's "Sleeping with the Enemy" and the Stephen King tome "Rose Madder," "Safe Haven" isn't satisfied to exist solely as a well-lit, idyllically-set love story, but further involves by adding mystery, thriller, and other surprising genre elements into the mix.
If you’ve seen the Julia Roberts thriller “Sleeping With the Enemy,” you can add another checkmark to the list of familiar ingredients in this potboiler.
The 1991 film Sleeping with the Enemy featured Julia Roberts as Laura Burney, a nice young woman trying to restart her life after escaping an abusive and controlling husband.
The movie, opening in theaters Thursday, plays like a sanitized remake of "Sleeping with the Enemy," right down to an over-the-top climax set during a fireworks display.
The film is a worthy heir to the horror traditions of “Halloween” auteur John Carpenter, whose work is referenced via a tense electronic score and the occasional shot of a jack-o’-lantern, and Joseph Ruben, whose 1987 “The Stepfather” provided the template for this story in which a figure who should be worthy of respect and trust insinuates his way into an all-American family under false pretenses and with deadly consequences.
But they also belong to Henry Fonda in 1968’s Once Upon A Time In The West, or Terry O’Quinn in 1987’s The Stepfather, to name two prominent antecedents.
Cleek, a creepy dad in the vein of Terry O'Quinn in The Stepfather (1987), drags the wild child to his cellar, where he chains her in a crucifixion stance, intent on "rehabilitating" her.
The kind of thriller which echoes the likes of The Bad Seed (1956) and The Good Son (1993).
The Golden Age of Stylish Movies About Stalkers commenced with “Fatal Attraction” in 1987 and ran through the mid-1990s, with films such as “Pacific Heights,” “Single White Female,” “Sleeping With the Enemy,” “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” “Bad Influence,” “Disclosure,” “Fear,” “Unlawful Entry” and wow there were a LOT of movies back then with posters featuring good-looking humans and their good-looking tormenters.
From the director of Pâfekuto burû / Perfect Blue (1997), Paprika was a change of pace for Satoshi Kon, a science fiction psychological thriller that isn’t quite as original as might at first seem (it owes much to the likes of Escapement (1958), Dreamscape (1984) and The Cell (2000) among many others) but which is still one of the most visually lavish and intellectually stimulating of animes.
Fatal Attraction (1987)
Directed by Adrian Lyne
influenced Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)
Plot Characters Themes
"Sleeping With the Enemy" is merely "Fatal Attraction" with a splash of Brut -- a relentlessly formulaic look at the downside of sexual obsession, directed by Joseph Ruben.
We need to see him as a kind of male equivalent of the Glenn Close character in Fatal Attraction: a quasi-sympathetic monster whose dementia is really a twisted form of emotional pain.
This is in the 'never trust appearances' mould popularised by Fatal Attraction and Pacific Heights.
And in the wake of movies like "Jagged Edge," "Fatal Attraction" and director Joseph Ruben's own (and much better) "The Stepfather," you also know that the only thing that can stop these relentless SOBs is a bullet.
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992)
Directed by Curtis Hanson
influenced by The Stepfather (1987)
Plot
This switcheroo is a well-worn tactic in thrillers ranging from Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt" to Joseph Ruben's "The Stepfather," and "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" (rated R for violence, sex and language) isn't in their class.
That was a smart move, but then his follow-up projects were Return to Paradise, Clay Pigeons and a mediocre remake of Psycho.
Of course, Lyne could have been trolling us all along and this is all Vic’s version of events, which would have made for a much more intriguing flick (a kind of Sleeping With the Enemy from the mad, bad bloke’s cracked psychological perspective), but sadly this is all a straight take, complete with Tracy Letts’ increasingly suspicious screenwriter, Affleck conducting an extended chase scene on a mountain bike and literal aqua-based potential crimes.
Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)
Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson
influenced by Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)
Plot
In fact, his wealth disguises the most disturbing element of the story: if Christian isn’t rich, this movie is “Sleeping with the Enemy,” with whips.
Maternity, madness, abandonment and loss have already been covered by films like Dark Water, The Forgotten, Flightplan and The Tall Man, but Mama dissipates the impact of these themes not only by failing to ground them in anything real or plausible, but also by allowing any subtext they might have to get lost amongst the trees.
But there are certain prescient pictures that point north, films like The Truman Show that I underestimated like I thought everyone else underestimated Dark City, or films that remain underestimated, such as Strange Days and Twelve Monkeys, Terry Gilliam's most uncompromising film since Brazil.