Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Jason goes to the R-squared Horror Festival--Tuesday, Sep 21

The last two movies I saw in the theater. I also "won" a DVD set of the whole series, so the one film I missed--CARNIES--I'll watch later.

VINDICATION: This movie was very, very similar to AEGRI SOMNIA, almost to the point where if you showed me a random clip I'd have to think to remember which is which. This time, the main character (Nicholas) is absolutely suicidal (although so far has failed). Cinematography is still striking, but again overworked to the point where it's tiring to see a feature length movie this way. And it turns out Nicholas is a psychotic killer as well. The "vindication" of the title seems to be him showing the world that he was right to kill himself. Good for him?

And finally, CRYPTIC, and although it's barely even PG-13 it's the only movie in the series other than LONG PIGS that I'd actually recommend to anyone. When she was just 9 (in fact, on her birthday), Jesse witnessed her mom dying in a freak electrical accident in a swimming pool. Years later, as she's moving out, she finds the old cell phone that was her birthday present that day. On a lark, she calls her old number and talks to...herself, as a 9 year old. Giving herself clues, she saves her mom and finds out her dad actually tried to kill her. It's a really clever, well-written and well thought out take on time travel. Regular readers know I'm kind of a time-travel logic geek and while I don't think the time travel in this movie is Feynman-diagrammable, it is clever, logically self-consistent, and tells an enjoyable, exciting story that kept me in suspense (except for the final scene that was as predictable as it was satisfying).

Running Time: 169 minutes
My Total Minutes: 208,995

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