smudged68

This film is alright. A film directed by Ridley Scott ? Alright ? I am a big fan of Scott's movies. He has an incredible visual sense and very strong storytelling skills. But am I the only one to notice how unevenly paced this film is ? It just feels like it's been tampered with and is not the film that was intended.

For instance, the death of one character in the film is given a degree of weight that his one or two lines previously do not deserve. There are other scenes that go on a long time after their point has been made. I t actually made me physically uncomfortable.

This is not like Ridley Scott. It makes me feel that someone may have tampered with the film in the editing room. Anyone any ideas ? I did enjoy this film. Orlando Bloom manages to convince in the lead role (despite my initial misgivings), the fight scenes are suitably spectacular and graphic and there is huge visual scope.

But do we have to wait for the DVD to find if there was another cut ?

If the casual film fan has ever heard of or seen a Norman J. Warren film, chances are that film is 'Inseminoid', one of the first films to be a big hit on sell-through video in the early 80's.

However, 'Terror' is not as obscure a movie as you may think. It was the top grossing film in the UK for one week and in the States it actually made No. 19 in Variety's Top 50 grossing movies for 1979.

'Inseminoid' is usually referred to, perhaps a little unfairly, as a cheap rip-off of 'Alien'. 'Terror' is definitely a cheap rip-off of Dario Argento's 'Suspiria'.

The story involves a witch who is burnt at the stake. She curses the family responsible for her plight and promises to wipe out their line. Flash forward a couple of hundred years and we discover that what we have been watching is a movie. Then...everybody gets killed. There's very little plot for the rest of the film. Some characters arrive for no apparent reason...and then get killed...for no apparent reason.

What's this all got to do with 'Suspiria' then ? Well, here's a little checklist.

Suspiria - Terror

Supernatural story involving witches - Check

Film made with emphasis of style over narrative - Check

Scenes lit in lots of bright reds and greens - Check

Soundtrack full of atonality, clanging and wailing voices - Check

Film set in ballet school - The girls live in a school but they all seem to work at a 'Gentleman's Club'.

Lots of blood and girls dressed in white - Check

Death by disembodied hand through a window - Death by disembodied hand through a wall

Running through a storm pursued by a killer - Check

Knives entering flesh in jagged close-up - Check

Strange, overly made-up, androgynous-looking older women - Check

A hulking giant who may or may not be involved - Check (Peter 'Chewbacca' Mayhew)

A nightmarish masterpiece of a horror movie - Erm...

But the really interesting one that's made me think is when one of the characters dies by decapitation due to a broken window. There is a scene exactly like it in Argento's 'Inferno'. But 'Inferno' was made after 'Terror'. This is pure speculation but I wonder did Argento see 'Terror' at some point and say (in Italian, obviously) "Well, this bloke nicked so much from me. I'm going to nick this from him". Or was it just a weird coincidence. I am intrigued.

However, while 'Suspiria' is undoubtedly one of the greatest horror films ever made - a real experience - 'Terror' is unfortunately not. It is interesting to watch someone try to copy Argento but there is no real understanding here of what makes his films work. 'Terror' lacks a decent script, decent actors and decent direction. Of interest to Argento fans only.

Yes - Payback & Point Blank (1967) are very similar. But there is a very good reason for that. Both films are based on the novel 'The Hunter' by Richard Stark, a pseudonym for Donald E Westlake.

The films share several character names such as Brewster, Carter, Stegman and Fairfax and similar plots. In both cases the anti-hero Porter (or Walker) is trying to recover a sum of money after being double-crossed.

Now, I am a huge fan of Point Blank. It takes a relatively simple plot and makes a bit of cinematic poetry out of it. And if I was forced to compare Lee Marvin and Mel Gibson's performances, then I'm sorry but Gibson would lose big time. However, Payback is a much better film than I thought it would be. There are sufficient differences to make the story interesting and though it is told in a much more straightforward and, dare I say, 'safe' way than Point Blank, it is a very well made film and tells a compelling story well. And it's nice to see Gibson return to a somewhat morally ambiguous character a la Mad Max.