Mad at the Moon

I had it transfer from VHS - very dark copy - to DVD - Wow! Somebody mentioned the word "hypnotic" in a review. Well, yes, hypnotic applies but also moving, strange, gorgeous. Where is Mary Stuart Masterson? My God! She's sublime here. Hart Bochner is mysterious and heartbreaking. And who is Stephen Blake? He's compelling here but looking at his credits on IMDb, he hasn't done much. Great face. The score by Gerald Gouriet is sensational. A lyrical western with dark undertones. The aria at the beginning "La Notte Scotta" an unexpected stroke that takes you somewhere immediately. The ending feels a bit rushed - maybe because I wanted to go on. But I recently found out the film was shot in Simi Valley, California in 18 days for less than a million bucks. I don't know many people who've seen this movie. I sometimes introduce it in after dinner parties, always a success. Thank you.

This has to be one of the worst movies I've ever seen. If you find 20 minutes of ceiling fan close ups exciting, then this is the movie for you. If not, find something else. It was so bad we made up our own dialogue and gave it the MST3K treatment. There was also a 20 minute dinner scene where everyone just stares at each with meaningful looks. It's artsy in all the bad ways. Not my kind of movie.

The look of the film alone is worth the 90 minutes. The score is a masterpiece (where can I buy it?) Mary Stuart Masterson is a dream to behold. How is it possible I've never heard of this movie before? It's not for everybody, I agree. Slow paced, long silences, but the atmosphere is hypnotic. I bought the tape and sometimes I put it on, just to have it in the background. I can't pinpoint what it is, but there is something magic about this film. Unique. Like a western made by a child of Ingman Bergman. I don't want to spoil it for whoever sees it for the first time but there is a scene, a dinner in silence between the four leads just before the climax when a sudden wind storm comes to hurry the proceedings. It is wonderful!

This movie starts and ends with a rather elegant-looking large music box. A large metal wheel with notches cut out moves up into place, and the backlighting makes it look like a sky full of stars. In the beginning, there's an opera performance in a well-lit tent that is painted fancifully.

There's some beautiful and interesting images in this movie like that, and the cinematography might be very good but it is hard to judge from the pan & scan job I watched. However, the movie didn't work for me as drama or horror.

A romantically-inclined and perhaps naive young woman is proposed to by a shy, polite, awkward man she's known since childhood. Her mother is pleased with him, even though he's much poorer than their family. The young woman is more interested in a "saintly sinner" who hangs out at a saloon playing cards. What sort of relationship they have, if any, isn't clear. She sends him a poem, and he comes out to meet her, but doesn't talk at all except to repeatedly say "don't touch me!" when she tries to, and he even puts a gun to his head to drive the point home!

So, she marries the awkward guy, but doesn't want to have sex with him. She writes her mother claiming he doesn't want to touch her. One morning she finds him boarding up the windows from the inside, and she doesn't seem surprised by this. That evening she gets scared as he tells her he'll be spending the night outside, and she's not to let him in.

I've got to say, I didn't understand this movie. The ending made no sense to me. It's not surreal, it just doesn't explain itself well. Another user praised a scene in which several characters have a meal together without talking. I thought it was ridiculous. Perhaps there's something more interesting about it when it is in widescreen.

Definitely not recommended to anyone expecting a horror movie. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone looking for a drama either, though.

Firstly, this strange, moody and fascinating film reminded me what an amazing actress Mary Stuart Masterson really is. She grows in front of our eyes without betraying for a moment the romantically lyric aspects of the film. I've noticed a similarity with "Male Di Luna", an episode of "Kaos" a remarkable film from the Taviani brothers, but "Mad at the Moon" explores a universe all of its own and it does it with a score worthy of an Academy Award. The look of the film is also a standout. Hart Bochner, Stephan Blake and Fionnula Flanagan give subtle, moving performances but what I felt as soon as the movie ended was the need to shout: Long Live Mary Stuart.