nyp01

This film has so much cheese, you could feed an entire city. The jokes are stale, the acting is about what a troup of high school sophmores could muster, and the stage design falls right in line with the rest. I could continue in this vein for a hundred pages and not exhaust how terrible I found this film. Now, I understand that it has a cult status, but it's reputation is lost on me. Life is short. Too short to watch garbage like this. I'm glad Mr. Corman made it in two days for a couple of grand. I'm glad his partner wrote the script in the same amount of time. I'm glad almost no thought for artistry went into it. All of that shows.

This movie exemplifies why I left NY for good 40 years ago - despicable people rubbing up against despicable people, with no higher purpose in life than to come out ahead. The movie does a magnificent job in rendering this vain struggle in all it's ugly detail focused in on the main protagonist. Sandler's jewel dealer is so lost, his only happiness comes from the next score. People, family, friends are just phantoms in this lucid dream that have to be bribed, cajoled and vanquished on the way to the goal. Sadly, he is not even open to a different way of thinking, since the blinders he has on restricts the world down to such a tiny frame he is incapable of even noticing anyone or anything else even exists.

This movie is just so creepy. There is nothing particularly 'unworldly' or 'Martian' about what they are experiencing. It's more like a haunting or a reality shifting. Reminds me of another film from the same era, _The Haunting._ Like that film, there is a psychologization of the horror - it all seems to be taking place within the mind of each character rather than an external reality, and you are never quite sure where the menace resides - within or without. I found it to be very effective. Also, the fact that they filmed it at Greystone Mansion a known haunted house. I don't know if the producers did this to extract better performances, or it just was a practical consideration, but it just adds to the overall creepiness and uncanniness....