This is How Movies Should Be Made

A Major Disappointment

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

There's not much story. The killings are creepy though. It's about this ex-husband who wants custody of his five year old daughter from his deranged ex-wife in a psychiatric hospital. In the meantime, dwarves attack the townspeople. It does explain where they came from which doesn't make sense, but I thought the dwarves were the best part.

Somewhere between Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Gremlins, this antique gem of a horror movie was released without much fanfare despite a lavish "gory kitchen scene". (Maybe because it was filmed in Canada and it wasn't widely distributed in the USA?) Anyway, this is Cronenberg's breakout movie and it deserves some attention. The inimitable Oliver Reed stars as an alternative psychiatrist working on deep methods for processing buried rage. His star patient (Samantha Eggar in a scenery chewing performance worthy of a look) is a mother with anger issues; when people wind up murdered by tiny assassins it's a good bet that Reed's methodology is the cause. Part intellectual horror, part blood and guts, part psychological mystery, this film should be seen by anyone who seriously studies the genre and also by fans of unusual scary stories. It's a B-grade thriller from start to finish. The child censorship laws of this century would make this film unreleasable now and it's a rare treat to see what was acceptable in films just under 40 years ago. The fact that Cronenberg assumes his audience is intellectually capable of following some fairly intricate dialog and plot complexities is another throwback to a bygone era.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this movie but somehow I was attracted by its premise. I surely didn't regret watching it and it sure won't be my last visit. The movie goes definitely not go for gore or creepiness but excels in character development from all the leads. A gradual build-up of tension and strong scenes, questions arise what is really going on. Is it real or a dream? Is there an evil force behind it all? Regularly I was put on the wrong foot. All questions get eventually answered and the revelation was not only disturbing but quite effective and made sense (even if it wasn't realistic). Indeed an under-appreciated and overlooked gem.

This movie was very good, the concept is great, the horrible scenes are great but not "real" enough. IF ONLY they had great special effects back then, it could have been a 10!Cronenberg, (who directed one of my favorites, "The Fly", has a great idea here. He seems to have some actors he likes, for example one guy who had "an unfortunate experience" under the care of the psychologist, was also in "Scanners" (another favorite). This doesn't come close to as good as The Fly or Scanners, but it's still pretty good.IF ONLY the little mutant children looked more realistic, it would have been perfect... It's a little 70-ish, if you can't overlook the older style of filming and acting you may not like it...