Purposely held off on doing my Oct part 2 post because I wanted to include this. Then I saw it (loved it) and had thoughts. Besides, this was possibly my most anticipated movie of the year. It deserves a proper write up.
I was pretty much sold from the first trailer. Gorgeous looking mysterious horror from Edgar Wright. Lest you forget that the man behind the more comedic Cornetto trilogy and Scott Pilgrim truly is a horror fan, I’ve been binging Eli Roth’s History of Horror this past week and Wright is featured rather prominently. Just about every episode has some brilliant (and often funny) commentary from this film geek.
But yeah, hooked from trailer one, a trailer that started to play way too often at the theater. Just before the second trailer started to work its way into the rotation, Wright tweeted. He said that if you were already sold on seeing the film, avoid the second trailer. I’d actually just had several conversations with someone about watching vs avoiding trailers for movies, so this advice burned into my brain. Avoid the trailer. Got it. But what about when it inevitably plays before some other movie I’m at the theater to see? Even with me purposely showing up 10-15 min late, I still catch 2-3 trailers each time (hi, AMC).
It ended up happening twice, I think. No Time To Die and Halloween Kills. Maybe another I’ve forgotten. My solution? Eyes down at my lap, trying to sing to myself whatever last song was stuck in my head or stuffing my face with any contraband food I may have snuck in and focusing really hard on how good it was (which it likely wasn’t). I didn’t see the imagery, but unfortunately did catch a few key words here and there. And yeah, it informed where the plot was going, but thankfully there was so much more mystery and atmosphere to it, that it didn’t spoil things.
Right, speaking of mystery and spoilage and such. None here. Hopefully all of my non-existent readers know by now I try to be careful. Once the film started to play a few festivals, Wright pleaded again via Twitter that those who got to see the film early should “keep the secrets” of the film, and I intend to honor that.
I did love pretty much everything about this film. It looked gorgeous, especially in its invocation of the 60’s (possibly my favorite era). Ever since hearing that Thomasin McKenzie was gonna be one to watch starting from Leave No Trace (which I saw and can confirm, she’s amazing), I always get excited to see what she does next. Her expressions and emotions were perfection. And we already know Anya Taylor-Joy is perfection, esp in this genre.
I’m sure I’ve droned on about what type of horror films I actually find scary and which I don’t. One of my sticking points is that it needs to be unavoidable and inescapable. By taking the psychological and nightmare route, it meets that criteria. You can’t run from your own thoughts and your own dreams, and if you can’t tell what’s real from reality is there anything you can even do about it. Wright played that card expertly and at full throttle.
Walking out of the movie, I ran into not one, but two tiny groups of co-workers (from our sister companies), all of whom had also been at the Friday evening Dolby screening in Century City. First off, further confirmation that I’m working at the right place when all of us choose to see premium format movies in our free time. There was one common thought from all of them after. None expected the horror elements (to the point where one friend’s gf was visibly upset at him for having brought her). So I guess not only did Wright do his job, the rest of the film community who had already experienced the film did so too. And in that spirit, I’ll end this before I say more than I dare.
Last Night in SoHo – \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/