MSStMarie Reviews

1408 (2007)

***SPOILERS*** WHY it's scary.

[10/10 · 22 November 2008]

**SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS** READ NO FURTHER IF YOU WANT NO INFO ON THIS FILM!!!!! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!!!

1408. Mirrors. My own analysis.

Spoilers. Spoilers. Spoilers. Spoilers.

Someone in one of the threads remarked about how the theatrical version was better than the director's cut "for once." Agreed.

Someone in yet another thread remarked that maybe he'd died in the original surfing accident.

Agreed. (Maybe. I saw this day before yesterday, missed the first few minutes completely, and had to catch the alternate ending later on.) Both basically say the same thing, but the theatrical version made it more creepy and ambiguous and to me, more appealing...lots of different little flow charts going on with that one. In this case, less shock = more ACTUAL terror.

(Anyone who thinks Cusack is not a GREAT actor after this and High Fidelity is just mad. Try carrying a film almost completely by yourself. He's a master at this.) Thirteen, thirteen, thirteen, everything adds up to thirteen! Must mean it's evil or bad luck.

No.

It's superstition and misdirection.

The real story is about illusion and reflection.

I'd had a question about how the room looked so retro-modern and updated when no one could or would go in there for more than a few minutes at a time without being in danger (was a sticky point for me, but--the engineer could have been part of the room, just as the receptionist ended up being, just as Olin may have been all along--food for thought).

Maybe people see the room the way they WANT to see it. "I've been here before..." You see what you WANT, but DON'T want... or NEED, but DON'T need... to see when you're in the room.

For a time during his ordeal, Enslin was in his own home, safe and sound, after a surfing accident.

"Whew! This was all a dream!" But, the room is always with you.

It's your conscience; it's your most excruciating pain; it's your pathos; it's your love; it's your regret; it's your triumph; it's your disgrace; it's your greatest joy; it's your loneliness; it's your darkest fear; it's your wonderful relief; it's what you cannot change, but MUST accept; it's your life---it's your life that IS going to end at some point; it's your MIRROR.

It is the truth.

The room shows you YOURSELF. Maybe not even how you really are, but maybe how you perceive yourself to be, as it's all about images.

And that is why mirrors and mirror images are SO powerful in this film. It's why the very first unsettling thing we witness is the engraving on the cover of the bible (a symbol of any volume containing "beliefs") becoming a mirror image when he throws it back down into the drawer.

The room isn't hell.

The room isn't evil.

The room is a MIRROR.

A mirror of YOU.

And once you truly look into that mirror, you can't ever again deny what it is you saw looking back at you.

Scary stuff.

Vampire's Kiss (1988)

Loneliness is a Stake Through the Heart

[10/10 · 12 November 2008]

VERY BIG SPOILERS!!! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!!! I explain the entire film here, so if you don't want to have it explained, read no further!!

I did receive an e-mail from the screenwriter of this film, thanking me for understanding his movie after I posted this comment on Amazon years ago. I really think it's an underrated film that people misunderstand and everyone can relate to on some level.

Vampire's Kiss" is an overlooked and misunderstood dark comedy, and an allegory for the isolating fear of intimacy that can mimic being "undead." It features an amazing physical comic performance by Nicholas Cage as Peter Loew, which deserves recognition. I've read reviews wherein people feel that the character of Peter Loew has descended into madness as a result of being a jilted lover. But his madness is more about his crushing loneliness in a world where everyone around him seems to be happily and easily paired off. In spite of his solitude, he is emotionally unable to connect to anyone.

One night, he brings a woman back to his place, but while in the throes of passion, a bat flies into his apartment through an open window. The mystery and excitement of fighting off the bat becomes more erotic and interesting to him than the willing beauty in arms.

Terrified of the closeness he craves, he sabotages any opportunities he has for actual relationships in favor of elusive fantasies and hallucinations. His fear of commitment manifests itself as a vampire lover in the form of Rachel (Jennifer Beales), a woman he has had one conversation with in a bar, but has never made it with, except in his own fantasy world. There, she is a dominatrix of a vampire, sucking the life out of him, making him a prisoner of her demands, hungers, and lusts, distracting and preventing him from any real intimacy, promising him that soon, he will "be with her."

The vampire is the only one to whom he can say "I love you," and she doesn't even exist--not really. She represents the promise of something more exciting right around the next corner. Peter simply cannot commit to anything else when love and immortality are so close, but so far...

Vampires seem human, but they aren't human; they FEED ON humans. They're dead, cold, and isolated from the warmth of human existence--which is exactly how Peter feels, and why he believes he's becoming one. Plus, he is suicidal, and he seems to have found a way to receive deliverance in the form of his secretary Alva, who he begins to torment in earnest once he discovers she carries a gun, hoping she'll (justifiably) use it on him.

It's over the top and a little hard to understand, but I found this movie so engaging, and Cage's performance so funny and astonishing, in spite of the dark subject matter, that I have watched it over and over again. I have used this movie as a compatibility test for potential mates (which is sort of Peter-ish, I guess), and if they like it, I know it's a good match. If it had been performed another way, by another actor, I don't know if I would like it at all. But Cage brings brutality, vulnerability, tragedy, and all-out desperation together to create a complex character the like of which I have never seen before or since.

Sure, there are violent scenes; but are they real, or are they his imagination? We'll never know. So much of "Vampire's Kiss" happens in Loew's mind that all we know for sure is that he's desperately alone. So alone, he's willing to drive someone else over the edge to help ease his pain. He's so cowardly and childish that he uses terror as a way to achieve relief from his horrible solitude--death is less frightening to him than actually getting close to a real person. Therein lies the horror, and the sadness, of "Vampire's Kiss." And in Cage, lies the performance which makes this story watchable, and actually very funny.