Movie Appraisal: Come and See (Иди и смотри) (Ідзі і глядзі) (1985)

So, this is less a horror film and more a horror of war film, but I'm going to make an exception. While I try to review or talk about or whatever 31 horror-things in 31 days, sometimes I feel the need to try something different. This Soviet film from 1985 is so incredibly different, psychologically scarring and, yes, terrifying, that I believe it truly belongs alongside of other horror movies, even if it isn't a silly little thing that makes you jump a little sometimes.

This movie, Come and See, directed by Elem Klimov,is quite possibly the greatest war film ever made, and also possibly the most accurate. It is set in 1943 and is centered around a young boy, Flyora, who wants to join the Soviet partisans who are fighting a guerilla war in Russia after being invaded by the Nazis. He finds a gun and joins up, only to be left behind very quickly. He meets up with a young woman who has some trauma of her own, and they decide to go back to his hometown before he goes back to the war effort. When they get there the town is sacked, his family is dead, and Flyora cannot easily accept it.

They both cross a bog in a truly intense scene to find a handful of survivors surviving on an island. One of the survivors is a badly burned man from the beginning of the film. Flyora then accepts the death of his family. As the story moves on, it becomes more horrific. Death seems to follow this young man, as the raiding team he goes with to find food are summarily killed one-by-one in various ways. He is left alone, helped by an old man, then taken in by Nazis. He stands by as a church with many Russian people inside is burnt down, killing them all but himself and a young woman who tried to save her child by rushing out of the church. Her child was thrown back in, and she was left to watch the execution of many.

After the burning, Flyora is left alone and broken as the woman is raped. The partisans come to kill the Nazis, too late for those in the church. The end of the movie shows that the Nazis are killed, but in a more merciful way. They are shot to death rather than burned. Flyora joins up, at the very end of the movie, with the partisans, leaving his village and childhood behind so he can fight this great and terrible threat.

That's a simplified plot. There is much more to it, but if you want to know it go and watch this movie. The horror here isn't in the story so much as in the way everything is shot, in how the movie is essentially about a boy losing his innocence, not to a woman or an ideal, but rather to death and blood. His journey is one of terror. Terror of the Nazis and their threat, the threat that so few could understand. It is the threat of cleansing, the threat of truly believing that others are less, the threat of reveling in death and mass-murder, and the threat of the inhumanity of war.

The emotional impact is exhausting. Having to watch the faces of these characters, their eyes and their thoughts, and seeing how they change over time. It's an ordeal of a movie, one for both the watcher and the characters. It is quite possibly the most visceral and effective anti-war film I have ever seen. It is also one of the most emotionally impacting films I have ever seen. The sounds of the movie are too much at times. The visuals are stunning and sickening. But it's really the acting and the directing that shine throughout. There are powerful moments on screen, moments that should never be forgotten, moments that should be watched by everyone so people, all people, can see the horror of war and what it does.

While World War II was obviously a bad war, it easily shows any and all wars, any and all conflicts. It is a movie that transcends the time it is about or the time it was made.

I don't know what else to say. While slasher movie and typical horror movies are creepy and scary and AHHHHH horror, this movie sticks with you in the dead of night. It affects you in a way that doesn't simply go away. It's a serious film for a serious audience, and I wouldn't tell anybody to go into watching this film lightly. It's scary in its reality. It's terrifying in what it portrays and represents. I don't think I'll ever forget the aftermath of the rape scene at the end of the movie, and how I almost felt viscerally sick, or how the burning down of the church made me clench my nails into the palms of my hands. It is a tough movie to get through, but the quality and the intensity is always there. I try to keep these October Nights as fun and enjoyable as possible, but if you want to truly be terrified, watch this movie and see the terrors of reality laid bare. I recommend this movie wholeheartedly but not lightly. It is disturbing and awful at times. That warning will always stand.

Video Game Assessment: BioShock Infinite (2013)

Hello all!

Now this is going to be a spoiler-filled review, analysis, and interpretation of BioShock Infinite. Don't say I didn't warn you, and don't read on without heeding that warning. I have some ideas that will probably prove to be unpopular, but since I've never personally seen them raised, and I've played the game four times, I think I have very valid reasons to raise them myself.

Anyway...

It starts with a lighthouse.

And what is a lighthouse? A way to keep pesky travelers away. A warning. And what happens when one fails to heed a warning? I think that the answer must be: nothing good at all.

There's always a man.

But he barely matters. He's simply a man. Nothing more. Kind of generic really.

And there's always a city.

Columbia in this case. A city in the clouds. Kind of like Cloud City on Bespin except... uh... not centralized.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We have to start at the beginning or we're never going to get anywhere. So, let's begin.

What is this video game?

BioShock Infinite is a multi-faceted, complex, and brilliant game brought to us by the developer Irrational Games and Publisher 2K Games. It is a follow-up (or spiritual sequel) to BioShock and BioShock 2, which in turn are spiritual sequels and homages to the old System Shock games. Everybody knows that. It's a tired thing to say, but I have to start somewhere.

I personally can't stand BioShock. Not this game, we'll get to my feelings on this game later, but the first BioShock was a game I really did not enjoy in any sense of that word. It called itself  horror game, but had no horror. It attempted to parse Objectivism, but only ever touched the surface. It tried to create a new kind of narrative, but only fell on its face. My opinion on that game is fairly negative. It was one of my least favorite games that I actually bought in this gaming generation (alongside Alan Wake and possibly Mass Effect 3). I can't think of anything besides the stunning visuals and designs that I actually liked about the game. And the end of that game is one of the worst fetch-quest things I've ever seen in a non-JRPG. So, I don't have fond memories of BioShock, so much so that I had no further interest in the series.

BioShock 2 came out. I never played it, never even cared to play it. I heard it was more BioShock, a tired sequel in a generation of tired sequels. I didn't care. I was done with the series. A horror series that isn't horror that thinks it's more intelligent than it actually is? Yeah, not my cup of tea. And when the teasers and trailers started coming out for Infinite, I simply let them pass right over my head. How could I care about a series I never liked? And what did it matter that it would have nothing *really* to do with the other games? All I saw was fluffy pretty nonsense.

And I wasn't interested.

I didn't care.

Then a beacon, a light from across the sky. A review and a damn good one at that. Adam Sessler posted a video review that drew me in, and made me need to play this game. I hadn't had any inkling of interest before this, but in that moment, on the Tuesday this game came out, I knew I needed it. The game was my lighthouse, and I was like a moth to its brilliant light. I bought it, and I played.

I saw the true face of what brilliance could be.

And I was glad.

But I'm not talking about the game yet, about the rowboat, about the barely understood conversations with what seem like two crazy people, about the lighthouse, the mystery, and on, and on, and on ad infinitum...

It wasn't just that the game was brilliant. The game also touched on things never brought up in video games, played with ideas that were always left rotting in the attic of a creator's brain. It wasn't just that the game was intelligent. It was that the story was saying something other than: go shoot this, go save the damsel, and go get the reward. It was a deconstruction to be sure (and I love those), but one without pretext. And certainly one that didn't seem that way from the outset. It is a game that ages well with time and playthroughs, being confusing the first time through, and gaining traction with every subsequent journey through Columbia and its avenues.

I'm not going to waste your time and mine saying what people have already said. Go read other reviews if you want to hear dull praises and claps on the back for this game. It's a great game. Hell, in some ways and to some people it is goddamn near-perfect. It is for me. But saying that does not make it so. Yes, the visuals are stunning. Yes, the gameplay is like some crazy high-octane roller coaster ride. Yes, the narrative is good. Yes, Elizabeth is a wonderful character. But those are empty statements without something to back them up.

While the visuals are stunning, there is nothing in them that makes or breaks this game. Yes, pretty graphics can be fun, but this game could have easily been another BioShock if it didn't have more than just pretty things to fall back onto. Columbia is a gorgeous world, but the visual porn will always be there. it doesn't go away, but is also frankly one of the worst and weakest parts of the game. And that should be read as elevating the other parts of the game, not denigrating the visuals. Columbia is gorgeous, and it only looks better the longer the game goes on. The character designs get better with time, the enemies become more compelling, with larger enemies having more unique designs, and even the smaller ones looking more interesting.  The absolute high point for visuals in the game would be after the final battle when Columbia is nothing more than a memory, but that could just be me.

The gameplay is unique, interesting, and fun. Yes, it is also kind of generic with guns in one hand and magic powers in another, but so many other games do the same that there is really no way I can complain about this doing what others also do. It would be a ridiculous argument. Some of the fights are pretty well scripted, but I think that works in the game's favor, having amazing areas in which to fight rather than tiny corridors. People have complained about the combat... and I have no idea why. What is annoying about this combat that isn't annoying about other FPS games? I get tired hearing about complaints without any merit. Let's call it personal preference. Or maybe those people were caught up in the hype and it didn't deliver the experience they expected and wanted. Or maybe PC gamers are a fickle crowd and like to be annoyed at everything. I don't know. All I can say is that I liked the combat quite a bit. The gameplay was fresh and exciting, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. This is not a horror game (all that much) so why not have some adventurous fun while playing? The sky-hooks are brilliantly fun. Yes, they put you on rails, but rails can be a ton of fun. I loved ninja-ing down on unsuspecting enemies. I could do that all day long. And my favorite part was smacking people with my sky-hook. Man, that was viscerally incredible.

I really think that way too many people talk about gameplay like it's the entire game. I've heard some even say that bad gameplay can kill a game. No. No, it can't. Games have evolved. They are not simply Mario jumping around for a princess or Tetris blocks needing to match up. Games are not just about fighting. How can they be with narratives, characters, and everything else besides filling up the game with so much else? This game has a perfect balance between combat and rest. I wish every game could be like that. It reminds me of Half-Life 2 without physics puzzles. And I don't think that's a bad thing at all. I'm also very forgiving when it comes to gameplay. I loved the original Deadly Premonition and was okay with its frankly godawful combat. So, full disclosure, I guess. Bad gameplay has never turned me off of a game. And it never will. Then again, I'm also good at video games. So, take that as you will.

Something seldom spoken of in videos games is the music and sounds. This game does music and sounds better than any game I've ever played before. The music is near-brilliant, with many anachronistic 1912 covers of radically different songs through time, from Tears for Fears "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" to "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper. And they're all so good and so worth listening to and being surprised by. The sounds are great as well- everything from vocal work (the Luteces are amazing, Elizabeth is the female voice to be compared against now, etc.) to what characters say, not only in their environment but also on the voxophones. There is an essence to the words and voices in this game that gives the whole thing credence. The rebellion plot in the story is greatly increased by such amazing vocal work. Seeing a Handyman lying killed in the streets, only to find that he still kept a voxophone of his wife telling him that she loved him? That's heartwrenching and beautiful, especially when the existential question of what they are comes up in the game as well.

The voxophones are an interesting way of giving us the backstory of the game. Yes, BioShock did it as well, but much less satisfyingly in my opinion. Perhaps it's the vocal talent here, or all the alternate universes, but I found what was going on in the background much more compelling throughout this game. I even found it more compelling than pieces of our own narrative. Saying that, I also loved listening to people on the street talking, saying weird and oddly racist things at times. It made it all that much better. It made it all that much more an actual world. It drew me into itself that much more.

And does the narrative of the game matter? You better believe it. It's amazing, with twists, turns, and things that don't quite make sense. The ending, I'm looking at you here. But even the things that don't make sense still work. There are questions that still hang over the narrative, and that's a good thing. It makes the story more interesting, more ambiguous, and more likely to be interpreted many different ways. It leads to debate, and that's never a bad thing.

The ambiguity of the story and the ending is what I liked most about the game besides Elizabeth. Yes, the twists were fun. But not knowing what truly happens in the end is what made the game worth playing, and I guess my interpretation of the ending (which seems different from everybody else's) made me love this game. I'll get to it later, but yes, prepare to be upset with me. I'm sure I'll get yelled at for not getting it.

*sigh*

Anyway, Elizabeth is one of the best female characters in video games. Look, if you want to take anything away from this game that's good, it has to be that. She is a non-sexualized, non-damsel, non-escorted NPC, who can take care of herself, interact with you in so many different ways, and has an effect on the way you play the game. I'd compare her to Alyx from Half-Life 2 and its episodes, but Elizabeth is more a natural progression of that kind of character. It's amazing to see that in this day and age when everybody seems to hate women, especially in their video games, and the only women they seem to allow are huge-breasted and vapid wank material. I'm glad for Elizabeth's existence, for her equal status to Booker throughout the game, and for her even transcendence into something near-God-like. To me her progression as a character made the game for me. Seeing her change as she changed costumes, grow as the game grew, become more serious as our situation did, it was amazing. It was compelling. It gave me something to care about within the game, something to get attached to.

So, as the game goes on, and Booker gets involved in a rebellion, steals a girl from her "prison," sees what Comstock (the antagonist of the game) really is, and goes from rugged antihero to broken man, I was entranced. The story was paced so well. It made me care. It made me want to see what would happen next. I didn't want it to end. But it had to. And the ending was... controversial in my brain. I fought long and hard to come to a consensus about what I thought about it. Was it all happening at the end, with Booker and Elizabeth going through the lighthouses, seeing all the untold amounts of universes? Or was it simply another deconstruction?

The way I see it was that each other Booker and Elizabeth, every other lighthouse as well, they are all other games being played. Some perhaps by yourself, but some but other people entirely. The game can never truly change. The big moments always have to happen. But the small things can very easily change. Each and every game is different. But they all come to the same realization and the same ending. That's brilliant and sad. And it works so well. We go through the game seeing Elizabeth grow as a character, seeing her go from eating cotton candy and talking about childish things to openly wanting to murder her "father." But the biggest and most interesting part of the game is when we realize that we can never find another ending. There is no happy ending. Elizabeth cannot change her fate just as Booker cannot change his. What I find most compelling about the ending is that it is about failure.

Neither Booker nor Elizabeth win in the end because the game was rigged from the start. Things cannot change therefore our game never changes. Elizabeth can try a million times to save Booker and herself or kill Booker and herself, but the game keeps being played, and the failures, each and every game, will always happen. I don't know if Elizabeth is wrong about being able to fix it or if she just wants to end it right there. I don't know. Is she God at the end of the game or some equivalent? Or is she a terrifyingly sad young woman who thinks she knows what to do and cannot? Maybe she succeeds like most seem to think, but that is so far-fetched to me. Killing Booker does not kill Comstock even if they are the same person. Killing Booker does nothing but kill Booker. So, either she kills him for kicks, puts him in the role of a younger Booker, or kills him to make the failure complete. I will mention that if she can put Booker in the role of his younger self, than why not create an entirely new Booker? Or kill the Booker who always becomes Comstock after the choice is made? She chooses to kill the player character, the one who has protected her and cared for her throughout the game. There's a reason for that. And to me the reason is that there can never be a winning scenario. There can never be happily ever after. Some see the stinger at the end being the happy ending of Booker and Anna living happily ever after. I see it as a drunken Booker before the game begins forgetting that he already gave her away. Nothing changes. The game is always the same. And that is why it is very close to perfect.

I can compare it to NieR, another game about failure that I also loved. It is so good so often, and people hating it simply makes no sense to me unless they either don't care about narratives or they simply don't get it. I will never be okay with a person ragging on a game because the gameplay isn't their cup of tea. That is such a stupid reason to hate a narrative heavy video game. It gets to me, this slagging the game off, because I did find it so brilliant and so fun. I can't even see how others cannot also enjoy it unless they are suffering from anti-hype which is literally so stupid it actually makes me angry.

As for real concerns, why doesn't Booker break his legs when jumping off of the sky-rails? Why? Seriously. Portal had the explanation of long falls being okay because Chell has long fall boots. But Booker can die if he falls to far regularly. So, why doesn't he die when he jumps from a hundred feet up onto concrete? Don't even dare say magnetism. I will lose all my mind. Seriously, there is no explanation. It's kind of dumb, but that really stuck out to me.

I wish we could have more than two guns at a time as well. This is something others have brought up as well. I kind of get it from a realistic point of view, but from where I'm standing it just makes me use fewer types of guns and conserve the ammo for the guns I really like. I don't mind it amazingly, but it isn't the best decision ever.

As for other things I liked. Well, the sidequests were fine. The other characters in the narrative were great. The insane asylum interlude was one of the best pieces of a video game I've seen in years. That whole sequence was terrifying and compelling. It was simply so good. I love the murder of crows vigor too. Man, that was a ton of fun to use. And I really liked the multi-dimensional plot, where eventually you have no idea what reality even is anymore. I liked that a lot too. The Luteces were fantastic, characters that give the G-Man a run for original and interesting characters that have an otherworldly presence.


And that's that for the review. There are probably a ton more things I could say, but... nah... not really. I made my big points. I might do a podcast on it eventually if I get the need to talk about it more. I have a few other things to just mention about this blog in general.

I'm mostly just glad to finally be posting stuff again. Over a month hiatus is quite long enough for me. It's been a while, hasn't it? Well, with fifty+ hour work weeks (my job is exhausting and I work six days a week), a long-distance relationship (and I'll be getting engaged soon), and trying to actually sleep some days, I basically haven't had a ton of time or energy to update this blog. I apologize for that, I really do. I'm going to try to update more often, but... I doubt my schedule will change, but I'm intensely trying to push myself to bring some content out. It may be a bit more scattered, but I'm going to try.

I do have many different reviews I'm planning, and October (although months away) is very much on my mind for my next 31 reviews. Anyway, the next Goosebumps/Fear Street review might be coming soon hopefully. And my next game review will hopefully be coming out in a few weeks at latest. I hope everybody is okay with me not putting out as much content as before. This blog will always update, it simply might be slower than usual from now until my schedule frees up a bit.

Movie Appraisal: The Hole (2009)

I didn't know this was a Joe Dante film until after the movie was done. In retrospect I probably could have guessed. It's very much his style of film, with very similar themes to other movies that I've seen directed by him. But I'm starting off kind of strange, talking about the director of this film when I have a movie to review. So, let's jump down the bottomless hole and see what lies beyond the darkness.


I talk about Joe Dante because I tend to like his films (the very few I've actually seen), and this one is no exception. I loved (LOVED!) this film. It was great from beginning to end with excellent set-ups, a great plot, amazing characters, and a weird horror-comedy fantasy plot that actually made me both pull back from the screen at times and laugh at others. It was really a brilliant film. If you're reading this review right now and haven't seen this flick, just stop reading and go watch this film. Yeah, it has 3D in the title (because it was filmed in 3D) but don't let that throw you off watching the movie (or entice you to watch it either because 3D is generally horrible). The 3D didn't add or subtract from The Hole though. I didn't even notice it until after I started to look stuff up for this review and noticed that the movie was filmed in 3D and yeah...


The acting is amazing by the way. Yes, there are hiccups from time to time, but for the most part it works. The kids are kids. I mean, hell some of the things Dane (played by Chris Massoglia) did, I did myself when I was his age. And it all worked quite well. His performance, although a little wooden at times, really showed a character with depth and maybe some vulnerabilities and a whole lot of loneliness bottled up inside of him. He latched onto the female lead, Julie (played by Haley Bennett), and their chemistry together was fun to watch. Haley Bennett does a great job here as well, showing a range of emotion (maybe not the greatest range, but still a range) and a character that does feel well-rounded despite how little you know about her. Finally there is Lucas (played by Nathan Gamble who was the kid in The Mist.) who acts well beyond his years, having quite possibly the best comic timing and some of the best acting in the movie. The dynamics between Dane and Lucas is really the whole driving point of the movie, and kind of the take home message is that these two didn't really like one another at first, but eventually came together as brothers. It was sweet, well thought out, and well executed. Honestly, all three lead characters have great chemistry with one another, and the quality of their acting was certainly enhanced by acting against one another. I can't even say enough good things about the acting here. I felt that they were kids, and that's something I see so rarely in films like this. Usually the kids in a movie feel like anybody else, mostly like adults writing a kid, but here the kids feel like regular kids and act like regular kids, and it is absolutely a joy to behold.


The story is simple enough, a mother (played by Teri Polo) and her two sons move to a new town to get away from her abusive ex-husband, who is currently locked away in a prison in New Jersey. She gets a new job at a hospital and the boys have some free time to do anything they want to do. It's summer after all, so there are plenty of things to do, right? Well, no. Dane misses his friends and seems to really hate on his young brother, Lucas. He sees his pretty next door neighbor and starts watching her in the most socially awkward way possible, drawing her, and probably actively thinking about maybe possibly dating her. I-I... I don't know... I guess that's what I would be thinking if I had ever been in his shoes... which I haven't been... or... uh, probably haven't been... more than likely... Look, I understand what the dude's thinking, all right? Stop looking at the page like that. It's unbecoming of you.


Anyway, Lucas, being a little snot-nosed punk, goes on the warpath when Dane won't play with him and starts talking to the pretty neighbor girl, Julie, on his own, much to Dane's embarrassment and chagrin. He grabs Lucas to pull him away from talking to Julie, and starts beating the little booger up in the basement only to find...


THE HOLE


Well, they start messing around with this latched door on the floor of their basement, finding it padlocked with, I believe, six separate locks. They find the keys hidden away, and Dane undoes the locks only for them to find a bottomless hole. Julie comes in to see if they've killed one another or not, and stares in amazement at the odd hole herself. They mess around with it even more, sending items into the abyss and filming to see if they would find anything of interest, but they don't see anything of note besides a BOTTOMLESS HOLE UNDER THE HOUSE.


They treat it like a passing interest. Hell, I would probably do the same thing if I found a bottomless hole. I'd send stuff down there, try to tape it, write a blog about it, and ultimately get bored with it and forget about it. Such is my existence, making even the outright bizarre and creepy more mundane than a plain potato. Honestly, I like this part of the movie. The kids act like kids, not like adults writing for kids, which is something I really have to point out as a positive aspect of the film. The kids play around with the hole, and scare themselves... but ultimately... well, the hole wasn't empty... and whatever it was that was down there is coming for them...


I like the claw marks on the inside of the latched door. I like the locks disappearing, the ghostly noises Julie hears at night, the uncanny valley clown puppet that scares the crud out of Lucas, and I like the aesthetics. I like how the tension rises throughout the movie, and I like both the scarier moments and the funnier ones. I like how the scary moments were actually scary and the moments meant to be funny were actually amusing. It's a rare film that can pull off completely different tones from one scene to another and do so flawlessly, and this film does it amazingly. I couldn't stop watching this movie. I couldn't pause it, and I didn't want to pause it. I was totally engrossed in everything with this movie, especially the world of the movie. It simply impressed me to no end to see something that felt like it could have been real.


Anyway, the hole lets out your greatest fears, which you either overcome... or well... don't. And it works quite well showing off itself as both a effective horror movie and as an effective comedy-horror flick. There were certainly moments when I found myself slightly creeped out by what was going and other moments where I was rolling my eyes at the absurdity of the situation. But I think that was the point, to show us just how ridiculous some fears can be. Having a fear of creepy clowns eventually will point out just how ridiculous it is to think that a clown doll can overpower even a child. Fear of an abusive father becomes a ridiculous thing, showing that his own domination over those weaker than him makes him smaller and less intimidating. Showing a little ghost girl and pointing out that she's not some terrifying bogeyman, just a scared little girl who didn't want to die and misses her life... it really works for this movie. It shows the strength of the film through deconstructing fears and what makes a person afraid... also overcoming those obstacles. It's, in some ways, a coming of age story, with each of these characters putting something aside, growing as characters and as people. The development is fantastic, bordering on some of the best character development I've ever seen in a ninety minute movie.  I loved that aspect of the film. It was probably the most appealing thing to me about it, and something I definitely won't soon forget.


 The movie looked amazing as well, not necessarily because it was in 3D either. It looked like a lot of care was put into making the sets, the trapdoor, and the trippy dream sequence kind of thing at the end. I was really impressed by the visuals throughout the film though. I think they'll have a lasting impression on me. The pool scene looked like some of my memories of hanging in a pool or near a pool with high school friends. The basement scenes looked like they were taking place in a creepy basement, but the visuals changed just as soon as the scenes shifted to outside of that basement. The little ghost girl looked like she was made with some kind of stop-animation, and it worked so well, making her seem very creepy and very out of place, like she couldn't work in the real world. It gave the movie a definite fantastic edge that I thought worked incredibly well int he movie's favor.


Anyway, this was a brilliant film that I would recommend to everybody. It works as a family film oddly enough, despite the horror. There isn't much in the way of bad language or gore, and the sexual themes, if you could call them that, are no worse than anything you could see on the Disney channel, for example. (Not that I watch that channel, mind you, just that I've seen my younger cousin watching it and know the stuff on it.) I also find it funny that, although a relationship is hinted at, nothing ever happens between Dane and Julie. Their relationship has an innocence to it that you wouldn't expect, and I really enjoyed that. It happens so rarely that a simple innocent relationship can leave a lasting memory, but it was so much stronger than relationships usually are in these kinds of movies, you know the ones I'm thinking about. The ones that are all about sex and sexual interest and having the female lead lose as much clothes as possible. I don't mind those kinds of films, but I like the innocence here. It's done so rarely, in my opinion, that it really does matter when it's done superbly.


In general I would seriously say that anybody could enjoy this film even despite it's kind of cult film feel. I think it can appeal to a very wide audience, much like Gremlins. Joe Dante did a great job making another film that should be a classic. I'm only sorry to say that I hadn't even heard of the film before I saw it, which is a real travesty. So, I'm giving a glowing recommendation of this film. I really enjoyed everything about it, even the sometimes slightly off acting. There was a charm to this movie that very, very few movies have to them outside of Terry Gilliam movies, Joe Dante movies, and some random '80s and '90s flicks that I look back on nostalgically. I was impressed by this movie so much that I can't even stop smiling about it. Check it out. Find it. Watch it.