Two very different films today for October Horror Month. Both were okay but I wanted to like them more than I did…
When A Stranger Calls (1979)
Directed by Fred Walton
Starring: Charles Durning, Carol Kane, Colleen Dewhurst, Tony Beckley
Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
A psychopathic killer terrorizes a babysitter, then returns seven years later to menace her again.
My Opinion:
I’d been wanting to see this 1979 horror classic for years! “Have you checked the children?” Such a famous line & I think every teen in the ’80s knew where those calls were coming from even if we hadn’t seen this movie. And, yeah, the beginning of this movie is GREAT. The beginning, as a short story on its own, is a classic.
I have a feeling that the beginning bit is all that anyone truly remembers because, man, this one falls apart in the middle. It kind of completely goes in a different direction & we don’t see Carol Kane again until the very end when it finally picks up slightly again. So I’m glad I finally watched this but it felt like I’d already seen it since I knew all about the beginning. Didn’t realize there would be so little of that good stuff & then the rest of the movie would drag. But I’m still giving it an extra half a point for having such a well known & often spoofed beginning.
My Rating: 6.5/10
Lady Vengeance (친절한 금자씨) (Chinjeolhan geumjassi) (2005)
Directed by Park Chan-wook
Starring: Lee Young-ae, Choi Min-sik
Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
After being wrongfully imprisoned for thirteen years and having her child taken away from her, a woman seeks revenge through increasingly brutal means.
My Opinion:
I like a revenge movie & am a fan of quite a few South Korean films so expected to really like this one. I was very disappointed. Then again, I absolutely hated Park Chan-wook’s 2nd film in this “Vengeance Trilogy”, so I don’t know why I expected to like this one. Lady Vengeance is the third film, with Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance being the first & that nasty Oldboy being the second.
I definitely far preferred this to Oldboy, however, and liked the main character, Lee Geum-ja. From Wikipedia, the movie is about “a woman released from prison after serving the sentence for a murder she did not commit. The film tells her story of revenge against the real murderer“. The story was a decent enough revenge story but, as with Park Chan-wook’s other films I’ve seen, the characters are hard to like (although Lee Geum-ja is a far more sympathetic character than Oldboy dude). And her red eyeshadow was cool. I’d look like shit in red eyeshadow. Anyway, the film was okay. I struggle with movies that involve children being harmed so this was a hard watch, although it made me want revenge just as much as the main character. I was just hoping for the film to be a bit better than it was…
My Rating: 6.5/10
Cinema Parrot Disco 