"Incident on and Off a Mountain Road": The ultimate counterattack of the turtle in the urn
(Text: Vulcan Ji)
is already a turtle in the urn, like a fight between beasts; the carnival of killing suddenly puts the cart before the horse.
- Vulcan Ji. Inscription.
I don’t know if I’m completely exhausted, or if the movies are getting worse and worse – I’m no longer easily moved by dramas, I’m no longer easily amused by comedies, and I’m no longer feeling heavy with historical films. , action movies no longer make my blood boil, crime movies no longer arouse my sense of justice and mission, documentaries often make me feel rough, and horror movies no longer make me terrified. I wonder if my nerve endings seem to be getting sluggish.
Movies of any kind have been chewing on wax for me these days; it's aesthetic fatigue, or it's just that I've stopped believing all the stories people tell me. So I watched a lot of horror movies; I wondered if intense audio-visual stimulation, purely on the senses, could arouse my exhausted sadness and numbness. I don't believe those stories anyway, so why not listen more thoroughly to the most absurd and unbelievable stories. It's just that I'm not so easily frightened by any self-proclaimed terrifying footage.
I remember, and I also said, that horror movies are mostly tragic. Maybe, I wonder, if those stories with compassion can also reactivate my almost insensitive emotional world. I seem to be more and more "heavy" about the requirements of the film; whether it is the pure sensory feeling in audio-visual, or the indifferent thinking in emotion. Perhaps, because of so many years and so many movies, "light taste" can't have much impact on my audio-visual sense and emotional world. And horror movies, as a genre that I was extremely obsessed with, seem to be more demanding in this regard.
Why I love this series of miniseries, because it always amazes me with its uncanny brilliance. Among the horror movies I've seen in recent times, there are many films that were almost covered by this late-night miniseries "Masters of Horror" on ShowTime in the US in 2005. However, a few years have passed, and of the films I can see, few of them can break through the layers of "Master of Horror" and make new ideas.
As a big fan of horror movies, this miniseries still makes me relish. Because, on a certain level, it covers almost all horror films, and has created an altar of horror films with extremely gorgeous directors and strong screenwriters. Of the many horror films I've watched recently, some of them can be classified as horror films of the same type as this "Mountain Road Cry", but I always think of this film; so, after I wrote about Takashi Miike's filming , A few years after my favorite "Imprint" (Imprint), I feel I need to write something about this "Mountain Road Cry".
Rather than saying that this mini-theater on the ShowTime channel is just a series, it is better to say that it is a feast of horror movies in a collection of short films. With its long list of international master horror film directors, it's enough to make us horror movie fans flock to it. I thought about writing a review for each episode below it, but because the two seasons of "Master of Horror" are 26 episodes long, it would be a huge project to write down at once. Well, where you write it counts.
I wrote Takashi Miike in mid-2007, and today I'm going to write about Don Coscarelli's "Mountain Road". I don't know much about Dan's films, so it's unlikely to be as familiar as writing Memoirs of a Ghost Whore, just from the film itself.
The film, as the opening of two full seasons of Masters of Horror, is truly remarkable. If you have to classify this movie, this movie can belong to a very common movie category in terms of subject matter, and it is a very typical road movie. Why Hollywood has produced such a flood of road movies may have something to do with the sparsely populated human environment in the United States itself. Road movies should be extended from Western movies, at least when I watch road movies, I often feel similar to watching Western movies - a lonely walker, walking on the endless highway, self and free, the road is forever Underfoot, and the destination always beckons far ahead.
The road movie originally wanted to express, perhaps, the pioneering passion, adventure and loneliness of Western movies. In addition to countless scenery, the endless interstate highway has many unknown dangers and traps; this makes road movies often an excellent choice for horror movies. The problem is that when a theme becomes a classic theme, it means that similar stories under this theme have been told countless times by many movies. People have a long aftertaste, which is very particular about the strength of the director and the entire production team.
Recently, I have seen many types of movies, including the same type of road movies, which made me a little tired, so I watched a lot of horror movies. I've always wondered that pure and intense audiovisual stimulation might help to improve the aesthetic fatigue; it's just that gradually, I'm hardly frightened by any abrupt shot cut in any horror movie, is it? This also belongs to the aesthetic fatigue unique to horror movies. Just thinking back to the movie I saw a few years ago, I'm still impressed; maybe, that's why I wrote it for no reason.
There are many classics of road movies, like Dave Meyers' 2007's The Hitcher, which made this kind of road murder quite thrilling, or as early as 2004 DJ Caruso's "Taking Lives" and Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof" in 2007; A large part of the horror movies I have watched recently should be regarded as the same type of road movie as this "Mountain Road Cry", but this movie is not inferior to any other movie of the same type.
What this movie is so good at is that it may have given us a very abrupt shock in the setting of the characters and the final putting the cart before the horse in the relationship between the characters. It can be said that this is a movie that wins with its plot; compared to its plot, all these scenes that carry it are more impactful for a veteran horror movie fan like me.
There are actually only three characters in the movie, a strong man with a strong sense of crisis, a weak and submissive woman, and a tyrannical and murderous stranger; there are also some rambunctious little characters, and it is these three. This abrupt shock iron triangle formed by individuals can easily break through our psychological defense line and destroy our rational calmness at the same time.
The movie begins with a woman driving alone on a dark and wet road. Such a start sets the overall tone for the movie - yes, it's a road movie; and because it's a horror movie, there's always something unexpected up the road terrible things will happen.
There are not too many accidents, accidents always happen. Running all the way, the film divides into two developmental clues and moves forward all the way - now she is being hunted down by a strange man with a ferocious face; and what emerges in the woman's brain is all the skills that her lover taught her to survive in the wilderness. The film tells two stories at the same time in an obscure way - the current story is a terrifying wilderness escape story, and the previous story is a love story full of warmth and passion.
The best part of this movie is the ending of the movie. The woman who was hunted down made all her efforts to save herself in vain, but turned back after witnessing the most brutal scene of the abuser; while the director Dan At the same time, a set of flashbacks was used to turn the beautiful love story deep in the woman's memory into a more brutal killing.
At the end of everything, there was a complete reversal under the circumstances that we thought there was no accident at all - the abuser became the abused; the abused turned over and fought back. It's a bit abrupt, but it seems to make sense; what's great about Dan is that he finds a logical turning point in this film.
The so-called love is interpreted in this film as the crazy possession of a weak woman by a neurotic man, blindly driving her to develop wishful love according to her own wishes. What kind of emotion is reasonable; perhaps, as long as it is within a reasonable limit, everything can be reasonable, and beyond the limit, the most reasonable everything will become unreasonable. It's not wrong to teach the woman you love how to save herself in a crisis; but when you are just an insecure indulging in crisis self-help, and forcing the woman who loves you to follow her Again, all of this has actually spiraled out of control into a morbid grief.
The woman survived with the skills taught to her by the man, and killed the other party justifiably in order not to be killed by the other party in an unapproved breakup; driving her own car and dragging this is completely unreasonable. The corpse of the man walks to an unknown future, but unfortunately encounters a perverted killer. So she escaped in another way, pushing the other party off the cliff, and on a whim, dragged the body of the man she killed to the perpetrator's hut, and treated the body in the same way as the perpetrator. Then leave completely relieved.
How much pressure a person can withstand, and what kind of way it will break out under pressure in the end - the inspiration this movie gave me is how we should be kind to those around us. From a love story to a defensive counterattack, from the abuser to the abuser, the reasonable transition is that when a person's psychological defense line suddenly and completely collapses, we ourselves can't predict what kind of reaction we will make.
This movie reminds me of a novel I read a long time ago. The specific content is no longer available, but it tells the same story. Throughout my teenage years, I always thought that story was the most terrifying story I've ever read - the gentle wife who accidentally found out about her husband's affair, so she cooked for her husband as she always did, and when he came back Everything seemed to be the same as usual. Her husband approached her and asked her about the dishes for dinner. She smelled an unfamiliar perfume on her husband's body... She said that this evening was making mutton soup; without warning She suddenly picked up the leg of lamb that had been frozen hard and had not yet thawed and slapped her husband to death.
Being abrupt is actually not the most terrifying thing; what is terrifying is that people's psychological defense line is so fragile in many cases. When the weak line of defense suddenly collapsed like a dyke, an outburst—we could imagine it, but could not accept it calmly and gracefully.
Why am I so impressed with this movie, because this perhaps not scary story gives me the most reasonable psychological basis in the most unreasonable places, at least it makes me feel that this is not just a fantasy. story.
This is a hazy night of murderous demons, because in this night, he thought that what he encountered was just the same little sheep as usual. When he thought he could do whatever he wanted, he unfortunately found out that this little sheep turned out to be An evil sheep that was cornered by a wolf and has already started to fight back. This is the most thorough Jedi counterattack of the turtle in the urn, and the spree of killing suddenly turns the cart before the horse - from the abuser to the slaughtered; this is a movie that makes people feel some kind of gloomy film from the inside out.
The so-called master; perhaps, it is able to deduce some fresh flavors from a rotten story. Writing this, I finally understand - why I'm so obsessed with this movie - it's not about killing, it's not about violence; After all, this is a fine example of stress and psychological research.
When a movie is written four years after it has been watched, does that mean that it is a very thought-provoking movie? Ha ha.
2009-11-7; Ji Chou Niu Year Jiaxu September Bingchen twenty-one, the beginning of winter. 8:26 a.m.
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Written at the end
This is a text that has been written for more than two months but never finished , I didn't know before that, it turned out that I could be lazy so far. Therefore, it is impossible to read this article in a smooth manner, but there are quite a few thought gaps. In addition, the first half of the article is basically always writing and writing, and it is only in the second half that I find some feeling of writing; woohoo.
If you ask me what I want most in my heart, maybe it is to throw this text directly into the resource recycling bin and then pretend to forget that I have ever thought of writing such a text, that is at least some hearty pleasure. After the pleasure I can start over as soon as possible, write other words or make other writing plans; pleasure is pleasure, but I can't.
I don't like it, anything is half done and can't be done. Find all kinds of reasons to keep delaying, until you give up, and then forget. I've always felt that if we can't even finish this thing at hand; doesn't that mean we end up getting nothing done and ultimately nothing. I don't like to give up, I don't like to give up, I like to get things done and get a result; even if the result may not be what I like, and even after finishing it, I will regret that I have made efforts, wasted time and wasted energy. But at least in the end, I can have peace of mind.
Many times, I myself have always wondered why I was able to persevere all the way to this day. Perhaps it is because of this unrelenting desire for results in my character. So, after all, I have done some things, and I have done some things; finally, I can say with no regrets: But please rest assured.
2009-11-7; The 22nd day of Dingsi in September, Yihai, the year of the ugly ox. 11:49pm.
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Note: Movie information.
■Title: "Masters of Horror"-Incident on and Off a Mountain Road
■Translation: "Masters of Horror: The Mountain Road Horror"
■Director: Don Coscarelli
■Original Book: Joe R. Lansdale
■ Writers: Don Coscarelli, Stephen Romano, Mick Garris
Starring: Bree Turner, BuddyJohn DeSantis, Ethan Embry )
■Genre: Horror
■Duration: 51 minutes
■Origin: United States
■Language: English
■Color: Color
■Grading: Argentina:16, USA:TV-MA, Italy:VM14
■Production Company: IDT Entertainment
■Distributor: SBP
■First broadcast date: October 28, 2005 (US)
View more about Masters of Horror reviews
