It is possible that a movie can be so bad that while not exactly being "so bad it's good," can still achieve a kind of transcendence that defies categorization. This is one of those films for which criticism fails, is utterly irrelevant. Yes, I saw the movie, I experienced it, but I still don't believe it. It happened but I am much too frightened to repeat the experiment. There is something so incredibly off and wrong about this film, that it was like watching the antics of a doomed expedition exploring an unknown literary continent, where everything you have ever learned about characterization, plot, consistency of tone, are banished leaving only a void. I remember watching it in it's entirety one Saturday night. My wife had just turned it on and I was in the vicinity and decided to just check it out for a minute or so.
Now, you have to understand my wife not only has terrible taste in films. No, not only that, but she has some kind of radar that permits her to find ghastly things that even if I went searching for them could never stumble across in a million years. So I glanced at the thing, expecting to get up and leave very short order -- and found myself frozen on the sofa. I could not move. It was like I was caught in some tractor beam of dumb rays pulling me out of this world. As each minute passed, I expected the movie to bottom out and maintain some level of consistency from then on. But it kept getting worse in a strange, dare I say perverted way, as if a demented Shakespeare had twisted everything he knew upon itself to create a monster, a mind virus that once it infected you, would never let go. I was absolutely enthralled (I have no other word to describe it.) There were no limits to this thing. Where had it come from, why had it been permitted in this universe? There were no answers, because there were no answers possible. It was something about a plane going back in time, then forward in time, while people went crazy and all the while the past was being consumed by creatures I guess could be described as super Pac-men -- yes, they were "eating" the past -- and for all that, all I could do is give up and submit. It was like whiffing ether, but never quite going under -- for hours.
I had never been a Steven King fan, though I liked "Stand By Me." I realize he has a compulsion to write and like every other writer has his good and bad days. I respect him for his success. But even drugs could not explain this. Even mental illness could not explain this. King did a story I recall about a strange cell-phone tone that turned people into zombies. That story I believe is a metaphor for this movie.
Watch it if you must, but do so at your own risk. You have been warned.
Now, you have to understand my wife not only has terrible taste in films. No, not only that, but she has some kind of radar that permits her to find ghastly things that even if I went searching for them could never stumble across in a million years. So I glanced at the thing, expecting to get up and leave very short order -- and found myself frozen on the sofa. I could not move. It was like I was caught in some tractor beam of dumb rays pulling me out of this world. As each minute passed, I expected the movie to bottom out and maintain some level of consistency from then on. But it kept getting worse in a strange, dare I say perverted way, as if a demented Shakespeare had twisted everything he knew upon itself to create a monster, a mind virus that once it infected you, would never let go. I was absolutely enthralled (I have no other word to describe it.) There were no limits to this thing. Where had it come from, why had it been permitted in this universe? There were no answers, because there were no answers possible. It was something about a plane going back in time, then forward in time, while people went crazy and all the while the past was being consumed by creatures I guess could be described as super Pac-men -- yes, they were "eating" the past -- and for all that, all I could do is give up and submit. It was like whiffing ether, but never quite going under -- for hours.
I had never been a Steven King fan, though I liked "Stand By Me." I realize he has a compulsion to write and like every other writer has his good and bad days. I respect him for his success. But even drugs could not explain this. Even mental illness could not explain this. King did a story I recall about a strange cell-phone tone that turned people into zombies. That story I believe is a metaphor for this movie.
Watch it if you must, but do so at your own risk. You have been warned.