Saints-Martyrs-des-Damnés
Baroque and eerie supernatural thriller
Posted by: Task, September 12, 2005 09:26 PM
Saturday, September 10 9:15 PM PARAMOUNT 1
What we have here is an incredible first full-length film for this director. I avidly await his next film. Now it is my task to describe to you why this film is so impressive.
To do this, I may have to write an essay. You are warned: excessive verbiage follows!
Imagine a really good video game, one of those spooky thrillers like Echo Night or Silent Hill. In this game, you play a tabloid investigative reporter with a strange ability to sometimes see things that nobody else can see. The closest thing you've got to a family is the guy who runs the paper, you call him Dad sometimes and he treats you like a son. The paper is closing down unless there's some sort of miracle, you're the only employee left, so he sends you out for the biggest scoop of them all: Check out this town where people routinely disappear without a trace. So you and your best friend (the freelance photographer who does pictures for the paper) leave for this mysterious little town. By the time you're within sight of the town it's dark out and you see a ghostly woman standing in the middle of the road wearing a wedding dress. Your friend can't see her, but he knows how you can sometimes see things he can't. A little weirded out but continuing on, you reach the town and check into your hotel rooms. Your best buddy goes out to take some pictures of the town while you clean up, and by the time you get downstairs he's vanished without a trace. You spend the next couple days wandering around the town (car disappeared, too) and picking up items and information that lead you closer to knowing what happened to your friend, why everyone is so freaky strange, and just what's wrong with this damn town anyway?
You can't fight worth a damn, and you certainly can't find a weapon, so when you manage to aquire a gun you know the game is nearly over. Through various cut-scenes you think you're finally getting an idea of what's wrong hereabouts, and of course it's all related.
By the time you've finished the game you think you've got a fairly good grasp on all that's been going on, but you've reached an interesting but not perfect ending and you're quite eager to play the whole game again so you can understand everything as it's happening and hopefully earn a better ending.
So now that you know all about this game, imagine that someone comes along and make an absolutely perfect movie adaptation of this great game. It's got the same thick plot and eerie atmosphere, absolutely everything you loved about the game is in this movie. THAT is this movie!
So even though this excellent game doesn't exist, this movie is a perfect adaptation of it. Since this is something that has never before accomplished, I feel it is worthy of The Golden Boot.
You know, if I had a game studio, I know the game I'd be developing next.