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Most disappointing fortean films

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glamour_dust

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Couldn't sleep last night and for some reason this topic occured to my brain. I'm not sure if it fits neatly into any other thread but I trust the mods will do the needful. What are the most disappointing fortean films you have seen? You know, those you eagerly anticipate and then when you watch them you feel cheated? Here are my picks so far


1. The Village - I don't think I'll ever trust Shayamalan again. Spooky monsters and eerie atmosphere - and suddenly halfway through the film we are told it's all fake. Bad. Then to top it off we are made to understand that this idiotic escapist community found it logical to omit basic medical drugs from their utopia. Very Bad. Then the most vulnerable member of the community - a blind girl - is sent through the feared woods into the terrifying outside world to seek the help of modern science. So none of the able-bodied adults who created the farce found it would be expedient if they went instead? Pathetic. Most disappointing.

2. The Grudge - what can I say. Greasy haired, demonic little girl stalkers just don't do it for me. I like a movie to scare me - not make me wonder why. Lots of fx shadowy creatures with rolling eyes but no plot i could discern - except maybe "she's killing everybody." Stupid doesn't quite describe it. Irritating comes closer. By the end I felt like bitch slapping the little runt and shoving her back into the hell from whence she came. How do I explain it - I just don't like scares without point.

3. The Ring - a favourite I know but I cannot figure out why. Worse than that - i've never cared enough to try to figure out why. About a third of the way through the film I realised that I would have to endure it till the end rather than watch it. Would someone please explain to me, in a linear fashion, what this movie was about. Apart from the greasy haired girl - crawling out of the tv - which truly was an interesting moment - what was the point again? Why was the horse acting crazy? Who was the little girl? What happened to her? Why did her raven haired mother kill herself? Did I miss something? Huh?
 
The Ring - a favourite I know but I cannot figure out why. Worse than that - i've never cared enough to try to figure out why. About a third of the way through the film I realised that I would have to endure it till the end rather than watch it. Would someone please explain to me, in a linear fashion, what this movie was about. Apart from the greasy haired girl - crawling out of the tv - which truly was an interesting moment - what was the point again? Why was the horse acting crazy? Who was the little girl? What happened to her? Why did her raven haired mother kill herself? Did I miss something?
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The Ring scared the crap out of me so much that I had to sleep with the lights on for a week afterwards and even now won't look at a TV that's not on..can't really say what scared me but something in my head really really don't like that girl..
 
Delores_de_Syn said:
The Ring - a favourite I know but I cannot figure out why. Worse than that - i've never cared enough to try to figure out why. About a third of the way through the film I realised that I would have to endure it till the end rather than watch it. Would someone please explain to me, in a linear fashion, what this movie was about. Apart from the greasy haired girl - crawling out of the tv - which truly was an interesting moment - what was the point again? Why was the horse acting crazy? Who was the little girl? What happened to her? Why did her raven haired mother kill herself? Did I miss something?
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The Ring scared the crap out of me so much that I had to sleep with the lights on for a week afterwards and even now won't look at a TV that's not on..can't really say what scared me but something in my head really really don't like that girl..
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The antidote is Scary Movie 3....
 
glamour_dust said:
1. The Village - I don't think I'll ever trust Shayamalan again.
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Haven't seen that one, but a recent big disappointment was the same man's Signs. What a heap of pointless rubbish. Promised a lot, delivered sod all. Shayamalan's got talent: Sixth Sense was great (although I guessed the twist reading a teaser, before even seeing it) and I loved Unbreakable - didn't see the ending coming at all. Unfortunately, that gives the man a strike rate of 50%, so I'll be treading carefully when his next one comes out.
 
One of my childhood traumas is my mother not letting us watch Sherlock Holmes meets Jack the Ripper when I was a kid. They said it was unsuitable for minors. So is it any good or have I been disappointed over nothing?
 
Xanatico said:
One of my childhood traumas is my mother not letting us watch Sherlock Holmes meets Jack the Ripper when I was a kid. They said it was unsuitable for minors. So is it any good or have I been disappointed over nothing?
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If you mean Murder by Decree then it's really rather good.

If you mean A Study in Terror then you didn't miss much.
 
Funny thing about Shayamalan films. Sixth Sense, knew from the moment he got shot what the twist was. Unbreakable; being a comic book fan just looking at the film poster before we went in to the cinema spoiled the ending for me, and Signs, well, signs doesn't really have the same sort of ending. Signs is more of a journey film than a twister. And as for The Village, the minute I heard the William Hurt's voice over in the trailer, I knew what the twist was.

So I've never quite got where he was the master of the twist. So his films have never been about the twist, for me.

But there is a twist. Didn't enjoy Unbreakable in the cinema, but now it's a comfort movie. Absolutely love it. No idea why. I got it on DVD from a bargain bin on the premise of giving the movie a second shot and thoroughly enjoyed it. Thought it was a wonderful homage to comics.

Exactly the same goes for Signs. It's not about Aliens, it's about faith. And for that, I really enjoyed it also.

Village. I gave that movie a lot of space between viewing and have given it the Shayamalan litmus I've applied to his other films of coming back to it. But I just get along with that film at all. Just doesn't do it for me.

His latest, Lady in the Water, sounds great.
 
disapponting fortean movies? well, donnie darko springs to mind. (and by disappointing i don't mean <crap>, i mean, well, disappointing: i expected more). and sleepy hollow. and nightmare before christmas (soooooo boring).

oh, and that terrible roman polanski thing, what was it called? the ninth gate?
 
ginoide said:
disapponting fortean movies? well, donnie darko springs to mind. (and by disappointing i don't mean <crap>, i mean, well, disappointing: i expected more). and sleepy hollow. and nightmare before christmas (soooooo boring).

oh, and that terrible roman polanski thing, what was it called? the ninth gate?
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I think I see where you're at with Donnie Darko and The Ninth Gate, although I personally enjoyed them both. The "more questions than answers" school of film-making is all very well, but sometimes you need to have some answers shoved in your face so as not to feel a bit, well, cheated.

Now Sleepy Hollow I loved, although the original book has the main character killed at the end IIRC, but Tim Burton's animations (Nightmare, James & the Giant Peach, Corpse Bride) put me off just by the look off them. I tried watching Nighmare Before Christmas, but the whole style of it is reminiscent of some awful Polish cartoon of the 1970s. So, they may be great, but I can't watch them.
 
Indeed, I expected Nightmare Before Christmas to be some masterpiece. Instead it was like any other puppet movie, just with slightly macabre characters.
 
Peripart said:
Haven't seen that one, but a recent big disappointment was the same man's Signs. What a heap of pointless rubbish. Promised a lot, delivered sod all.
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Couldn't agree more. My nomination for most disappointing Fortean film is Lawnmower Man - absolute nonsense, and boring with it.
 
I have. It got mixed reviews, but I thought it was a wonderfully eerie and ambivalent film. If you buy the DVD, you also get a reasonably good documentary about Mothman which features John Keel and and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance from Loren Coleman.

I also rather enjoyed The Forgotten which everyone else on the planet seems to think is pants. Hardly a great film, but I much preferred it's take on aliens to the usual aliens-invade-the-earth-then-Americans-blow-their-slimy-heads-off plot. Definitely a John Keel influence there, I think - unknowable aliens toying with humanity for unknowable reasons.
 
graylien said:
I have. It got mixed reviews, but I thought it was a wonderfully eerie and ambivalent film. If you buy the DVD, you also get a reasonably good documentary about Mothman which features John Keel and and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance from Loren Coleman.

I also rather enjoyed The Forgotten which everyone else on the planet seems to think is pants. Hardly a great film, but I much preferred it's take on aliens to the usual aliens-invade-the-earth-then-Americans-blow-their-slimy-heads-off plot. Definitely a John Keel influence there I think - unknowable aliens toying with humanity for unknowable reasons.
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nice one, thanks. Just ordered both online for £7! (inc. p&p)

spookily enough, "The Forgotten" was the other film I was going to ask about, so thanks for the low down on that one too.
 
I agree with Graylien re: The Forgotten; it has some enjoyably spooky moments.
 
Leaferne (off topic for a sec here, back in a moment) is that "The Last Unicorn"?
 
No idea; I just nicked it off an avatar site. :)

I agree with The Village being a steaming pile of piled steaminess (just plain *dull*).
 
ghostdog19 said:
Anybody seen The Mothman Prophecies?
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Yep, I liked it. It has a very unsettling atmosphere to it. I lent it to a friend who is a real horror movie buff and next day he told be he had to keep the lights on all night as he was really freaked out by it.
 
Hmm "Unbreakable " started off well but got less convincing as it when on.

It's been a long time since I saw it on telly but Ken Russel's "Gothic" comes to mind - A potentially great subject matter spoiled by Russells typically lazy OTT directiion.

-
 
I liked The Village for the idea that some find the world so intolerable that they'd be willing to live completely cut off from it. I won't spoil it, but I didn't guess the twist and that wasn't the most important aspect of the film for me even if many can't see past it. Could have done without Adrien Brody acting loopy, though.
 
glamour_dust said:
3. The Ring - a favourite I know but I cannot figure out why. Worse than that - i've never cared enough to try to figure out why. About a third of the way through the film I realised that I would have to endure it till the end rather than watch it. Would someone please explain to me, in a linear fashion, what this movie was about. Apart from the greasy haired girl - crawling out of the tv - which truly was an interesting moment - what was the point again? Why was the horse acting crazy? Who was the little girl? What happened to her? Why did her raven haired mother kill herself? Did I miss something? Huh?
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Cant really explain the crappy American remake, but in the Japanese version the girls (Sadako) mother has ESP and so does the girl, which explains how she has the power to effect people the way she does, also the ex-husband in the original (which is the ex-boyfriend, in the yank farce) was also psychic, which is how he could see some of what happened to Sadako and her mother.

Cant explain the horses, they dont appear int he Jap version, so your guess is as good as mine, also the Jap version has prquels which explains how it all began.

The little girl (Sadako) was an evil child that was left in a well to die to keep her from harming people, the mother couldnt cope with the grief off killing her own daughter and commited suicide.
 
gncxx said:
I liked The Village for the idea that some find the world so intolerable that they'd be willing to live completely cut off from it.
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"The world is an evil place. What is the root of this evil? Speaking with contractions. Let us never use them again."
 
Drifting slightly at a tangent, I'm considering looking out for the DVD of "A sound of Thunder" on DVD. I like the plot idea, but it was critically mauled on release. I'm hoping it's got some redeeming features, but I'm getting ready to be disappointed already!
 
Rrose_Selavy said:
Hmm "Unbreakable " started off well but got less convincing as it when on.
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That's still my favourite M. Night Shymalalmana-wotsit film. It was a great concept and is still fun to watch on repeated viewings. The sombre mood really suits it well.

Drifting slightly at a tangent, I'm considering looking out for the DVD of "A sound of Thunder" on DVD. I like the plot idea, but it was critically mauled on release. I'm hoping it's got some redeeming features, but I'm getting ready to be disappointed already!
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I watched this the other day. The story is preposterous and it has some awful special effects but it is kind of enjoyable if you switch your brain off. I wasn't happy with the ending though, it could have been a lot better if they'd been a bit more daring.
Definitely a rental or download, don't buy it.
 
Thanks! I'm still daft enough to buy it if it's ever around £5, though.
 
Magnolia.

I know a lotta people like it, but...you half expect that all these strange and disparate elements will all tie-in in some way at the end of the film, but they just don't. It's as if the film was focus-grouped to appeal to those with only a passing interest in forteana, and then everything was just bunged together in a weird hotchpotch of a movie.
 
The Big Empty starring squeaky-voiced Joey Lauren Adams, Sean Bean (miscast), Kelsey Grammar (also miscast) and some fat guy. It's basically a Fortean McGuffin movie - the fat guy gets paid generously to take a Suitcase-Which-Must-Not-Be-Opened into a little desert town and deliver it to Sean Bean. It turns out that the town is infested with UFOs, and people keep disappearing out in the desert? So what's going on? Your guess is as good as mine, and I actually watched the film. Including the alternate ending.

Slow, dull, annoying, and not even worth renting IMHO.
 
Peripart said:
I tried watching Nighmare Before Christmas, but the whole style of it is reminiscent of some awful Polish cartoon of the 1970s. So, they may be great, but I can't watch them.
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I really wanted to like Nightmare Before Christmas as I love Tim Burton's live action films, and I loved the idea of Nightmare Before Christmas, but somehow I managed not to realise, until I watched it, that it was a musical - so it was fine until they started singing, then I just had to turn it off - ugh!
 
barfing_pumpkin said:
Magnolia.

I know a lotta people like it, but...you half expect that all these strange and disparate elements will all tie-in in some way at the end of the film, but they just don't. It's as if the film was focus-grouped to appeal to those with only a passing interest in forteana, and then everything was just bunged together in a weird hotchpotch of a movie.
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But don't you think the Fortean event at the end ties them all together? It puts their problems in perspective on a truly mind-bending scale, and shows them there are some things they'll never understand or be in control of about their lives and this big old crazy world. It brings them a kind of acceptance, for a while anyway. Better that Fortean event than an earthquake or a hurricane.
 
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