2 recensioni
The short story by Shirley Jackson is far more better and thrilling than this awful tv-movie, which I only saw because it has veteran Jeff Corey in it. The script is not capable of transmitting the real terrifying atmosphere that the story does. However the contribution of the nice looking Sean Murray makes up for it.
Based on the renown and tautly written allegorical horror short story by Shirley Jackson, this made-for-TV movie manages to take all the worst attributes of the made-for-TV movie genre and encapsulate them into one tedious and tiresome drawn-out telling of an otherwise great story while adding nothing in the process.
The great kernel that is the basis for this film is Jackson's story, upon which it spins a larger and longer story; yet it adds absolutely nothing to the tale, in spite of all of the production resources and the cast it has available to do the job. With saccharine and stilted dialog, a very badly developed and written screenplay, bad acting, worse direction (because some of the actors in this film had proved track records or have proved themselves since), and one tired trope after another, this film would work better as camp or a satirical spoof of the genre rather than being an honest attempt to enlarge the original story.
I haven't checked the credits of the screenplay's writer or writers, the producers or the director, but I have the sense this had either the same people involved — or at least similar people — as gave us such dreck as cheap Sunday evening TV fare as the 1970s "Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mystery" series, another example of using a set of successfully written stories as the kernel around which to build unwatchable TV.
I gave this a 4/10. I've given better ratings to productions that looked and seemed far worse than this. However bad they were, those independently produced films usually run on a shoestring budget likely cobbled together by gifts from friends and family and obviously didn't have anything close to the budget or resources this film must have had available. At least the independently produced films usually manage to convey their story and their sense of truth, while this movie is simply an inanity.
The great kernel that is the basis for this film is Jackson's story, upon which it spins a larger and longer story; yet it adds absolutely nothing to the tale, in spite of all of the production resources and the cast it has available to do the job. With saccharine and stilted dialog, a very badly developed and written screenplay, bad acting, worse direction (because some of the actors in this film had proved track records or have proved themselves since), and one tired trope after another, this film would work better as camp or a satirical spoof of the genre rather than being an honest attempt to enlarge the original story.
I haven't checked the credits of the screenplay's writer or writers, the producers or the director, but I have the sense this had either the same people involved — or at least similar people — as gave us such dreck as cheap Sunday evening TV fare as the 1970s "Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mystery" series, another example of using a set of successfully written stories as the kernel around which to build unwatchable TV.
I gave this a 4/10. I've given better ratings to productions that looked and seemed far worse than this. However bad they were, those independently produced films usually run on a shoestring budget likely cobbled together by gifts from friends and family and obviously didn't have anything close to the budget or resources this film must have had available. At least the independently produced films usually manage to convey their story and their sense of truth, while this movie is simply an inanity.
- lloydbowman
- 4 mar 2017
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