Why Amy Dunne in GONE GIRL is one of the Most Terrifying Women in Horror. What’s in the box? This is a question that assumes a murderous significance in director David Fincher and writer Gillian Flynn. Fincher has of course forced us to ask this question before and twenty years later we are still scarred by the experience. In the closing moments of SEVEN we were taken to a place beyond the bleakest corners of mainstream cinema. Under the glare of a merciless sun we saw the blazing fires of the personal hell into which a good man was descending and the frozen stare of the devil who was pushing him. And in that box, oh God that terrible, cruel box, was evidence of an appalling crime against humanity, a revelation made all the more devastating by the discovery that not one but two lives had been violently taken; at the heart of our hero’s desperate rage was the realization that his wife was pregnant.
And the devil had given him this news – too late, too late. The ultimate master stroke that Fincher and Flynn deliver with GONE GIRL is to present us with a new moment in which a man is made to open a box by the devil and to discover that his wife is pregnant. And here the results are even more devastating. Because by now we know that devil and wife are one and the same. For twenty years we had been convinced that Kevin Spacey was the last word in glassy- eyed, reptilian, icy objectivity but now we have met Rosamund Pike’s Amy Dunne. Amazing Amy – the terrifyingly beautiful new face of absolute evil.
There is a magnificent pun in the Clear. Blue device nestling snugly and smugly in its box, returning the hapless stare of Ben Affleck’s pathetic Nick with its hard, coldly gleaming certainty and clarity. It’s a look that says, . You’re trapped now by this new life. Your soul belongs to me and I will bleed it dry.’Never could a pregnancy test look more sinister.
And in Pike’s Amy it has a creation to rival any monster. It is wonderful to see the ways in which Fincher and Flynn present Amy as the logical development of Spacey’s John Doe. Where Doe had his extraordinarily meticulous and extremely disturbing scrapbook, Amy has her diary – both books chart the ruthless and carefully planned progress of evil, both work almost as psychotic manifestos. And while Doe was a serial killer using different individuals to highlight the seven deadly sins Amy is directing all of her murderous focus on one man, her husband (the killing of her ex- boyfriend is an incidental improvisation compelled by a change in her circumstances) but her strategies for the annihilation of this one man’s character are every bit as varied as Doe’s. She is working with a serial killer’s sense of energy, mission and constant renewal of purpose – the poor bastard really doesn’t stand a chance. It is only a matter of time before he is forced to accept that his life, to all intents and purposes, is over but that he will live on as her victim. And crucially, we are made to realize that each stage in his defeat is made to correspond to one of the seven deadly sins: when they are first hit by the recession he becomes slothful and bitterly resentful of her money; he is driven to lusting after one of his young students; he is made to appear as if he is greedily hoarding expensive items in his sister’s garage; he outrages investigators and media observers with what appears to be arrogant detachment, and on a number of key occasions he cannot help but explode in anger.
Indeed the only one of the traditional sins he does not really show is gluttony and this is surely part of the plot’s design – from our very first encounter with him we see him as a man who seems curiously devoid of real appetite and we understand that this is precisely the weakness that Amy will exploit. Nowhere are the links between Doe and Amy more obvious than in the moment when she returns to Nick, performing her scene brilliantly for the cameras, covered in another man’s blood and ready to . Here she brilliantly mirrors the moment when Doe appears to turn himself in. In both cases we realize that this is merely the next stage in their carefully calculated assault on a helpless man’s life and spirit. The awful difference is that Nick can see exactly what Amy is doing and yet cannot do anything to stop her – she is forcing them both to look through a . Amy forces Nick to undress and join her as she showers away the blood of the man she has killed, blood that was shed at the moment of orgasm.
She is effectively washing away the gruesome evidence of another man’s sexual emission and she wants to make sure her husband watches every stage in the process – first showing how darkly and extensively it is covering her before then letting the water languorously, seductively lick it away from her body. There is an intense erotic charge to the moment and Nick, standing in the lair of the Beast, surely almost able to see a spear- headed tail extending from her perfect posterior, is both mesmerized and disgusted. These are the conflicting feelings we all share as we gaze at Amy’s glacial beauty. Cleverly, the film is bookended by a close up of her face, staring out at us as Nick’s hand strokes her hair. Both hand and head are curiously disembodied. We know that the appearance of tenderness belies the feelings that run underneath this image.
That hand would like nothing more than to tear this head from its body. It is of course another brilliant reference to SEVEN.
But of course the head here, the head of the pregnant wife, is also the head of the devil. It cannot and will not be separated from its dangerously seductive body.
Why Rosamund Pike's Amy Dunne is one of horror cinema's most malevolent creations. What's in the box? This is a question that assumes a murderous si.
And the hand stroking its hair is destined to keep pathetically repeating this servile gesture as the cold fires of marital hell flicker around them.
Movie Review: The Coming-of-Age Cannibal Film Raw Is Disgusting, Fascinating, and One of the Year's Best. We asked our fave horror fans and practitioners, including Eli Roth, Mel Brooks (!), and the Human Centipede guy, to compile the most terrifying movies you probably. Watch free horror movies online at FrightPix. Watch scary full length feature films, legally, streaming online at FrightPix.
This Trailer for Brazilian Teen Horror Movie Kill Me Please Is Both Gorgeous and Ghoulish.
B- Movie - TV Tropes. To combat this, the major studios distributed feature films in pairs meant to be screened as a Double Feature. The longer and bigger- budgeted of the two films was called an .
Later, the studios just bought pictures from . While B- movies may occasionally have very well- written scripts and gripping plots, the primary goal is not, deliberate, art or widespread commercial success, but cheap, disposable entertainment. As such, B- movies tend to be genre pieces, in such categories as western (by far the most popular B- genre in Hollywood's Golden Age), horror, Science Fiction, or crime.
B- movies are often heavily trope- laden, and a particularly successful one can become a trope maker for big- budget films in the future. During the 3. 0's and 4. B- series were often highly successful; for example, Andy Hardy, Charlie Chan, The Cisco Kid, The Saint, and even Sherlock Holmes (in the sequels produced by Universal).
On the other hand, the overall decline of the majors left room for independents with a B mentality — American International Pictures and Roger Corman being by far the most prominent — to flourish. In the 1. 96. 0s and 1. B- movie came to be synonymous with what was now called . During the . Since the dawning of cable TV and home video in The '8. B- movies see theatrical release, but are typically produced as TV movies or Direct- to- Video releases, or released directly over the internet. Syfy (formerly the Sci Fi Channel) in particular produces many original B- movies, and Mystery Science Theater 3. B- movies with three characters making snarky comments on the action.
While many B- movies are . Those that attempt seriousness are usually full of narm. Several B- Movies of the 1. Vindicated by History and were embraced for their subversion of the restrictions of The Hays Code. The code often focused more heavily on the A- Picture and this meant the B- Movie fell Beneath Suspicion. This meant that directors, paradoxically, had more freedom on a B- Movie than an A- Picture. Several films, especially Film Noir, which today are regarded as classics were B- Movies in their day.
For example, Detour, by Edgar G. Ulmer, would later be cited by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Fran. The likes of William Castle were admired by his more high profile peers like Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock in fact took inspiration from the popularity of Castle's low- budget productions to bring Psycho.
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Out of the Ghetto. Roger Corman likewise became celebrated for providing many aspiring film- makers entry into making Hollywood films, everyone from Francis Ford Coppola to James Cameron. As a film- maker, Corman also made stylish film adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe's horror films as well as anti- racist films like The Intruder. Indeed, Corman often insisted, as did many other B- Film- makers that they made . The reverse is also true however. The modern blockbuster cinema is A- Movie in terms of its cast and large budgets, the chastity of its storyline and aesthetic, but it is B- Movie in terms of its content (Science- Fiction, Action Movie, Superhero films) which were considered low even by the standards of the B- Movies (many of them being serials and usually not played as part of a Double Bill). Starting with Star Wars, many blockbusters were, initially, derisively named .
These films actually make more money and are seen by more people in America and the world (whereas the original B- Movie rarely enjoyed wide- distribution compared to its A- counterpart), but rarely win any awards, compared to the under- seen Oscar Bait. Actual B- movies tend not to get too widely noticed these days, many of them going direct to video on VHS and later DVD- BR. They existed for a bit longer in other markets, in Hong Kong, and parts of India, but gentrification spread there eventually. Today, the style of B- Movie has come to be appreciated by some for its camp value, there have been a number of successful big- budget movies that emulate B- movie tropes and production values in a sort of Affectionate Parody. In addition, there have been film- makers who seek to revive and update the old B- Movie aesthetic for what they value as its low- budget inventiveness and sincerity.
The style saw a resurgence in the late 2. See There's No . Remade as a Musical Comedy in 2. The film claims to draw attention to the subject of child marriage and be critical of it; so why it therefore needed an extended scene of a 1. Shirley Mills skinnydipping is a mystery. Its star was a nobody cowboy actor named John Wayne who had appeared in over 8.
John Ford, was widely considered insane. Made on a B- film budget and not expected to do much, it managed to become a massive hit, made Wayne into a superstar, and garnered an Oscar win for supporting actor Thomas Mitchell. Remade in 1. 96. 6 and 1. Intended to be a filler movie to help the studio recoup some of the losses that they'd suffered from Fantasia flopping, the film ended up becoming a smash hit and a classic on its own. Ulmer, the . Sadly, for leading man Tom Neal, the film would prove a case of Life Imitates Art. In a further oddity, the 1.
Neal's son, Tom Neal Jr. Inspired by Bonnie and Clyde, it would itself be used as inspiration for Bonnie and Clyde. Very loosely remade in 1.
Drew Barrymore. Adapted from the 1. Remade by John Carpenter in 1.
Bits of the original can be seen in John Carpenter's Halloween (1. Confidential. A ferocious dinosaur is awakened by an Arctic atomic test and terrorizes the North Atlantic and ultimately New York City.
In case you're wondering; no, despite the title, the women aren't catgirls. The directorial debut of Ed Wood; and a foretaste of what people could basically expect from his career. In order to do this, they need photographs of the dark side.
An expedition composed of two men and an unruly female colonel whom the general threatens to spank into complacency are sent to do it. The colonel is the least of the problems, however, as one of the men is a saboteur. Yet I must — but I cannot! Ro- Man, it might just be mentioned, is played by a man in a gorilla suit wearing a toy plastic space helmet. Oh, and did we mention his master computer constantly spews bubbles?
Music by Elmer Bernstein. Tensions soon mount between them, and they also contend with a mutant dwelling nearby. By Roger Corman. Oh, but because Ray Harryhausen wasn't given enough money, the said octopus only has six arms. In between romantic interludes, they face an iguana masquerading as a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The directorial debut of Bert I. Gordon, who - despite somehow being far less well- known - can pretty much join the ranks of Roger Corman, Coleman Francis and Ed Wood in terms of the rate at which he churned this breed of movie out.
An embryo washes up on the beach and is found by a small boy, who sells it to a zoologist. A reptilian monster hatches from the embryo and quickly grows to enormous proportions, whereupon it terrorizes Rome. A movie with special effects by Ray Harryhausen. The Page Image. It seems that a swarm of grasshoppers broke into a silo containing some of said vegetables, ate them, became irradiated themselves, grew to enormous proportions and are now running amok, headed towards Chicago.
It attacks military installations in the arctic, and then makes its way to Washington D. C. Translation: a puppet that looks like. Big Bird'sevil twin. Thus beloved for some of the most hilariously out- of- sync shots of 'horror' and 'wonder' in history - the puppet was created & filmed long after the actors' reaction takes. When the rocks come into contact with water, they grow into giant pillars that threaten a small town.
By Roger Corman. It shows and the acting exactly what you would expect when the best you can afford wouldn't make a HS drama club. Some of the special effects, however, would have been right at home in Star Trek. A Distaff Counterpart to The Amazing Colossal Man. Gordon hokum about some people crashing their plane in Mexico and encountering a giant radioactive . It tells the tale of a legion of invisible brain- sucking abominations that are unleash upon rural Canada. Because this is the 5.
It's up to Major Jeff Cummings of the US Air Force to stop those (dare we say it?) fiends without faces. Although the shrunken people do try to get back to normal size, they don't ever strictly ''attack'' anyone.
It is defeated via dousing with fire- hydrants and airlifted to the Arctic. Remade in 1. 98. 8. The film had enough similarities with the novel .
Heinlein to sue the creators for plagiarism. The case ended with an out- of- court settlement. The film is also remembered for a small part played by then- obscure Leonard Nimoy. The Trollenberg Terror) (1.
Two sisters and a UN scientist go to a resort in the mountains of Switzerland, where an ominous radioactive cloud has been looming nearby. Two men venture to the proximity of the cloud; one turns up decapitated and the other an entranced maniac. It seems the workings of a tentacled blob of flesh with a giant central eye are afoot. Probably the quintessential space- explorers- discover- a- world- populated- entirely- by- beautiful- women movie (e. Cat- Women of the Moon, Missile to the Moon, the British Fire Maidens from Outer Space, and the spoof Amazon Women on the Moon).
The wife, after years of searching, turns up at the Florida plantation where he once lived, whereupon she discovers that a treatment for a medical condition the husband had has turned him into a human/alligator hybrid. Was originally going to be about a blob of radiation, but executives demanded it be reworked into a knockoff of. The Beast from 2. Fathoms (which was made by the same director). What do you suppose the odds are that they get locked inside and that the house turns out to be inhabited by ghosts, murders and other terrors?
By William Castle; remade in 1. Every bit as fun/silly as it sounds, fortunately. The sequel to Bride of the Monster.
Involves two female ghosts, a scarred giant, a phony psychic, and an Occult Detective.