HEARTS IN ATLANTIS

 

Publicity poster for Hearts In Atlantis (© Scott Hicks/Castle Rock Entertainment/Village Roadshow Pictures/NPV Entertainment/Warner Bros Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

I freely confess to being out of step with many movie/fiction lovers by not normally being a Stephen King fan, as I sometimes find his brand of horror too twisted for my liking (each to their own, etc etc). HOWEVER, on 29 November 2021 I watched a movie inspired by Low Men In Yellow Coats, the first (and longest) in a series of four interconnected novellas and one short story within a collection by King entitled Hearts In Atlantis (1999), and it totally blew me away. Indeed, its emotional pull upon my heartstrings and reawakening of poignant, nostalgic memories from my younger days became almost too much to bear at times. Set in the 1960s, the decade of my own childhood, the movie was a compelling fantasy/sci fi thriller entitled Hearts In Atlantis.

Directed by Scott Hicks and released in 2001 by Warner Bros Pictures, Hearts In Atlantis stars Anthony Hopkins as an elderly man named Ted Brautigan, who is endowed with mysterious psychic powers that include telepathy and telekinesis, but he is on the run from secret government agents (referred to by him as the Low Men) from whose scientific experimental establishment he had earlier escaped.

Arriving at a sleepy rural Connecticut town (but filmed in Virginia), Ted is befriended by a lonely 11-year-old boy there named Bobby Garfield (an early role for the greatly-missed Anton Yelchin), whose widowed mother, Liz Garfield (Hope Davis), owns the house where Ted lodges while hiding from his shadowy pursuers. Liz is interested only in herself and flirting with men, ignoring her son's needs, uncaring about his happiness, and leaving him to fend for himself for much of the time, which he spends playing with his only friends, Sully and Carol, whenever possible. However, during his stay with them Ted becomes a mentor and a genial paternal figure to Bobby, the first adult in his life to show any care about his well-being, which changes both of their lives for the better – but the Low Men are drawing ever nearer…

Finally, after experiencing a very traumatic incident during what she'd assumed would merely be a working holiday with her boss and his male associates, when she arrives back home and misunderstands an incident that had happened there in her absence, Liz lashes out in a spiteful act of betrayal for money, which not only backfires on her but also has cataclysmic consequences for Ted and Bobby, engineering a sudden, permanent separation between them. However, the fond memory of their all-too-brief yet life-affirming friendship will remain with both of them forever, and will fundamentally shape Bobby's growth from a boy into a man.

Hopkins's performance as Ted, which he apparently based upon his maternal grandfather, is thoroughly spellbinding, and is exactly what was needed to portray this enigmatic yet profoundly inspiring figure succinctly, emotionally, yet never cloyingly or in any way maudlin. So too is Yelchin's portrayal of Bobby as an imaginative yet still-innocent boy on the brink of adolescence, living one final but uniquely magical summer as a child before the arrival of autumn and the onset of maturity, sweeping away all of his boyhood dreams and aspirations like fallen leaves strewn upon the ground, and leading him steadily, inexorably toward manhood.

Indeed, although this wasn't the meaning given to it by Stephen King in his original writings, to the movie's director Scott Hicks the phrase 'Hearts In Atlantis' represented the lost domain of childhood. This is emphasised by the movie's structure, in which the principal story is book-ended by scenes featuring Bobby now as a middle-aged businessman (played by David Morse), making a nostalgic return to his hometown after reading that his boyhood buddy Sully, who had become a decorated soldier, had recently been killed in a traffic accident.

Bobby and his mother had moved away to Boston shortly after Ted's disappearance during that memorable summer all those years ago, and had never gone back. Now, Sully is gone, Bobby discovers that his boyhood home here is an abandoned ruin, and he meets a young woman who turns out to be Carol's daughter. But what had happened to Carol, Bobby's other childhood friend, and with whom he had shared his very first kiss here so long ago? Is it wise to revisit the past?

Hearts In Atlantis is unquestionably one of the most moving, engrossing films that I have seen for a long while. Another of my 10p treasures too – having bought it the previous day in a local charity shop's regular "ten DVDs for £1" sale. And yes, it was the tenth DVD, selected by me simply to make up the required total number, because after reading on its back cover that the film was based upon a work by Stephen King, I'd nearly placed it back on the shelf. But something about its brief story outline on the cover suggested that this may be different from the usual King fare, so I decided, for 10p, to take a chance on it. And I am so glad that I did!

If you get the chance to watch Hearts In Atlantis, do so, you won't regret it. Also, I hope that Stephen King will write many more works like those that gave rise to this superb movie, because it is a potent testament to how very capable he is of creating so much more than mere horror.

If you'd like a taster of what to expect from Hearts In Atlantis, be sure to click here to watch an official trailer for it on YouTube.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY & PURPLE NOON (aka PLEIN SOLEIL)

 

My official UK DVD of The Talented Mr Ripley (© Anthony Minghella/Mirage Enterprises/Timnick Films/Paramount Pictures/Miramax International – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

My DVD movie watch on 8 April 2022 was somewhat of a genre departure for me, as it did not feature any monsters of the cryptozoological or prehistoric kind - however, its titular character was a very real monster of the human kind. The movie was The Talented Mr Ripley.

Directed by Anthony Minghella, and released in 1999 by Paramount Pictures in North America, Miramax International everywhere else, The Talented Mr Ripley is based upon the eponymous 1955 novel by Patricia Highsmith (the first of five novels by her that star this chameleonic anti-hero). Like much of her work, it is seductively sinister, which was translated to great effect in this most famous movie version (an earlier one was the French movie Purple Noon, released in 1960 and starring Alain Delon in the lead role).

Set in the 1950s, The Talented Mr Ripley stars Matt Damon as Tom Ripley, an impoverished New York lavatory attendant but skilled pianist. While performing at an outdoor piano recital one day, he is mistaken by shipping magnate Herbert Greenleaf (James Rebhorn) for a Princeton graduate (due to his wearing a borrowed Princeton jacket) and thus offers him a considerable sum of money (plus all expenses) to go to Italy and bring back the magnate's exceedingly wealthy but wayward, ex-Princeton playboy son Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law).

Not surprisingly, Tom readily accepts this dream offer of a lifetime with great delight, so off he goes to Italy forthwith. Moreover, due to his profound talents as an inveterate liar and sycophantic, manipulative charmer, Tom swiftly inveigles his way into the lives (and home) of Dickie and his equally high-class fiancee Marge Sherwood (Gwyneth Paltrow), greatly enjoying the entrance into high society life that his friendship with them brings to him. Tom even takes pains to secretly develop a working knowledge of jazz, knowing that Dickie is a passionate jazz lover, thus enabling Tom to bond even closer with him, as Dickie is keen to take Tom with him to jazz performances.

Eventually, however, fickle Dickie tires of obsequious Tom, and tells him so when just the two of them are out at sea off San Remo on a small boat together. But Tom, hating the prospect of his gilded life coming to an end, murders Dickie, dumps his weighted-down body overboard, and scuttles the boat – but that is not all. From then on, Tom masterfully assumes Dickie's identity whenever the opportunity to do so arises, as well as skillfully forging his signature on a stream of cheques, not only to ensure that no-one realizes that Dickie is dead but also to maintain the high life and adoration by others that by now Tom's hedonistic, narcissistic nature has become very accustomed to.

Unfortunately for Tom's dastardly, Machiavellian machinations, however, whereas some of the friends that he has made in Italy know him as Tom, others know him as Dickie (due to his impersonating the latter after murdering him), so he spends much of the remainder of the movie ensuring that these two groups of friends never meet up when he is present. And how does the sociopathic Tom do this? Those who seem likely to discover and thence publicly expose his identity deceptions are soon disposed of...permanently, while he also strives to stay one step ahead of an increasingly suspicious, investigative Italian police force!

This dark and creepy yet thoroughly fascinating psychological thriller is very engrossing, and I absolutely loved it – due in no small way, of course, to all three leads playing their respective parts with great verve and conviction (Jude Law went on to win a BAFTA award for his performance, and was nominated for an Oscar). In particular, Damon and Law work together very effectively in conveying the diametrically-opposite yet (initially) mutually-attractive natures of their characters, both outwardly and behaviourally.

For whereas Damon's hitherto-friendless Tom Ripley is so physically inconspicuous and bereft of any individual personality that he spends his entire time metaphorically concealed behind a mirror whose surface reflects whatever its onlookers wish to see of themselves, Law's uber-popular Dickie Greenleaf is the handsome, perpetual focus of public attention who almost literally radiates golden beams of light illuminating the lives of all who encounter him.

Moreover, during the early stages of their friendship, it is abundantly clear that, far from pretending to do so, Tom does genuinely like Dickie very much – a little too much, however, as it turns out. For Tom's feelings for Dickie become ever more obsessive, possessive, and ultimately lethal, especially once Dickie, who initially treats Tom like a favourite little brother, ceases to reciprocate them, and finally rejects them altogether, thereby sealing his own fate.

Interestingly, various other actors were considered for the role of Tom Ripley, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Cruise, and Edward Norton, whereas Law initially turned down the role of Dickie Greenleaf. Happily, however, Damon was eventually chosen (after director Minghella saw his superb performance in the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting), and Law changed his mind, accepting it – thus establishing the dynamic, magnetic on-screen friends-into-foes relationship that totally captivates the audience.

There are some excellent supporting performances to savour here too. These are provided by the likes of Cate Blanchett as society girl Meredith Logue (not present in the original novel, who is spurned as a lover by Tom in Dickie guise); and Philip Seymour Hoffman as Dickie's comparably-rich longstanding friend Freddie Miles (who not only despises Tom on account of his socially-awkward, gauche attitude when in affluent company, but also begins to suspect that Tom is not at all as he seems to be…).

Last but certainly not least, The Talented Mr Ripley is augmented by gorgeous on-location Italian scenery, as well as exquisite original music composed by Gabriel Yared (which is supplemented by several classical excerpts by Bach, Vivaldi, and Tchaikovsky, plus a haunting ballad sung by Sinead O'Connor and fittingly entitled 'Lullaby For Cain' – click here to listen to it – Cain murdering his brother in the Bible).

In the movie, Tom offers the following telling insight into his twisted thought processes and raison d'être for his unbalanced, amoral behaviour: "I always thought it would be better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody". So if you'd like to view some excerpts revealing his disturbing and deadly duplicity in action, be sure to click here and here to watch a couple of official trailers for The Talented Mr Ripley on Y0uTube.

 

Gwyneth Paltrow as Marge Sherwood, Jude Law as Dickie Greenleaf, and Matt Damon as Tom 'The Talented Mr' Ripley (© Anthony Minghella/Mirage Enterprises/Timnick Films/Paramount Pictures/Miramax International – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

After watching a few nights ago the excellent 1999 American movie The Talented Mr Ripley, starring Matt Damon (in the title role as the murderous master impersonator) and Jude Law (as his unsuspecting rich boy victim Dickie Greenleaf), and based upon the 1950s novel of the same title by Patricia Highsmith, on 12 April 2020 I watched the English dub of the much earlier French movie version, whose original title was Plein Soleil but was retitled as Purple Noon for its English-dub release.

Directed by René Clément (who also co-wrote its screenplay), and released by CCFC and Titanus in 1960, Purple Noon stars a young Alain Delon in his first major film role as the titular Tom, with Marie Laforêt as a very sultry Marge, and Maurice Ronet taking on the role of Dickie Greenleaf (but renamed Philippe Greenleaf here, for reasons that I have yet to uncover).

The photography in Purple Noon is sumptuous, almost like some ravishing oil painting come to life, and the entire movie while enjoyable is unequivocally arty in style, all very mean and moody in places, with plenty of emotional pauses and close-ups of deep meaningful eye contact. Nevertheless, I personally found it much inferior to the American version for one very prominent, crucial reason, which is this:

Following closely Highsmith's original presentation of him, in the 1999 movie Damon portrays Tom Ripley as a totally ordinary, bespectacled nondescript, the kind of nerdy guy that no-one would look twice at, let alone remember, which is exactly how an impersonator needs to be if he is to fool people into believing he is someone else. In stark contrast, Delon in Purple Noon has matinee idol good looks, not to mention an amazingly close facial resemblance to James Dean. In short, both a total heart-throb and a film idol facsimile that, once seen, would never be forgotten, thereby wrecking any chance of passing himself off as someone else, and, in turn, wholly destroying the plausibility of the plot.

Also, because cinematic morality back in those days carried much more weight than it does in these days, a surprise twist added right at the very end of this movie by its makers ensures that its smug, calculating serial killer has not been as clever as he'd supposed. This movie-manufactured twist apparently annoyed Highsmith, as she saw no reason why even a villain as heinous as her Tom could not escape the clutches of the law on screen.

Speaking of which, there is no doubt that Delon's Ripley is a much more sinister, less likeable character than Damon's (who did at least show a genuine fondness for Dickie until Dickie eventually rejected his friendship). So too, interestingly, is Ronet's Philippe/Dickie in comparison to Law's. And Leforêt's Marge is decidedly more Mediterranean than Paltrow's prissy counterpart!

But for me, as a longstanding James Dean fan, Delon's incredible resemblance to that latter movie icon is an impersonation too many – Ripley mimicking Greenleaf is one thing, but when the mimic is also such an uncanny Dean doppelgänger, I was fully expecting at any moment for Ripley to break down and scream out: "You're tearing me apart!" – Rebel Without a Cause fans will understand!

All in all, Purple Noon is an interesting, visually gorgeous interpretation of Highsmith's classic novel, but I much prefer the later Damon/Law version, as a much closer, far more faithful screen adaptation. However, you can make your own mind up by clicking here to watch an official English-subtitled trailer for Purple Noon on YouTube.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

An official Blu-Ray release of Purple Noon, giving both its French and Italian titles, and depicting Alain Delon as Tom Ripley (© René Clément/Robert & Raymond Hakim/Paris Film/Paritalia/Titanus/CCFC – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

TERRORDACTYL (aka JURASSIC WARS)

 

My official UK DVD of Terrordactyl (subsequently retitled Jurassic Wars) (© Don Bitters III & Geoff Reisner/3^rd Films/Terrordactyl/Marvista Entertainment/4Digital Media/Sony Pictures Home Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

My film watch on 25 March 2022 was the fun monster-themed B-movie Terrordactyl (subsequently retitled Jurassic Wars).

Directed by Don Bitters III (who also wrote its screenplay) and Geoff Reisner, and released in 2016 by 4Digital Media, Terrordactyl is a great comedy creature feature in which a shower of meteors landing over Los Angeles turn out to be – wouldn't you just know it? – a mass landing of pterodactyl eggs, because it turns out that these flying reptiles didn't die out 65 million years ago at all.

Instead, when the asteroid hit Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs, the pterosaurs escaped into Outer Space, where they've been circling around ever since, waiting for their chance to return and reclaim their world, and now they have. In other words, a crazy plot that is every bit as off the planet as the pterodactyls have been!

Happily, two bold gardener buddies Lars (Christopher Jennings, who is also one of this movie's several executive producers) and Jonas (Jason Tobias), plus gun-wise waitress Candice (Candice Nunes), assisted by booze-sozzled ex-marine Sampson (Jack E. Curenton) and (briefly!) Candice's sultry room-mate Valerie (Bianca Haas), are there to save the day – which is just as well, as otherwise LA seems to be entirely deserted!

Amusingly, Jonas actually remarks upon this truly bizarre anomaly, to which Candice replies that it's because everyone else are all in hiding. Far more likely, at least imho, is that most of the movie's budget was spent (albeit profitably) upon its very effective, imposing CGI pterodactyls, so that there was not enough left to hire secondary actors!

 

Lars (played by Christopher Jennings), suddenly discovering the spine-chilling reason why he has been abducted by a pterodactyl and brought to their nest of eggs, all of which are about to hatch and release a horde of ravenously-hungry baby pterosaurs! (© Don Bitters III & Geoff Reisner/3^rd Films/Terrordactyl/Marvista Entertainment/4Digital Media/Sony Pictures Home Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

All of the characters that are present, however, are very likeable, especially long-suffering Lars, who has to put up with all manner of annoyances, including his beloved truck being destroyed by one of the pterodactyls landing upon it, and then being abducted by another one to serve as live food for when their youngsters hatch. Happily, lucky Lars is able to avoid this hideous fate (unlike another abductee, the decidedly luckless and soon to be definitely lifeless Johnny…), and thereby lives to fight another day, and a fair few additional pterodactyls.

Chief (in every sense) among the latter is the ginormous queen pterodactyl. Yes indeed, within the wacky world that is Terrordactyl it turns out that these flying reptiles are eusocial, with the (relatively) smaller males caring for the eggs laid by a single colossal female. All totally inane and insane, but very funny and exceedingly enjoyable throughout!

For what is basically a relatively low-entry creature feature, the CGI pterodactyls of Terrordactyl, created by Los Angeles-based 3^rd Films, specializing in spectacular visual effects (click here to view some show reels), are unequivocally impressive (apparently, no puppet or animatronic, physical ones were used, despite what various reviews elsewhere have claimed). Indeed, they readily transform what might otherwise have been a humorous but bog-standard, undistinguished  B-movie into a genuinely engrossing, compelling feature.

In short, I can definitely recommend Terrordactyl to anyone who enjoys monster movies and has enough willpower to suspend all disbelief regarding its zany, preposterous premise!

If you'd like to view an official Terrordactyl trailer and thus take wing upon a brief but truly hilarious flight of fancy (in every sense!), be sure to click here in order to watch one on YouTube.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Publicity poster for Terrordactyl (© Don Bitters III & Geoff Reisner/3^rd Films/Terrordactyl/Marvista Entertainment/4Digital Media/Sony Pictures Home Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

FADE TO BLACK

 

Full cover for the official UK DVD of Fade To Black (© Vernon Zimmerman/Compass International/American Cinema Releasing – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Tonight's movie watch was a very unusual, highly memorable film, yet whose very existence I only learned about a few days earlier – but whose premise intrigued me so much that I duly purchased the DVD, which arrived this morning. A dark movie about movies, not to mention mayhem and madness, it is entitled Fade To Black.

Directed and also written by Vernon Zimmerman, Fade To Black was released in 1980 by Compass International and American Cinema Releasing, and focuses upon a film buff who takes films just a little too seriously…

Eric Binford (played by Dennis Christopher) is a geeky, shy, not unlikeable, but lowly, underachieving young worker at a film distributor's warehouse in Los Angeles. Workmates pick on him, his aggressive boss Marty Berger (Norman Burton) is forever berating him, so too is his wheelchair-bound Aunt Stella (Eve Brent Ashe) with whom he has lived all his life since his mother's death, and he has neither any friends nor any discernible future beyond his downbeat job.

However, all of these grievances are compensated for by Eric's passionate, life-long love of the movies, finding solace and escapism by screening and watching all of his favourite stars and characters in his movie memorabilia-packed bedroom every evening after work. Moreover, he has acquired through the years an encyclopaedic knowledge of the big screen. Conversely, Eric's aunt has neither patience nor interest in any of this, considering it to be an unhealthy obsession, and telling him irascibly that it's time he started living in the real world.

One day, Eric chances upon a young model and budding actress named Marilyn (Linda Kerridge) who bears a striking resemblance to his all-time favourite movie star, the one and only Marilyn Monroe. So eventually he plucks up enough courage to ask her out on a date to their local cinema to watch a movie together. To his astonishment, she accepts, finding him rather cute, and at the appointed time he duly arrives at the cinema and waits for her outside, slickly dressed in his smartest attire. Tragically, however, Marilyn has forgotten all about poor Eric and has gone out with someone else instead. Eventually, she does remember their planned date and, feeling guilty, hails a cab and drives to the cinema, but it is too late – dejected at being rejected, Eric has gone home. And for days afterwards, he locks himself in his bedroom watching movies and chain-smoking, feeling too abject even to eat, let alone go to work.

Finally, ill-tempered Stella has had enough, wheels herself into Eric's bedroom, and savagely smashes his film projector. It just so happens that the movie that Eric had been watching was Kiss of Death (1947), in which a wheelchair-bound harridan is pushed down the stairs to her death – and the shock of seeing Stella smash his beloved projector, added to the trauma that he had already been suffering from having been (as he wrongly thought) stood up by Marilyn, proves too much. In a fit of psychotic rage, Eric duly re-enacts in real life the movie scene that he has just watched on screen, resulting in Stella lying dead in her wheelchair at the bottom of the stairs inside their house.

However, Eric deftly passes it off as a tragic accident and duly inherits not only Stella's house but also her ashes, in whose urn he takes malign delight in discarding his cigarettes – a disturbing indication of the increasingly dark, macabre pathways along which his rapidly-unraveling, movie-addled mind will be travelling as this film progresses. And sure enough, having successfully disposed of his aunt, Eric duly does the same for his other tormentors, including a hooker who had insulted him, bullying co-worker Richie (an early role for Mickey Rourke), his boss Berger, and film producer Gary Bially (Morgan Paull) who has brazenly stolen an idea for a movie that Eric had previously proposed to him.

However, such is his movie-infused madness that instead of committing straightforward murders, Eric goes to great pains to recreate key killing scenes from his favourite films. He even faithfully dresses up as the silver screen assassins in question, which include Hopalong Cassidy, Dracula, The Mummy, and gangster Cody Jarrett (from the 1949 James Cagney movie White Heat), but this ultimately leads to Eric's undoing.

For whereas his true identity is concealed beneath his grotesque early disguises, when dressed as Jarrett while shooting Bially dead in a hail of bullets Eric is readily recognized – and the chase is now well and truly on between him and a posse of police. Even so, they are pursuing him somewhat belatedly, because criminal psychologist Dr Jerry Moriarty (Tim Thomerson) had already raised Eric as a suspect after profiling him regarding the earlier murders, but his suspicions had been brusquely dismissed by Captain M.L. Gallagher (James Luisi), the hot-headed, arrogant police officer leading the investigation into those murders.

What happens next I'll leave you to discover for yourselves if you watch this very engrossing movie. Let's just say the 1957 Laurence Olivier/Marilyn Monroe movie The Prince and the Showgirl (which just so happens to be one of my own favourite films) plays a major part, as does White Heat once again ("Made it, Ma! Top of the world!").

Dennis Christopher plays Eric with exactly the correct proportions of nerdy pathos and sinister psychosis, mixing and blending these potent portions of his splitting sanity to great effect – to the extent that even though he ultimately transforms into a veritable movie monster himself, you cannot help but root for him, especially during this movie's early sections, when he does his best to fit in and be accepted by those around him, only to be consistently mocked and misused by them instead.

Now, a trio of queries. Firstly: one of the investigating cops, Officer Ann Oshenbull (Gwynne Gilford, who was pregnant with future actor Chris Pine during this movie's production!), discovers to her surprise that Eric's late aunt Stella was not his aunt at all. In fact, she was his mother, but in order to prevent losing her career as a dancer (which she was before the accident that confined her to a wheelchair when Eric was only 4 years old), Stella had publicly claimed that he was the child of her deceased sister. Yet this shocking discovery was never revealed to Eric in the movie – so why was it included in the first place? After all, by not influencing the plot or any characters in any way, it served no useful purpose, it was wholly superfluous.

Secondly: despite Dr Moriarty appearing in the movie as a major character throughout it, his scientific expertise was never drawn upon. On the contrary, it was repeatedly ridiculed and dismissed by Captain Gallagher. So, once again, why was Moriarty included at all?

Thirdly: bearing in mind that Eric was far from generously paid at his job, where on earth did he get all the money from to pay for the immense collection of highly impressive movie memorabilia that filled his bedroom and beyond at home? Even when acting out his favourite movie murders in reality, he took pains to duplicate with precision the attire worn by the actors playing those roles on screen, and the extravagant costumes and props that he used when recreating The Prince and the Showgirl would have cost a fortune! Clearly, therefore, in order to take this movie even remotely seriously (which of course we shouldn't ever try to), we need to indulge in some serious suspending of disbelief!

Such contentions aside, however, I personally found Fade To Black to be very compelling viewing, boasting a plot so unapologetically implausible that it is all the better for being so – a unique example of imaginative, surreal escapism both for its viewers and for its lead character, who inhabits his own movie within the movie that the rest of us are watching.

If you would like to visit the weird world that his all-consuming obsession with the silver screen has created inside Eric's shuttered, shattered mind, be sure to click here to view an official Fade To Black trailer on YouTube.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Publicity poster for Fade To Black (© Vernon Zimmerman/Compass International/American Cinema Releasing – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)