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November 14, 2006
AFI FEST 2006: RE-CYCLE
I just saw a trailer for the Pang Brothers' new English language horror movie, from Sam Raimi's Ghost House company. It made the audience laugh at loud (not in a good way), especially at the end when we get the obligatory "kid creepily sings a nursery rhyme" bit, and it's "Old McDonald had a farm." Kristen Stewart stars, and it's about a kid who can see dead people. A totally original idea, no?
Danny and Oxide Pang have some nice ideas from time to time, but their storytelling skills aren't the best. If Tom Cruise ever gets around to remaking THE EYE, it may well be better than the original. RE-CYCLE has some great stuff going on, and I'd love to see it as a video game, but as a movie, the ending kills it. I'll try not to spoil with specifics.
The first act of the movie deals with a popular romance novelist who is now trying her hand at somethign supernatural, but as she's writing it, strange things start happening. Scary blurry ghosts in the distant background, wadded up bits of paper that move, long hairs appearing on the kitchen counter. Then one night she takes the elevator downstairs, and lands up in the land of Re-Cycle, a limbo world where discarded ideas live, including one particularly memorable area where aborted fetuses continue to grow. There is of course an obligatory abandoned carnival (why are those always so inherently creepy?), worn-out giant toys, and things floating in the air that should not do so under conventional physics. Not to mention Langolier-like destruction of the past if one does not move sufficiently swiftly.
The imagination in some of these sequences is reminiscent of the likes of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Terry Gilliam, which is why it's a shame the story isn't on the same level. After several creative journeys through the dreamscape, we get a heavy-handed anti-abortion screed and a bizarre "surprise" ending that's totally unexplained.
Somebody get the remake rights, and get a solid screenwriter to take a crack at it. RE-CYCLE is almost brilliant, but the finish needs more processing.
Posted by LYT at November 14, 2006 12:40 AM [Message Board]
Comments
I'm a fan of the Pang Brothers since "The Eye" (though their ID4 scene was left to be desired). Maybe Cruise/Wagner can recycle "Re-Cycle..."
Posted by: Edwin A. Santos at November 14, 2006 8:02 AM