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MAN ON WIRE helmer jumping on the found footage horror bandwagon with THE VATICAN TAPES!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. James Marsh's MAN ON WIRE is a fantastic documentary about the French dude that's obsessed with staging tight rope walking hits on famous landmarks, most notably when he walked between the two World Trade Center towers.
Marsh is heading back to the feature film world (his first was 2005's THE KING) with a Lionsgate found footage horror movie called THE VATICAN TAPES according to Hollywood Reporter's Borys Kit. I'm thinking this subgenre is already close to wearing itself out again, but I have to admit that I like the basic set-up here... Essentially the flick is about what happens when a tape of a failed exorcism somehow leaks out of the Vatican.
If they do it without making the camera POV the focus of the movie this could be a great horror flick. I mean, the best parts of THE FOURTH KIND were the videos... they just decided to shoe-horn in that "this is real" throughline that became distracting.
This project is a curiosity at the moment. There's a slim path it could walk and be incredibly effective. We'll see how it casts up and comes out.
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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It's okay if I'm not first. This movie doesn't sound all that interesting
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Hoping for some disturbing, intense material compared to the weak-ass stuff that was in Paranormal Activity.
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That will go away and keep returning every five or six years. When Blair Witch made so much money for such a little investment it was a sure bet that some one else would try there hand at it. Now that Paranormal Activity is still turning a profit even after Halloween,I think we're screwed.
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the person who needs to be "exorcised" is a 12 year old boy, and the guys doing the "exorcising" are all the Pope's archbishops.
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By Stephen Lynch...
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Am I the only person that hated this movie? It was just stupid. A big ball sucking of Michel Gondry's dad. It was ok, no where near as magical as everyone went on and on and on and on and on about. Better doc that year, Bigger, Faster, Stronger. Also just saw The Thin Blue Line while its hard to be amazed by it since everyone stole everything from it, its still a much better and amazing doc.
Fun fact type in eternal into google and the Sunshine movie is the first thing the google box thinks of. -
that has an failed exorcism in it
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at least that isn't the way i wrote it
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Your act is getting old.
If you're joking - well done; but it's time to hang it up now.
If you're not joking; time to seek medical help for your delusions. -
is that they require the casting of complete or relatively unknown actors in order to be immersed in the experience. It's tough to sell a movie with a cast of unknowns, and the marketing that results gets to outlandish levels.
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It was in the original 2007 version, but deleted from the theatrical version. You don't see much in it. The couple are watching the footage online, and it looks all shaky cam.
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http://ficlets.ficly.com/stories/42342
Read it ages ago, but stuck in my mind. -
Nov 09, 2009 10:49:59 AM CST
i thought this was "popes gone wild"...Directed by Joe Francis
by chocolatejesusman
Lock up the altar-boys & hide the Jesus juice..the pope & his archbishops are down & on the town
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Nov 09, 2009 11:05:00 AM CST
it's The Exorcist, but from the perspective of a video camera!
by the_crimson_king
hmmmm not too sure about this, the title makes it sound likes it's about the Pope's porn stash
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now that's a great little creepy story, thanks for posting that
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Innovative form and great found footage elevating a mediocre script. If this film can AT LEAST do the same, I'm all for it - and James Marsh did excellent work with MAN ON WIRE.
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"Found footage" is about as fresh a gag as the latest JettL93 post, but the Vatican getting involved in a failed exorcism? That has some potential, I think.
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since it's about the tape leaking I don't think it takes the form of the tape. But regardless, I would like to take this opportunity to say that this hollow gimmick of the POV movie is dead. Please stop doing it. I don't care if it made a billion dollars one time, independent filmmakers - please have the dignity and common sense not to flood our culture with a thousand pathetic rehashes in the next few years. Our video store shelves are still blotted with the bullshit that came after BLAIR WITCH. None of them caught on and neither will yours, so don't waste your time or ours. We don't need to go through that again. Just don't do it, people.
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Was the trailer for it.
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and Cannibal Holocaust. Films like PA and [REC] prove it still works.
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Focus on one of them. "Found footage" is not a genre anymore than "handheld" is a genre, or Mocap-movies. It's just a way to present a story, and when it comes to horror, it's a very effective way of doing it because it automatically puts the audience in the main character's place.
Just because not all movies shot like that are good doesn't mean it's the style's fault. Blame it on bad writing, acting and directing instead.
You want a gimmick to hate? Try 3D. -
Starring Tom Hanks.
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Coolest thing about that flick wasn't the fact he wire walked between the two towers, it was that he got bollocko naked on top of one of them! "Uh, I was so frustrated you know? So I took off all my clothes..." Yep, as you would.
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Never saw it.
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Nov 09, 2009 10:45:16 PM CST
Why Exorcism? We are talking about Priest right...
by u_banned_me_down_the_stairs
Boy touching is much more scary. That's the type of leaked tape that needs to be found. Then the poor fucks who found it would be hunted down by the most powerful, connected, creepy villains ever committed to film.
Damn I just thought that up, and I'm sure it's way better than whatever exorcistic crap plot they will toy with to make this thing.
Think about it. I mean if you had a tape showing high up religious powers doing something and you want it to creep people out. Molesting children ala Salo is the route to go.
You know how much money the V has, how much power. I would be scared for my life if I found a tape like that. No one would have the balls to do it though. The negative press would dominate fox news for a month. -
So this means no hot,stacked girl-next-door type in T-shirts and skimpy boxer shorts? Damn.
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Saw Paranormal Activity last night. Despite the above-mentioned good points I thought it was alright. Scariest one still is "The Last Broadcast", the pseudo-documentary made with found footage. Slightly cheesy, but watch it at home alone at 1am.
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Nov 10, 2009 12:41:33 PM CST
Pound for pound the scare hit list by the numbers
by u_banned_me_down_the_stairs
The Exorcist #1 for nationwide scare factor.
Jaws is #2
Psycho is #3
Rosemarys Baby #4
Halloween is #5
This is how it is, based on the time they came out and the overall impact when they hit. None of these other films even the Blair Witch came close to them ad far as power to scare goes. None of them, and I'm very doubtful any ever will again. I'd include the war of the worlds radio broadcast as number 1 but it's not a movie. Lots of people knew it was fakes and lots did not, some didn't hear intermissions. Those people did crazy shit. -
If you don't like the found footage approach don't watch the movies.
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The Vatican is the world leader in the occult. Some freaky shit supposedly has gone down. If they were to mine some of the "true" stuff lurking out there it might make for a really disturbing film. Though I'd like it to be framed as a "confession" with a priest who thinks he's about to die. Images with his confession, etc....
I agree. No shaky cam POV, please. Tell a story with actual human beings. -
Some of the movies are fine, it's just that it's a pretty repetitive formula (first they're shooting some other video, then a disaster happens, then they start filming that, repeatedly explain why they're filming, somebody tells them to stop filming, they say they stopped but actually didn't, tape stops and skips time, they find evidence that explains what's going on, they see the scary thing coming at them, tape stops before anything happens, the end). I don't mind formula in horror, but generally you take that formula and spin it in different ways and slather on the atmosphere and visuals. Those second two you don't get too much on camcorders.
For me personally the supposedly realistic approach is much more distancing and less scary because it only emphasizes that it's not real life, you're looking for the trick and the phoniness. Or at least I am. In a more cinematic, atmospheric type of horror like SUSPIRIA or something it doesn't have to be realistic at all, it just has to channel my nightmares. With this approach my brain is always comparing everything to real life, noticing when somebody doesn't behave believably or say what they'd really say.
I don't know why you'd say not liking this formula means I shouldn't like 3-D. Yes, it's a gimmick, but a much more enjoyable gimmick to me and one that can be applied to any story, so it's more flexible than the "I found a scary video tape" rehashes. Even though I like some of those I don't think they've made one half as good as DIAL M FOR MURDER or HOUSE OF WAX. Or shit, as fun as FRIDAY THE 13TH 3-D. As for remakes, there won't ever be a found footage equivalent of THE THING or THE FLY, I'm betting. Just to name the top of a long list of good remakes.
But I bet this won't be a found footage movie anyway. But in two years I bet you there will be at least 10 unwatchable POV horror movies in the video store and you'll be complaining about it yourself and never remember that I was right. -
As a movie reviewer, obviously everything you watch is less subjective, because half of your mind is trying to remember which bits you want to mention in the impending review, while the other half is trying to watch the movie and get encompassed by it. But surely by now you've learned to suspend your disbelief? I mean, there's no sound in space, but you wouldn't deny ILM that fantastic WAAAAAAAAAAW TIE fighter noise, would you?
If you can believe a man can fly, if you can believe a short ugly alien can use a Speak'n'Spell to phone home, if you can believe they're coming back in three years to DISTRICT 9, if you can believe Dario Argento actually made a scary movie with SUSPIRIA 'cos I didn't get scared - I just got a headache) - then you can forget that a shitty low-budget scarefest is just a shitty low-budget scarefest and buy into its world for an hour and change. I mean, [REC] was fucking terrifying - and had pure talent going for it. Basically a bunch of actors running round in a building, turning out to be one of the freakiest and scariest movies I've seen in years. THE VATICAN TAPES could be the next [REC]. Keep an open mind, brother. -
Is one of my favourite urban myths. Every few years, when I used to go to church regularly, someone would know about a friend-of-a-friend who had some footage of an exorcism that got gnarly, with the victim being levitated up the wall or growing in size or lifting a priest overhead with one arm or something, and it always ends the same - "No, I don't know what happened to the footage."
Done right, this could be fucking terrifying. The urban legend of a freaky filmed exorcism will ALWAYS be scary to those who believe...
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