I am so torqued. I was on a business trip the one weekend this film was showing in the theaters. Wanted to see it badly but before I blinked it was gone.
My first viewing was today on the Pay per View circuit and I am even more bent. This could be the greatest film that must been seen on a BIG screen that I didn't ever see on one. There is no way to appreciate the incredible, unfathomable chaos this thing offers on a TV of any size.
But the crescendos of calamity and the absurd ending could not have prepared me for the amazing credit sequence that so boldly makes the film understandable. As I suspected while taking in one incredulity after another, the film is a garish live action horror fantasy. The wonderful credit storyboard makes this very clear. Wayne Kramer is just messing with our heads in ways that other genre artists have, for example John Carpenter in 'Assault on Precinct 13' and 'Escape from New York'. You think its all real, but welcome to Mr. Kramer's nightmare.
So many reviews of this thing went on about the improbability of it all. The layers of impossibility and coincidence become too much after a while, going way beyond anything people complained about in the film 'Crash.' But 'Running Scared' was never intended to make a point. It was simply to be bathed in.
So in the end this is a genre play that transcends its action world full of scum predictability into the nightmare fantasy genre that transmits power from its absurd, incoherent nature. If you felt you should not like this thing but did, watch 'Donnie Darko' and 'The Sender' again to get similar feelings at closure.
But in the end, I have such misgivings that I will never experience this thing full bore as it should have been tasted.
I am so torqued.
My first viewing was today on the Pay per View circuit and I am even more bent. This could be the greatest film that must been seen on a BIG screen that I didn't ever see on one. There is no way to appreciate the incredible, unfathomable chaos this thing offers on a TV of any size.
But the crescendos of calamity and the absurd ending could not have prepared me for the amazing credit sequence that so boldly makes the film understandable. As I suspected while taking in one incredulity after another, the film is a garish live action horror fantasy. The wonderful credit storyboard makes this very clear. Wayne Kramer is just messing with our heads in ways that other genre artists have, for example John Carpenter in 'Assault on Precinct 13' and 'Escape from New York'. You think its all real, but welcome to Mr. Kramer's nightmare.
So many reviews of this thing went on about the improbability of it all. The layers of impossibility and coincidence become too much after a while, going way beyond anything people complained about in the film 'Crash.' But 'Running Scared' was never intended to make a point. It was simply to be bathed in.
So in the end this is a genre play that transcends its action world full of scum predictability into the nightmare fantasy genre that transmits power from its absurd, incoherent nature. If you felt you should not like this thing but did, watch 'Donnie Darko' and 'The Sender' again to get similar feelings at closure.
But in the end, I have such misgivings that I will never experience this thing full bore as it should have been tasted.
I am so torqued.