Hooptober: Legend of the 7 Golden Mozzies.

BONUS HORROR MOVIE #26

I first saw this movie just a few years ago and I was kind of blown away by it. This was at a time when I was just dabbling in horror movies again after a long time away from them, and it was probably one of the movies that really convinced me I should be going all in on the genre (which I clearly proceeded to do and have never looked back).

So having asserted since then that this is one of the greatest horror films of the 21st century, I went into this rewatch a little worried that I might have been a little over-excited the first time around.

But it's better than I remembered.

Honestly, I know this is a fairly well revered flick among horror fans, but I am still astounded to see so many who don't rate it. It's almost perfect as far as I can tell.

I have sometimes recalled the extent to which this affected me on a primal level the first time around, and this rewatch has reminded me how much this has to do with David Julyan's magnificent score. As soon as the film starts, that sense memory was triggered by the opening strains. It's a big score - something that wouldn't be out of place in a big studio blockbuster if you could find a good enough one to pair it with - and it should be. Because despite this being a somewhat intimate movie as far as the span of characters and location goes, it works with big themes.

As a parent, the set-up where Sarah loses her daughter and husband is something I find confronting and, frankly, as horrifying a situation as I can really imagine. That scene in the hospital where she pelts down the corridor with lights going out around her is just amazing. And this is all still prologue - the film proper hasn't even started yet.

You'd think an underground, cave set film would be hard to make aesthetically pleasing, but the cinematography in these tight dark spaces is gorgeous. The various light sources are used so well to give different identity to the different sequences - glow sticks, head torches, flaming torches, natural phosphorescence. All within this incredible cave location - it's its own kind of eye candy.

And yes I extend this sense of beauty to the monstrous and the gruesome as well. How can a film in such darkness look so redly blood-drenched? This movie gets fucking brutal and primal. Despite knowing what was going to happen, it still scared the fuck out of me.

It all went by so fast and as the end credits rolled I realised my eyes were wet. It's not as if I'd been bawling at this, but the emotional journey for Sarah, and also Juno, is so fucking intense with this movie. Yes it's terrifying and exciting and suspenseful - but it's also immensely moving, I think. That thread of grief from the opening act runs like a tightly drawn rope through the whole film and that final moment - the look on Sarah's face as she gazes at the vision of her daughter in the absolute bowels of the mountain - as Julyan's score swells over the shrinking image... Yep, I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it.

Having said that, let's not devalue the joy of a genuinely effective jump-scare. The scene where Sarah looks through the infra-red viewfinder on the camera and then the thing suddenly appears behind someone caused me to do a full blown couch-jerk (no, not that kind... the other one) - that rarely happens to me and I treasure it when it does!

To call this nothing but a silly monster flick and jump-scare fest is to cheapen it so profoundly. I genuinely believe this is a GREAT film. I watched this really late last night and I couldn't sleep after it because it worked me up into such a fervour. This is one of my all time favourite horror movies.