HOLD ON!
Before you read there may or may not be spoilers of the movie ahead. Read at your own risk for future enjoyment. Ahh Edgar Wright, a true artist in the medium of film. From the first shot you can tell that the movie fits his style. This movie was very great in my opinion. Not Wright's best movie, but still a very good film anyways. From the trailers that we watched in class, I didn't know what to expect from this movie because every movie from Wright that I have watched is more of a comedy or fun than this movie that is a mix of Thriller and Horror. However, with unclear expectations I think that they were mostly met. The film is very beautiful in its production and looks throughout the movie. I'll start with the cinematography because it was very very well done. I mean that is almost expected from Wright, but it was still very nice to see the nice camera movements and tricks. I mean the first shot of the movie is a very beautiful silhouette shot of the main character in a door frame that is just slightly off center. I already mentioned it, but that first shot solidified the movie was going to be good for me. The rest of the film also has great shots. When Ellie first goes into the dream with Sandy in the Rialto and you see both of them in the mirrors its so cool to see. Even after they are outside of the mirror filled Rialto Sandy gets into a car and you can see Eloise in the reflection of the mirror looking in onto Sandy's actions. This movie isn't the first to do this kind of trick with mirrors, but the movie does make the shots work very well. The use of mirrors throughout the film are also very well done. In the same scene with the mirrors flipping Sandy and Ellie, Jack and Sandy start dancing and as they start dancing whenever Sandy leaves frame she is replaced by Ellie and this flips back and forth and its a really cool thing to see because you can't see any cuts on Matt Smith as he is dancing with the girls. With the cinematography being so well, the use of colors is also so satisfying to watch. In her room, Eloise has a Neon sign blinking through three different colors white, blue, and red. The first night this seems normal because the lights take up a lot of the room. This is until the red light is the one that continually flashes. Eloise then enters the first dream in the Rialto. After this as things start to get worse and Eloise's mental state continues to deteriorate you begin to fear when the red lights continue to flash because of the ghosts of the dead men start chasing Eloise. Those neon colors are very nice use of color, but another kind of nice scene to watch is when Ellie and John go to the Halloween party together and there are all of the flashing strobe lights so you see what is happening, but only so much. This is visually interesting until Sandy and the other ghosts show up and cause her to freak out. This movie also has a similar view on women that Silence of the Lambs does. In the movie after the first couple of dreams Ellie changes her hair color from brown to blonde and as she is walking from the shop you see a lot of men staring at Ellie when before almost no one payed attention to her. This is a parallel to what happened to Sandy because she was seen as a beauty from the older men that tried to make advances on her. How this happened in the movie isn't exactly like how it happened in Silence of the Lambs, but I did just notice the similarities. The movie does take a little bit of time to get to the horror/thriller part of the movie, but the scares are alright. There are a couple of jump scares which whatever your opinions on them are, they got me and did take away slightly, but it kind of has to happen. The design of the ghosts of the dead perverts is creepy, not super scary, but disturbing enough to put you on edge. There are a couple of twists in the movie. One I did guess before it was revealed to us, but the other I only had in the back of my head until it was revealed. THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH IS SPOILERS AS I EXPLAIN CONTINUE TO NEXT PARAGRAPH FOR NO SPOILERS! The twist that I guessed was that Sandy was Mrs. Collins the whole time. I didn't get that she actually killed all the men instead of only getting raped and sexually assaulted by them. I did have in the back of my mind though that Sandy was somehow still alive and that Mrs. Collins was also Sandy. The other twist I didn't guess was that the creepy old dude was not actually Jack/Matt Smith, but a completely different character. Right before it was revealed, I thought to myself that the old dude wasn't tall enough to be an older Matt Smith, so I was like they kind of messed that up in the movie, but then they revealed he was actually a cop and it all made sense. So I'll give myself like one thirds credit on getting that twist. BTW Snape kills Dumbledore. I almost completely forgot about another thing that Wright is a master at. Music. The movie doesn't use the music like Wright does in other movies, but the songs that are used are so nice to hear. Almost all of the songs used in the movie are older songs, but they fit the style of the old 60s so well and are just so nice to listen to as the movie is happening. The only real thing that I disliked from the movie was the ending. It kind of had the same problem that Strangers on a Train had where it was a feel good ending, but then something comes back up. This ending is also only like 2-3 minutes long, but it did kind of negate the things that happened a little bit. For context, after the first dream Ellie starts seeing young Sandy in mirrors and as visions, but in the end of the movie, Ellie has a successful fashion show, but Sandy shows up again even thought the conflict was resolved. After Ellie sees this she goes up to the mirror and taps her finger on it which happened earlier in the movie. This just kind of ruined the ending for me. However, the rest of the movie is still very good. Altogether, this was a very solid movie from Wright. I said it earlier, but this is not his best film. I think that Baby Driver and Scott Pilgrim are still the peak of Wright. Shaun of the Dead is the only Cornetto Trilogy film I've seen, but I would say it is around that level for me. Probably just slightly lower. I'm very glad that I got to see this movie. 8/10.
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