Haunted (1995)
*
I just looked up who directed this snoozefest and found that Lewis Gilbert is also the man behind Educating Rita, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Moonraker. Yep, Moonraker. Bond and lasers!
It's an attempt at an old fashioned ghost story in a haunted British castle, so you can kind of see what the folks here had in mind. And to Gilbert's credit, he does round up some top tier talent like John fucking Gielgud and a really young looking Kate Beckinsale. Incidentally, Beckinsale kind of annoys me in most things she does for some reason--I dig the accent and the looks, but somehow the complete package always comes off as smug and grating. That's the case here.
Anyway, there's not much to care about in this flick. It's built around two parallel ghost stories, and by the end you realize that the gimmick they had in mind was that the ghost of Quinn's dead twin sister would "save" him from the mean ghosts who plan to trap him in the haunted castle. Meh.
The funniest thing about this movie is the silly use of body doubles for all the nude scenes. And what Trevor forgot to mention in his pitch perfect review of the flick is that it wasn't just Beckinsale being doubled. There's a funny sex scene between the Beckinsale and Quinn characters, and they're both replaced by doubles. And you basically get a closeup of the strange guy's face. It's like, what movie was I just watching? Actually, for a second I thought something might be going on where the two of them were doing some sort of ghostlike transformation into her dead parents (the presumed ghosts at this point). But nah. Just the worst editing of body doubles this side of Flashdance.
Now, why the hell did I watch this? I actually started it yesterday, fresh off some newfound H-thon mojo courtesy of Wicked Man, and it was the only fucking thing on my cable VOD that looked remotely interesting. Oh well, Trevor warned me. Still, I do like to have a range of good and crap in my Horrorthon bag, just for calibration's sake.
3 comments:
Uh, that's the wrong picture. Can someone with mod powers change it for me? Trevor's got the correct one in his review below.
This picture is in the film too - the little sister that drowns at the start of the film.
You're right - I didn't notice that the guy was also a body double - and I'm actually proud that I didn't notice.
I think he's calling you gay, LS.
"Incidentally, Beckinsale kind of annoys me in most things she does for some reason--I dig the accent and the looks, but somehow the complete package always comes off as smug and grating."
I think you just captured exactly what I've been trying to figure out about her since she first showed up. Nice.
I think for me she's always sort of like what Gertrude Stein said about Oakland: there's no there there.
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