Wednesday 17 August 2011

Troublesome Tulpa Twosome


The Dark Half sees horror kings Romero & King collaborate on the occasionally corny tale of an author terrorised by his pseudonym who's escaped into reality. Timothy Hutton is excellent in the dual role as thoughtful husband Thad and as the increasingly demented and murderous George and he's ably supported by Ami Madigan and Michael Rooker in the ensuing nonsense. It has some nice touches like the sparrow psychopomps and Romero squeezes some tension from proceedings but there's no genuine horror and even the string of slaughterings are bodged and it shambles along towards it's predictable conclusion. Maybe I wasn't paying attention enough at the start but shouldn't Thad's doppelganger have been the protagonist from the novels George "wrote" rather than his alter-author himself? or were those novels supposedly autobiographical?


Oliver Stone's debut feature Seizure will probably never legitimately be released again and after watching it and kinda enjoying it I think the director's efforts in wiping it from history are a bit harsh. A horror writer is plagued by nightmares depicting his family and friends deaths at the hand of nebulous characters from his own novels and one weekend these forms take flesh and the killing begins. Now it does suffer from a low budget, am-dram acting and terrible cinematography but somehow it's still quite entertaining with the tulpa trio of knifey midget/ /black mute/sexy brunette providing most of the unintentional laughs and the refreshing cowardice and egotism of the main character bringing the bitters. Dunno it's certainly not the worst film I've seen but unless, like me, you enjoy the odd so-bad-it's-good genre I wouldn't recommend it.

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