PRESENCE (dir. Steven Soderbergh)

I'm mildly surprised we don't have a specific general thread for Soderbergh or even a poll thread? We probably should! I admire him more than love him but dude has the range, and I appreciate that whatever this haunted house trailer we have here lists _Magic Mike_.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xkVxO-YibU

Is the work of Steven Soderbergh the most overrated thing ever?

Oh that makes sense. I thought it was more of a vent thread!

Disappointed this won't be a situational biopic about the recording of the Zep album. Sods could film the fuck out of wheelchair Robert Plant being loaded onto a cargo plane.

I read something about this movie, I think. A haunted house movie from the POV of the ghost? Could be interesting.

isn't that Beetlejuice

about the recording of the Zep album

This film will finally explain the meaning of The Object

Gotta say I appreciate the slow rollout of short trailers here. The second one dropped a couple of weeks back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9kTFDE2BkU

And the third, earlier today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGarWwbU6P4

Really surprised they wouldn't release it this month (horror month) rather than January.

Repeated "In this house..." is right out of the Skinimarink trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTvBpgL641o

Saw this last night and enjoyed it - good, but not great. I liked the pared-down economy of it (single location, tiny cast, single POV). The film-making choices for me gave a nice perspective on a decent family drama. To me it felt much more that than a horror film.

Spoiler: When I realised this afterwards it felt like neat writing, but maybe others would find it too on the nose - I enjoyed the minor foreshadowing when the presence has trashed the brother's room, revealing itself to the whole family, and they are talking/arguing outside, and the father says to Tyler something along the lines of "would it kill you to stand up for your sister just once in your life?". It turns out that it literally would.

Looked up the camera when I got home to see how tiny it is (basically an old-school family consumer SLR) and enjoyed it even more in retrospect, picturing Sodey in his socks, tip-toeing into closets and trotting after the family with one hand up at shoulder height to look like he’s floating

Agreed with Krakow's general assessment -- the part that didn't quite work for me was that the horrible bro was kinda too obviously that after that first little rehearsed speech of his -- didn't take me long to guess he was probably the one who had killed her friend. But an interesting exercise, and per sic's point, I realize it's BECAUSE of the fact it's a human being doing all this stuff but I was amused by the in-universe conceit that the presence always politely uses the stairs instead of floating between the floors.

Looking forward to catching it while it's still in theaters. Bad sign that the title was too bland for me to remember it when scanning movie listings last weekend.

hoping "Tea for One" plays over end credits

I usually like formal experiments that make you hyper aware of the camera, whether Russian Ark or Paranormal Activity, and for that reason this movie mostly had me, at least for the first half. But while I did not expect it to be scary, and it wasn't, I also didn't expect it to be so unpleasant. Just bit off more than it could chew, imo.

I will say it's interesting that both this and What We Do In The Shadows introduced the idea of being haunted by your own ghost, which I'm not sure I've seen before, though imo the vampire show did it much more successfully/cleverly/clearly.

I agree with Ned and will go further: that Jordan Peterson type was badly written and badly acted. During the crucial scene I heard the voice of Bela Lugosi.

Does the ending suggest that, uh, one ship sails out of port to make room for another ship?

this one was a dud

the way the presence moved had too much of a gait so i could “feel” the cameraman standing behind it. should’ve been a smoother steady cam drift imho

i know the family was supposed to be dysfunctional and (with the exception of lucy liu wanting to fuck her son) loveless but did they have to be such black holes of charisma? did not enjoy spending time with these bores

just me or the ”rules” of how the presence is capable of intervening in the real world were applied very inconsistently? like it can move her books around, but it can’t push a glass of orange juice out of her hand?

not mad i watched it, still a somewhat unique piece of art and hey at least they’re trying something different but the experiment was mostly a failure for me

the anamorphic lens also made it hard to see the actors’ faces. i was constantly squinting like “is that megan fox??”

I didn't mind The Presence's inconsistency. It's a hallmark of most ghost stories, no? They sometimes help.

Does the ending suggest that, uh, one ship sails out of port to make room for another ship?

I've seen it argued that the line from the medium about the presence confusing past/present etc means it's all one entity, if you will, departing when it needs to leave.

The actor playing the sex pest is named West Mulholland.