I see that Kiss Of The Spider Woman is coming out on Blu-Ray. I have a funny story about that movie, funny to me anyway. I remember when it came out 20+ years ago. I knew absolutely nothing about it except what I saw on the poster. As you can see above, it's a pretty neat looking poster. I can't remember what I was going to the multiplex to see that day but I saw that and said, "Wow, a horror movie starring William Hurt. He was awesome in Altered States so maybe this will be one of those intelligent and classy horror films in the vein of Don't Look Now or The Exorcist." So I went to see that.
Well, lo and fucking behold, it was about as much a horror movie as Splash was. The story centered around a guy played by Hurt who was in jail in an authoritarian South American country for something along the lines of statutory rape of a teenage boy. He's put in jail with a political prisoner played by one of my all time favorite actors, the late Raul Julia (he was alive then, I'm assuming). So, there they are, a man who passionately fights for his beliefs and a man who believes in nothing other than that underage boys are cute. They talk. And they talk. And they talk some more. Julia talks about his struggles and the woman he loves and Hurt talks about his desires and romantic notions and even about a love story he once saw in a Nazi propaganda film that becomes a movie within a movie. And they talk and talk and talk and I keep wondering where the hell the monsters are.
Turns out there were no monsters. It's a movie about different men, each with their own secrets, who come to respect and even care for each other and JESUS CHRIST WHERE THE HELL IS THE SPIDER WOMAN? Telling you why the movie is called Kiss Of The Spider Woman would probably reveal too much of the film's plot but I can tell you that it has nothing to do with some chick who drinks radioactive spider venom and turns monstrous or anything like that which is what the god damn movie should have been about.
I like the movie much more now than I did then, partly because I'm older and understand it better and partly because I no longer expect it to have scenes where the National Guard vainly shoots at the super powerful Spider Woman while some scientist discovers that she's vulnerable to zinc or some crap like that. It's a decent movie though it's not for everybody and you already know if you're the kind of person who likes stuff like this.
To this day, I don't trust horror movies. For instance, I'm assuming that Kiefer Sutherland's new flick Mirrors is a social commentary on South Africa under Apartheid rule and I won't believe otherwise until the reviews come in. Even then, I'll be thinking that maybe every critic in the country is playing some elaborate joke on me. See what you did to me, Hollywood? You lured a trusting boy into a theater with promises of scary spider scenes and, since it was rated R, the possibility of seeing boobs. Instead, you gave me two guys who yammered on endlessly about...hell, who cares? I blame you for the fact that I grew up to be a cynical adult instead of a happy, optimistic fellow who's fabulously wealthy and and father to Jessica Alba's baby. Yep, it's all your fault.
Digg This.
No comments:
Post a Comment