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©2002-2024
Kevin Michael Vance
Writer - Portland, Oregon
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Go Back To Reviews
Title: THEY
Director: Robert Harmon
Year: 2002
Reviewed: August 11, 2003
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Birthday Cake-Second Highest Rating |
[Rating Definitions]
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Hhhhmmm…
I give "They" a BIRTHDAY CAKE RATING.
"They" is not a perfect movie. It might not even be that great. The acting is sub-par. The script is… all right. However, it was filmed very well. And hell! I really did like it.
When I found out that "They" was directed by, Robert Harmon, I was, quite literally, taken aback. Robert Harmon directed, around the year of "their" lord 1986, one of the greatest horror, terror, thriller, suspense… what have you, movies of all time: "The Hitcher". Everything about "The Hitcher" is transcendent; the ambient, evocative music, the seamless editing, and superb directing, the outstanding acting by both Rutger Hauer (one of my all time favorites), C. Thomas Howell, and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
If you haven't seen "The Hitcher" run to your video store and rent it. Trust me. It's well worth it.
Onto the present… as I said before "They" isn't the greatest of films. Albeit (and I know I'm going against my friend Devon by saying this) I thought it was actually fairly good. Sure… there might not be much originality, but there is most assuredly a certain… dread to the nearly unseen creatures relentlessly cloaked in darkest umbra. Yes… the acting is on a par with weird seventies soap opera's, and yet, I believed the lead actress; albeit her neck is freakishly long. More like a trunk really. True… the movie is too long, however I did appreciate that it was unnerving and slightly disconcerting (if not necessarily "scary"). Furthermore, I thought they did very well with the pedantic PG-13 rating, relying more on fright than gore; which is, to say the least, difficult if one wishes to instill horror in ones audience. I even enjoyed the "otherworldly" aspect to the plot. True… I've always had a thing for premises regarding shadow worlds, and or different, darker dimensions.
"They" is okay, definitely worth a rental, not as good as movies like: "The Hitcher", "The Sixth Sense", "Seven", or (the Dutch version) "The Vanishing", but definitely good enough to warrant a BIRTHDAY CAKE RATING.
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