Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Sung J. Woo's avatar

I've never been that impressed by ScarJo, to be honest. The Girl with the Pearl Earring, for example...I thought she was borderline terrible in that film.

But this one...for me, it's her best performance. Career performance. Not sure why she connected so seamlessly to the material, but so glad that she did. It's such a heartbreaking role. It's been a while since I saw this, but I think there's a scene near the end where she's driving her car and crying from all the loneliness and pain and I can still remember feeling every bit of her alien sadness.

It's really something that I can still remember those scenes where the men she traps sink into the black goo. Zero gore, yet terrifying, because it's so damn mysterious. What a movie.

Expand full comment
Joel's avatar

Glad to see this in October, because the beach scene and the peek at the process below the goo hit me harder than most traditional horror. After the two floating victims hold hands, there's a cut to a wide shot of the person further along in the process, briefly floating away before popping and deflating. That popping sound made me jump the first time. In the many viewings since then, I swear the time between the cut and the pop gets longer each time, so it still gets me. Always having the sound turned way up contributes too, but it's a must to enjoy one of my favorite scores of all time.

Expand full comment
19 more comments...

No posts