Reviews

I should preface this review by saying that I love weird Twilight Zone-ey movies and shows. If there are mass disappearances involved, I love them even more.

This first ten minutes or so, I almost backed out. I was not particularly crazy about any of the characters, everything felt quite run of the mill.

Then when the action (quite suddenly) started happening, I pricked up my ears and paid attention. I was delighted!

Throughout the movie, while I was enjoying myself very much, I kept worrying about how they would wrap this up.

I sort of remember the movie Phantoms, but I deeply remember the book Phantoms that the movie was adapted from and I recall feeling, upon finishing the book, that the whole thing went to hell when Koontz tried to explain the events away in the last chapter. Yikes. It was not good.

I was so so so hoping that this wouldn't happen. Would a filmmaker have the courage to end a movie like this without feeling like they had to try to explain anything?

To my delight, YES!

I was thrilled and, afterwards, I kept thinking about the movie, even having weird Don't Blink-related dreams during the night. I woke up in the morning still thinking about it and now, 24 hours later, I am STILL thinking about it.

So yes, if you remotely like this kind of weirdness, watch it and you will not regret it.

What a pleasure to see this first Quebec production from Netflix!

The topic was appropriate as well, considering that we are living through a global pandemic...

I had no idea what to expect (didn't even read the teaser sentence on Netflix, really) and I was delighted to find this film to be original and gripping.

The plot line moves up slowly to a (very surprising to me) particular point after which all hell breaks loose.

I REALLY loved the non-Hollywood ending.

The acting work was fantastic. I didn't know any of the actors but it was a pleasure discovering them.

And finally, what a joy it is to hear a movie in my native language with all its richness and colour.

Merci tout le monde, excellent film!

The CBS Special stands as a piece of history which I think has not received the care and respect it deserves from EPE. The badly-edited footage (you have to see the unedited footage to really appreciate Elvis' work) has been relegated to the Graceland attic and that's a shame.

The emotional punch this production packs should be enough to warrant an official DVD release. I think that to any Elvis fan, Elvis remained Elvis. EPE seems to think that it's OK to write off the last three years of his life, which to me are as important as any other.

The Elvis that appears in the CBS Special, is, and this has been said ad nauseam, in bad shape physically, sometimes slightly incoherent but he is possibly the most "human" Elvis ever caught on film. He is flawed, he is shy, he is hokey at times (in the way that a teenager would find his/her dad hokey) but he is humble, and remarkably likable.

Being an E fan, I enjoy watching his concert documentaries and I must say that I much prefer 1977 Elvis to his previous incarnations. Of course, as a showman, he was truly dynamic and possibly at his best in the 68 Special and "That's the way it is", but in 1977, he had lost this arrogance that characterized his late 60s/early 70s persona and was obviously comfortable sharing himself, as he was, with his audience.

His voice is as powerful as ever (perhaps more), he enjoys his audience. You can plainly see and hear that he is bored with some of his older songs (I can't blame him - how many years can you sing Hound Dog at every single concert without getting absolutely sick of it), but watch how his face lights up when he sings "Hurt". Through the first two lines of the song, he's looking back at the band and grinning with joy. Same thing for the extremely moving "Unchained Melody" (which was inexplicably NOT included in the final CBS footage but is available in the unedited concert footage). He ends the song with a final flourish and you can just see how pleased he is, grinning, loving what he is doing.

EPE is doing the world of Elvis fans a great disservice by refusing to re-release this amazing production. It has much more "meat" to it than the blah Aloha Special where Elvis, while looking superbly iconic and in fine voice, is wooden and emotionally removed from the whole thing.

One final word: if you watch the CBS Special, you will notice that the use of the word "fat" is unwarranted and incorrect. Elvis was certainly bigger by then, and he has the typical middle-aged sedentary guy "spare tire", but he is otherwise not particularly big. His face is not as much fat as it is bloated. But if you watch the Unchained Melody footage, make sure to catch that brief moment, about halfway through the song, where he pauses for a second, turns to the audience and smiles. In that one instant, you can plainly see Elvis from 10 years before, and, in this context, it'll both break your heart - knowing that he has such little time left - and make you love him.

What a great guy. I still miss him.

**Possible spoilers** I saw "The Amityville Horror" when it came out in 1979. I was a 14 year old kid at the time and I was quite taken by the whole thing. The entire premise scared me: the voices, the goo, the upside-down crucifix, the flies, the distorted "GET!!! OUT!!!"... Not to mention that, at the time, we all had heard that this was based on a true story and we all WANTED SO BAD to believe that it really was.

Fast forward to this year, 2002. I buy the DVD, pop it in, welcome it again as I would an old friend... and find myself terrified again. But wait: I'm 37 and a Dad and a homeowner...

This movie should have been called "The Mortgage of Doom"! As it turns out, I feel that this movie SHOULD be scary for grown-ups, a spine-tingling economic horror. I'm watching it and thinking: "Oh no! They sunk all their money into this! Oh no! Don't axe down the basement wall - think of the price of getting the whole thing up again! Oh no! The basement stairs were eaten away by termites! Oh no! The plumbing system has to be upgraded! Oh no! What will it cost to clean up the blood and goo from the walls and stairs?"

You get my drift.

Scary, scary stuff, man. Just give it a shot. :)