This past week, I got extremely sick at the end of the week, which was awful, but it did give me a chance to watch quite a few movies. These movies ranged from the 1930s to the present day of when they were made. All the choices I made were good movies thankfully, and it did not seem like my time was wasted. Two of the movies came from a book I had recently read about the true stories that inspired horror movies, one was a Korean zombie film that I heard was excellent, one was one of my favorite Star Wars films, and the last one was the new Tom Hanks film. Hopefully I will be able to sprinkle in a little about each and why they were good in this piece, but all were worthy of recommendation.
So to start off with, I will contrast parenting styles in Train to Bussan and News of the World. Train to Bussan was a zombie movie about a daughter who wanted to be with her mother for her birthday, and the dad begrudgingly agrees, even though he has no time for his daughter. They take a train to the mom’s location, but a zombie pandemic breaks out. In News of the World, Tom Hanks finds an orphan and attempts to bring her to a new home, but he ended up being the best possible father for her. So it was interesting to see these contrasting parenting styles, in Busan, the dad was a hedge fund manager who seemed to only care about work, and he put his daughter off to the side, to the point where he bought her the same present for her birthday that he bought for her earlier in the year. He also fell asleep on the train, and this allowed his daughter to wander off on the train, where she was present when the train employees were confronting someone who snuck on, and it could have potentially been a dangerous situation, and he was asleep. Eventually he improved as a dad and ends up making the ultimate sacrifice, but for a large part of the movie he was a terrible parent and ended up endangering his daughter.
In News of the World, Tom Hanks was an excellent father figure to this girl that he picked up and barely knew. He cared very much about her, and he cared about her past and where she came from. While with her, he tried to teach her as much as he could, but he also tried to learn more about the language she spoke so that their relations were more mutual. He did not put himself above her even though she was different, which cannot be said for the family he tried to drop her off with. The girl’s aunt and uncle treated her very poorly because she was different to the point where they tied her to a pole outside. Then Tom Hanks came back and saved her, and she continued her learning and was treated like an actual human.
One of the interesting aspects of movie watching at home comes from the ability to be easily distracted by the outside world, especially by one’s phone. While watching a movie, it can be extremely easy to start scrolling on one’s phone, even if the movie is very good, but there is one type of movie where a person cannot afford to look at their phone while watching the movie, and that is foreign language films. The previously mentioned Train to Busan was a Korean film and was thus done in Korean, so English subtitles were needed. Then another film I watched over my long weekend was M, a 1930s German film, that needed English subtitles. Both films were excellent, but I genuinely enjoyed that they were in different languages, because it guaranteed that my attention would be glued to the screen, because if I looked away for a moment, then there was a strong potential that I would miss a key plot point. Also from a cultural aspect, it can be important to watch films made in other countries because they can have different perspectives on things culturally.
Part of the reason that I chose to watch Germany’s M and The Conjuring was due to a book I recently finished reading, Behind the Horror. The book looked at many different horror films, and the author delved into the origins of these movies, and the different inspirations they had. M was one of the first movies about a serial killer, and this serial killer had a specific fetish for young children. The movie itself was inspired by many Weimar Germany killers, that the movie creator used as inspiration to make the film. The story was about one killer, but it also revolves around the mob in Germany getting upset about the murderer because it led the police to do more raids, which in turn hurt the business the mob was running, so they took it upon themselves to catch the child killer. The whole movie was good, but the best part was when the mob put the killer on trial, and the movie took a very modern psychological view of the killer that was surprising. The killer argued that he should not be killed because he was mentally unwell. He argued that he could not help it that his brain would start to drive him crazy if he did not kill a child. So his lawyer also argued on his behalf that the killer could not help his psychological disability, an interesting modern point of view.
Then when it comes to The Conjuring, a large family moves into an old house that apparently had a history of atrocities, and almost from their first night of living there, strange occurrences start to happen. Slowly these occurrences become more insidious, and they get the famous demonologists the Warren’s involved to help rid themselves of the evil spirit. The funny thing is the movie said it was based on true events, but if you read the history in this book, or even google it, it is clear that nothing to this extent happened. The book argued that it was most likely the girls acting up. Also many of the claims about the house being broken in certain manners were proven false. Then when it comes to the Warren’s there is quite a bit of evidence pointing out that they are not as they claim, and they are closer to phonies that take advantage of certain situations that demonologists. So one action I suggest is when a scary movie says that it was based on a true story, to google it and see what the facts really are, because in the super natural cases there usually is not much ground to stand on, but in the case of serial killers, it could be worst than imagined.
Going back to News of the World, it was interesting to watch it coming off reading The Indifferent Stars Above, a book about the Donner party. The Donner party was the tragic case of a wagon train getting snowed in on the wrong side of the Sierras, and it ends up with multiple cases of cannibalism occurring. Clearly any story ending up with cannibalism, even if it was the only way for people to continue to survive is tragic, but to examine the frontier life in general, even when all seemed to go well on these covered wagon trips across the country, it was still an incredibly hard journey. A group might have planned exceptionally well and packed rations well, but there were so many unforeseen setbacks that could hit them on the way that it is almost impossible to believe that so many people made it to California. News did not necessarily focus on the hardships of frontier life, but the problems that Tom Hanks seemed to hit throughout the movie did stick out more to me than usual after reading firsthand accounts about how harsh and unforgiving the terrain in the area could be. It also gave me more respect for his character in being willing to take on the girl and try to deliver her, because when traveling through some of the barren areas that they traveled through resources can be extremely scarce, so adding an extra mouth to the equation was no easy task. Living in that manner now seems almost impossible, but there was such a simplicity to its life-or-death nature that seems so appealing. Now it seems like there are so many variables in life, that it is no longer just make enough to sustain yourself.
All these movies were excellent, but the one I found to be the best was Train to Busan. It was much more than just a zombie movie, and it was also incredibly tragic, in a way that felt Game of Thronesesque. It is available on Prime, and I cannot encourage you enough to watch it. Also if you want a different type of horror/psychological thriller M does an excellent job. Even for a 1930s movie, it holds up incredibly well, there were just times in the movie where it felt like it needed some background music to increase the mood, but it was just not present. News of the World was a good movie, and it had a heartwarming tale. It felt like a classic Tom Hanks story, but I cannot say it was quite worth the $20 price tag, unless you watch it in a group and split the price, then it is definitely worth it. The girl in the film was also amazing for being an actress at such a young age. The Conjuring has also become a horror classic from the moment it released, so it is worth the watch, and it is a part of the horror cannon. So if you like scary movies and have not seen it, it is a must see. Finally I have not mentioned Stars Wars: Rogue One yet, but it is one of, if not my favorite Star Wars film. It is action packed from start to finish, and it is so unlike the other movies that it sticks out in a great way. Also the closing battle on the beach planet has a WWII feel that for sci-fi battle scenes is hard to beat. The story was also very tragic which helps make it even better. All these movies were great and worth the watch, but I suggest stepping out of your comfort zone and watching either Train to Busan or M.
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