It is not too complicated to look at what Oliver Stone was trying to do with his first feature film, Seizure, in that it is about the anxieties inherent in creating art. If you make a drawing or make a piece of writing or conjure up something out of nowhere, it is going to take on its own special properties and (to not sound too hyperbolic but it's sometimes very true) take on a life of its own.
Stone and his co writer decided to make this much more explicit in the story of an illustrator of Gothic things who somehow manages to bring to life some disturbing beings into existence. How they come into being is... I dunno, did you see the South Park Underpants Gnomes? (stage 1 collect underpants, stage 2..... stage 3 is profit, sort of like that)
While that intention of artistic creations that should be on a page only coming to life and wreaking havoc on a bunch of bourgeois house guests - including that ass Charles Hughes, played in one of the few memorable turns here by Joseph Sirola (you'll remember his name because he says it incredulously to a gas station attendant like 50 times in the early part of the movie) - sounds rather keen and interesting on paper, the execution of that is haphazard, obtuse and dreadfully plodding and full of dialog that you need the best actors in the world to make sound okay, and this has... the guy who played Barnabas Collins on Dark Shadows (who is trying!) and Mr De Plane de Plane Herve Villachaize.
Maybe Stone took this experience as a good sign for himself: you can only go up from here. Frankly I'm not sure he ever made something as messy and stinky dramaturgically as this (and boy did he try once or twice!) This whole film feels like someone really trying to impress with something in the idea stage that has far more depth that can be faced dramatically, but that might not be a problem if Stone understood the basic power more of having a demented good time with his premise. There's a moment when "the Spider" (Villachaize), after a couple of "gotcha" moments gazing like a creep through the window, crashes into this increasingly freaked out house party and caused some minor havoc, slashing up these snooty guests and not getting his.
It's the high point of the movie because Stone isn't afraid to get silly with it, or rather to let his actors to over the top. Again, someone like Sirola knows how to Amp things up to 11 (to the extent maybe Stone had a flashback or two to this when directing Pesci in JFK), but he is the exception. Other times, the pomposity of some of the cult-ritual staging strikes me as one step away from Manos: the Hands of Fate (but without the memorable costumes or horrific dubbing). But most damaging to the film is that Stone and the co writer don't bother to give much context to these evil creations, except for us to see brief flashes of the illustrations. Why do these matter so much to Edmond? Why are they haunting his nightmares? Shrug. Phase 2.
When it does mean to get horrific and violent it's also strangely, unsatisfyingly restrained (maybe Stone, unintentionally or who knows, didn't want to go too deep on creating violent imagery following his recent stint in Vietnam - staging horrific violence would come later), and yet it also falters just in making one feel suspense. When a character gets strangled there are multiple shots zooming in quickly and cutting quickly because hey ain't that s*** sick, bro? And meanwhile, there's only the same pained expression on Frid's face, punctuated occasionally by underlie outdoor scenes and creakily melodramatic music.
I'm glad Stone made Seizure ultimately; he learned from his mistakes pretty quickly, and even upon returning to horror several years later with The Hand he had improved despite that not being great shakes, either.
Stone and his co writer decided to make this much more explicit in the story of an illustrator of Gothic things who somehow manages to bring to life some disturbing beings into existence. How they come into being is... I dunno, did you see the South Park Underpants Gnomes? (stage 1 collect underpants, stage 2..... stage 3 is profit, sort of like that)
While that intention of artistic creations that should be on a page only coming to life and wreaking havoc on a bunch of bourgeois house guests - including that ass Charles Hughes, played in one of the few memorable turns here by Joseph Sirola (you'll remember his name because he says it incredulously to a gas station attendant like 50 times in the early part of the movie) - sounds rather keen and interesting on paper, the execution of that is haphazard, obtuse and dreadfully plodding and full of dialog that you need the best actors in the world to make sound okay, and this has... the guy who played Barnabas Collins on Dark Shadows (who is trying!) and Mr De Plane de Plane Herve Villachaize.
Maybe Stone took this experience as a good sign for himself: you can only go up from here. Frankly I'm not sure he ever made something as messy and stinky dramaturgically as this (and boy did he try once or twice!) This whole film feels like someone really trying to impress with something in the idea stage that has far more depth that can be faced dramatically, but that might not be a problem if Stone understood the basic power more of having a demented good time with his premise. There's a moment when "the Spider" (Villachaize), after a couple of "gotcha" moments gazing like a creep through the window, crashes into this increasingly freaked out house party and caused some minor havoc, slashing up these snooty guests and not getting his.
It's the high point of the movie because Stone isn't afraid to get silly with it, or rather to let his actors to over the top. Again, someone like Sirola knows how to Amp things up to 11 (to the extent maybe Stone had a flashback or two to this when directing Pesci in JFK), but he is the exception. Other times, the pomposity of some of the cult-ritual staging strikes me as one step away from Manos: the Hands of Fate (but without the memorable costumes or horrific dubbing). But most damaging to the film is that Stone and the co writer don't bother to give much context to these evil creations, except for us to see brief flashes of the illustrations. Why do these matter so much to Edmond? Why are they haunting his nightmares? Shrug. Phase 2.
When it does mean to get horrific and violent it's also strangely, unsatisfyingly restrained (maybe Stone, unintentionally or who knows, didn't want to go too deep on creating violent imagery following his recent stint in Vietnam - staging horrific violence would come later), and yet it also falters just in making one feel suspense. When a character gets strangled there are multiple shots zooming in quickly and cutting quickly because hey ain't that s*** sick, bro? And meanwhile, there's only the same pained expression on Frid's face, punctuated occasionally by underlie outdoor scenes and creakily melodramatic music.
I'm glad Stone made Seizure ultimately; he learned from his mistakes pretty quickly, and even upon returning to horror several years later with The Hand he had improved despite that not being great shakes, either.