The Shamrocks of East Detroit High School played their last game of the season yesterday evening, giving a powerful Southfield team a run for their money, but ultimately succumbing. They made it two rounds farther than last year, to make it to the illustrious final eight in the whole state in Class A. I'm very proud of them, and I'm sad that I won't be going to East Lansing this weekend for the state semis and finals. I guess that leaves more time for movies, but it's not exactly joyous.
Tonight I actually had time for a film or two, but I had to finish season one of Community on DVD first. Great show; I watched it for awhile when it first came on air, but dropped it because I was busy. Dumb. Now I have to catch up on this season to get completely caught up. A much better idea.
Today's film is one that I feel I should have seen before. After all, "The Most Dangerous Game" is a common fixture in ninth-grade English class curricula, as it was in my own high school days. But instead of watching this version of the film (that others have told me is pretty great, and was worthy enough for a Criterion Collection restore), we watched The Pest, an absolutely wretched movie starring John Leguizamo, that I vaguely remember had a vaguely similar premise to the novel.
For those who are unaware, it's all about the hunter vs. the hunted, and in this case (and I don't remember all the particulars, mind you) the hunter is an eccentric man and the hunted is another man who, at least in the film, finds himself shipwrecked on the former man's land and thus finds himself prey to the, um, idiosyncrasy, of the other.
The beginning of the film is a bit hysterical, what with all the obvious overtones of peril ahead (a card player flipping over the queen of spades, or black lady, "three times!"; a discussion about hunting and sport; constant conversation about how dangerous the water is: rocky, choppy, cursed) before we are lead into meeting two of the other "houseguests", one of whom is the most annoying character I've come across in awhile.
Then there is the standoff between two men who are hunters. Great closeups on their faces as the hunter realizes the stubbornness of the to-be-hunted and the roles are set in place. I also don't remember the hunter hunting two people simultaneously. Were there actually a man and a female companion in the short story? I'm skeptical. It is Fay Wray, though.
And I don't remember any dogs. I actually don't remember much, I guess. Probably I'll find the short story and re-read it to see how close the movie actually is. All this, however, is not to say that the film is that bad. It certainly is somewhat typical of old suspense movies, in that some scenes seem deliberately and deliberately posed. I'm guessing if the people are really being chased, they're not going to stop for a moment atop the log, in the fog, for the perfect man/woman shot. And the camera was moving awfully slowly through the leaves... were they just jogging to get away? Pretty scary head-on shot of the predator, though. Ah, and there was the obligatory "Now I know how it feels to be the animal" line. Mais bien sûr.
And if that was how the story actually ended, then I don't remember anything. Good thing I'm not judging the two against one another, or the score would be even lower.
As it was, there wasn't really much to it. Lots of lead-up, which was fine, but then the inevitable Final Battle began and it was really pretty boring. I remember being much more intrigued by the story.
Score: 6/10
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