Comments on: Mute Witness

By: hamslime

hamslime — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:35:49 +0000

I haven’t played it but I did see it on the Youtube shortly after I wrote the above comment. The game itself looks kind of like Monkey Island which I think is pretty tedious. Someone also put up a fake movie trailer for it and after seeing that I take back what I said about making a movie based on it. I am now certain that whoever does it will fuck it up.

By: Bixby Snyder

Bixby Snyder — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:52:29 +0000

Hey hamslime, have you ever seen the ‘interactive fiction’ version (okay, it’s a video game) of I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream? It’s brilliant. Atmospheric, intelligent, creepy, mature and really tense… I think it’s among the best adaptations of anything into something else ever. Probably because Ellison was very much involved with it. He even voiced AM. But to be fair to shittier adaptations, it’s actually more of an extension of the story than a straight retelling.

Check it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g2oPp4EhRk

By: hamslime

hamslime — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:44:16 +0000

The mute thing made me want to read that Harlan Ellison short story, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream again.

On paper, it would seem like a good idea to make a movie out of it but that’s just on paper. In reality someone would just fuck it up.

By: Jake

Jake — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:21:30 +0000

Glad you liked it, Vern. I would agree that the tone is sort of off-balance and the first half is maybe a bit more solid than the second half. Though I do generally tend to like movies that switch it up like that. I really like the ones that just shift gears in the middle and go off into completely different genres. Not that this one does. I might have liked it even more if it did though.

I hope you are right and he does pop up again. I didn’t realize he did AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS. Maybe I’ll give that one a shot.

I agree with you, Griff. That cover, along with the one of the girl who has nothing at all to do with DEAD ALIVE pulling her mouth open, were probably the two that stuck with me most from childhood trips to the video store.

By: Munch

Munch — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:27:35 +0000

I saw it in a movie theater when it came out and i liked it a lot. But when i saw it again on VHS i found out that they cut the cat and mouse scene at the beginning. They trim it a little bit and the VHS is not letterbox so a lot of that chase scene didn’t really work out on VHS because you lost the edges of the screen where a lot of the action takes place. Anyway i like it. And Waller did a movie call Guilty or something with Bill Pullman and that dude Devon Sawa. It was a not so good thriller with a twist at the end.

By: Zeke

Zeke — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:37:34 +0000

I love this movie, especially the crazy tense cat and mouse part in the first half. Plus, I’ve never been as surprised in a movie as when Obi Fuckin Wan Kenobi shows up for an uncredited cameo in an low budget thriller about snuff films. It was a great “am I high, or did that just really happen” moment. I also remember receiving a post card in the mail promoting the film. I don’t think I have received another promo postcard before or since, and this was before the days of pinpoint marketing, so I don’t know how the hell I got on the mailing list.

By: HM3 Owen Pitrone

HM3 Owen Pitrone — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:31:39 +0000

I saw this the day it came out on video. (In Cleveland, Ohio there wasn’t much of an arty-horror scene.) I remember being really blown away by it and thinking that it was such a cool idea. I can’t remember the end part with the director at all, but I am going to find it to show my wife. She and I are going through all the movies we ever liked when we were younger, but the other never saw. I had forgotten this one, but as soon as I saw that you reviewed it I though, “Man, I should have suggested that one. I’d feel cool.” I saw this on a double bill with Public Access, the Brian Singer debut. I think you reviewed that one already though, so I am ass-out. As always, great stuff Vern!

By: Jasper

Jasper — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:29:12 +0000

I rented this one when it came out on VHS some fifteen years ago. Liked it half, at the time. The half I liked was roughly the idea and the lead actress, the half I didn’t like was it’s clumsiness (production value). These day’s I’m much more in favour of the lower budget slash indipendent movies. So perhaps I should watch it again. It’s still in the video rental shop.

By: Griff

Griff — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:23:30 +0000

I remember the cover to this movie used to creep me out whenever I saw it in a video store as a kid

By: CJ Holden

CJ Holden — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:51:31 +0000

Wait a second, I just read on imdb that Anthony Waller was the “director” of “Als die Liebe laufen lernte 2″! That’s a compilation of the legendary German “sex education” movies from the 60’s and 70’s.
That was an interesting subgenre, because to make not just a quick buck from the sexual revolution, but also to pretend that they aren’t filth, some producers put a narrator into their softpornos, who would say stuff like “now the penis punctures the hymen” and explain what a hymen is during the sex scenes. And then back in the 80’s some other producers made a compilation of the “best” scenes from all these movies.
An interesting career. From compiling German educational softporn, to an apparently acclaimed thriller, to a bad sequel of a classic, to oblivion. (Although it seems like he has two new movies coming out soon.)