This movie has something going for it which I can't exactly pin-point. It left me with mixed feelings. I must say that I find "American Gothic" an appropriate title with a grim/sarcastic twist to it. Now that doesn't say a lot about the movie, now does it? Some people may pass it off as an average slasher-flick, but it's just a little bit more profound than that.
The story-line, at first, doesn't seem to offer much. We have a group of young adults who decide to go on a holiday to a remote island. Their plane breaks down and they have to land on an unknown island. While investigating it, they stumble upon an empty house. Not so empty, it seems, as the odd old couple Ma and Pa appear at the doorstep...
This movie shows a lot of similarities with THE Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE. There the family consists of cannibalistic madmen; in American Gothic they are catholic fanatics. While TCM is a suspenseful and sickening screamfest, AG relies more on its creepy atmosphere and disturbing themes.
Rod Steiger and Yvonne De Carlo both give a decent performance as the weird and threatening Pa & Ma. As the movie progresses we discover that they also have some 'adult children' who behave like 12-year-olds while being actually around 50 years old. A good thing is that they are not introduced at the same time, so after a while you start wondering how many more of these freaks there are in this family. Their performances are also rather eerie. The rest of the cast is however pretty bad.
So this family has been living on this island for many years following one motto: All outsiders are sinners and must die, in God's name... And so they do (one highlight amongst the killings involves a swinging rope and the edge of a cliff). I do find, however, that the killings could have used a little more on-screen gory bloodshed considering the brutal nature of them. But the corpses do tend to 'hang around' (pun-intended). Other disturbing themes this movie has are necrophilia and incest. Though we never get to see these acts, the idea alone is sick enough. Further more it raises questions about parental education going horribly wrong and obsessive religious behaviour.
A lot of movies have a character in it which has had a traumatic experience in his/her life, which is explained to the viewer often by annoying flashbacks, which have completely nothing to do with the main story-line. I hate it when that happens. American Gothic also has such a sub-plot involving Cynthia. The bad thing: It's executed very poorly and the subplot itself is an insult to the intelligence of every young mother. While bathing her baby (in a full-size bath) Cynthia rushes off to answer the phone downstairs. Then she has to run to the kitchen to check on a stew which was cooking in the meantime. I think I do not have to say what happens to the baby... The good thing: the traumatic experience runs through the movie like a continuous thread (stupid at first; clever & gruesome in the end). The ending itself is rather good, so I won't give it away. But I can tell you this: After almost every youngster is killed, you'd expect this movie to end, but it doesn't. It goes on a little bit longer providing us a few surprises.
One final word about the musical score. Over the opening credits we hear this ridiculous theme along the lines of the DALLAS TV-show. Very bad and totally not suitable for this type of movie. But when our youngsters arrive at the island, the soundtrack changes using dark cellos, undefinable scraping sounds, drowsy slide guitars,... And it works, all adding up to the creepyness of the movie.
If you stuck with me and read this review, I think you can understand my mixed feelings about this movie. And though I do not consider it to be a bad movie, I can't recommend it as a masterpiece either. All I can say is: give it a try, it has something going for it, you figure out what.
...Now if I could just get my hands on that other controversial John Hough movie: THE INCUBUS... He got me curious with this one.
The story-line, at first, doesn't seem to offer much. We have a group of young adults who decide to go on a holiday to a remote island. Their plane breaks down and they have to land on an unknown island. While investigating it, they stumble upon an empty house. Not so empty, it seems, as the odd old couple Ma and Pa appear at the doorstep...
This movie shows a lot of similarities with THE Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE. There the family consists of cannibalistic madmen; in American Gothic they are catholic fanatics. While TCM is a suspenseful and sickening screamfest, AG relies more on its creepy atmosphere and disturbing themes.
Rod Steiger and Yvonne De Carlo both give a decent performance as the weird and threatening Pa & Ma. As the movie progresses we discover that they also have some 'adult children' who behave like 12-year-olds while being actually around 50 years old. A good thing is that they are not introduced at the same time, so after a while you start wondering how many more of these freaks there are in this family. Their performances are also rather eerie. The rest of the cast is however pretty bad.
So this family has been living on this island for many years following one motto: All outsiders are sinners and must die, in God's name... And so they do (one highlight amongst the killings involves a swinging rope and the edge of a cliff). I do find, however, that the killings could have used a little more on-screen gory bloodshed considering the brutal nature of them. But the corpses do tend to 'hang around' (pun-intended). Other disturbing themes this movie has are necrophilia and incest. Though we never get to see these acts, the idea alone is sick enough. Further more it raises questions about parental education going horribly wrong and obsessive religious behaviour.
A lot of movies have a character in it which has had a traumatic experience in his/her life, which is explained to the viewer often by annoying flashbacks, which have completely nothing to do with the main story-line. I hate it when that happens. American Gothic also has such a sub-plot involving Cynthia. The bad thing: It's executed very poorly and the subplot itself is an insult to the intelligence of every young mother. While bathing her baby (in a full-size bath) Cynthia rushes off to answer the phone downstairs. Then she has to run to the kitchen to check on a stew which was cooking in the meantime. I think I do not have to say what happens to the baby... The good thing: the traumatic experience runs through the movie like a continuous thread (stupid at first; clever & gruesome in the end). The ending itself is rather good, so I won't give it away. But I can tell you this: After almost every youngster is killed, you'd expect this movie to end, but it doesn't. It goes on a little bit longer providing us a few surprises.
One final word about the musical score. Over the opening credits we hear this ridiculous theme along the lines of the DALLAS TV-show. Very bad and totally not suitable for this type of movie. But when our youngsters arrive at the island, the soundtrack changes using dark cellos, undefinable scraping sounds, drowsy slide guitars,... And it works, all adding up to the creepyness of the movie.
If you stuck with me and read this review, I think you can understand my mixed feelings about this movie. And though I do not consider it to be a bad movie, I can't recommend it as a masterpiece either. All I can say is: give it a try, it has something going for it, you figure out what.
...Now if I could just get my hands on that other controversial John Hough movie: THE INCUBUS... He got me curious with this one.