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Old 4th October 2014, 02:40 PM
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Just watched Horns..
When I first heard about a film coming out where Daniel Radcliffe sprouts horns, I wasn't sold, but for some reason I never fully wrote it off. It could be that I'd recently read and seen The Fault in Our Stars and thoroughly enjoyed both book and film, so my attitudes towards "teen" drama movies was a bit more relaxed than usual, or it could just be that I was in a reading mood, but once I heard it was based on a book, I decided to jump ahead of the hype and have a read. I'm glad I did, because I loved that book. Joe Hill does not pull any punches, sets the scene like you'd expect the son of Stephen King to do, and breathes fresh air into a story that, arguably, has been done before (in that, the protagonist can get people to reveal their darkest desires, and read into their past by touching them). So I was confident that the movie would be excellent, as long as it follows the book to the letter.
Well, that went out of the window pretty quickly.
It's a cliche thing to say, but the book is better. However, that's not to say that the film is bad. Just that it isn't as good as it could (and should) have been.
First things first, Daniel Radcliffe is absolutely fantastic as Ig Perrish. Comparisons to Harry Potter are inevitable, but completely unnecessary. His portrayal of Ig is passionate, dark and one of the most accurate-to-book things about the film. Juno Temple also gives a great performance in flashbacks as his deceased girlfriend, Merrin. The supporting cast, however don't have any real stand-out players (except arguably David Morse as Merrin's grieving father). I could just be saying that because I found it hard to identify with any of them, due to the sheer difference between their book and film personae. A repeat watch may shed a bit more light on some of them.
It seems that this film is Alexandre Aja's way of continuing his branching out from shock and gore that he started with Mirrors and into the more mainstream level of film making, and if that is the case then he's making that transition well. However he's still got work to do on deciding whether he wants to take the subtle approach (which this film shows he can do), or go all-out with the gore - a few points seem almost jarring with the level of violence and gore that he chooses to show, as the rest of the film doesn't take up such opportunities. I was also disappointed to see him opt for so-so CGI makeup (especially when a leaked earlier image shows awesome work that was sadly only used for one shot) and quite dodgy looking CGI snakes (considering none of them do anything all that special, this was extremely pointless) when using practical effects would have likely cost much less and had a better effect.
Separating this film from the book, you are faced with a decent teen horror. It is worth seeing for Daniel Radcliffe's performance alone. The story is engaging enough to keep interest, it starts strong, has a decent third act and then kind of flails about in the water for the ending.
I keep coming back to the word "decent" with this film, and I think, unfortunately, that is the best way to describe it. I really wanted it to be fantastic, but instead it is simply "decent".
6.5/10
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