Zoe the Vampire

First an explanation, I haven’t seen many movies in a decade besides the required MCU movies. I used to watch pretty much every movie that came out back in the Blockbuster/Hollywood video era. So there are millions of horror movies I haven’t seen, or haven’t seen in decades. So Through Halloween I want to watch a horror movie each day, then do a little drawing and review. This is the first one, which is for the 1970s version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

I think this movie is a product of a different time, I can see how it would scare people back then but the slow setup doesn’t hold up that great. There are some good moments and some good ideas but doesn’t really work. My biggest complaint was a lot of pointless lingering closeups that meant nothing. The film student in me sees a slow closeup of a cord retracting to a phone and says “okay, that will be called back to later, it is important” But it isn’t, and never comes into play. There were many spots like that where the language of filmmaking was a bit weak. In their defense this movie is almost 50 years old and the language of filmmaking is a language that is constantly evolving and so they should get a little more leeway with pointless b roll shots.

I have always loved the premise of body snatchers, replaced people, changelings etc. I think it is a subgenre that really should get explored more (much more interesting than the done to death Zombie Genre). This movie is a big part of establishing this genre and for that it gets a lot of credit. I wasn’t scared at all, but did love the dog/man and really wish they would of built that into the story a LOT more. Wasted potential there.

Great acting, with some very recognizable faces even to people that haven’t seen movies out of the 21st century. Goodish filmmaking (the cutaways as well as some iffy voice recording/adr). A bit too slow pacing, but with a solid last act that makes up for a lot of it. A good movie.

scare score 1/10

Movie score 7/10