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Say Hello to My Little Stranger

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little-stranger.jpgThe narrator of The Little Stranger would tell you that this tale is about grave misfortune, not a haunted house. His name is Dr. Faraday, and in Sarah Waters’ agonizingly patient gothic novel set in post-World War II Britain, he has a dismissal available for any odd happening at Hundreds Hall. You’re tired. It’s an old house. Those must have been there for years. He seems the opposite of the classic unreliable narrator – he’s too reliable, and at points in the book he so tediously rules out the supernatural that you want some apparition to shove a hot poker up his ass. If this sounds like a criticism, it’s a mild one, as this is surely the effect that Waters sought, anatomical specificity aside. Faraday is so sane and logical that he has no credibility in the context of this story.

Tagged: Horror, Reviews, Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger
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Best of Culture Snob Movies

The Slow Dawn of Surprise

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lovely-1.jpgIt is a car salesman that carries writer/director Kirt Gunn’s Lovely by Surprise on his shoulders until the movie blossoms. To his credit, Bob doesn’t actually sell cars. In the automobile-sales process, he dispenses hackneyed life advice, admonishing his customers that they need to spend more time with their families, and do they really want to part with that old clunker, filled as it is with memories? He is played with sincerity by Reg Rogers, in the sense that Bob means everything he says. But there’s a fakeness, a performance, about Bob – a smiling, cheery devil-may-care mask that makes him both inscrutable and intensely compelling. A genuinely independent movie, Lovely by Surprise hit DVD this week after playing the festival circuit, and what’s surprising is that it’s as successful as it is.

Tagged: Dramas, Indies, Kirt Gunn, Lovely by Surprise, Reviews, Ways of Watching
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