[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I side with Summerisle until the final scene, in part because I don't think Summerisle does believe in the religion but rather the power it secures him. That scene you mention, where he discusses his ancestors with Howie seems pretty clear on that point. So however arrogant, prudish, narrow minded, etc, Howie is, what Summerisle ultimately does to him isn't just barbaric but cruel and cynical. Whereas by the end Howie is at worst just a fool. That's part of its genius for me, the way it manipulates your sympathies, plays games with you the way the islanders play with Howie - something the remake misses entirely. Apects of it remind me a bit of Peter Greenaway films like Drowning by Numbers. That sense of a game within a game. It may not be the scariest horror movie ever, but it's definitely one of the cleverest.

I love the bedroom scene! Even putting aside its significance to the plot it just reinforces the strange atmosphere of the whole thing. for all its faults I'm so glad it's in the film. And what a great song!

But regardless of how we respond to or interpret it, or whichever films we try and compare it with, it is something else. It's its own thing. A genuine one off.

 

punch! what a great costume.

the thing about the end is i suppose what i "choose to believe" and yes it changed from last time.

the conversation about the ancestors says te grandfather did it for the productivity but the father adopted it and he's happy in it. i like that it's not 100% clearcut. i mean, at the end in that line about sitting among the saints and martyrs summerisle shows he can frame it as a positive in whatever religion, but also i think the connection is established between christianity and its pagan origins by the movie itself. the fact that it begins with the eucharyst (something i missed on my first viewing) is very telling. then the shop lady saying he'll never get the true meaning of sacrifice.

a key moment for me i think that highlights the philosophical chasm between them is at the end when the cop talks about the resurrection. the islanders say he'll be reborn as part of everything (they've been saying this all along and this is very much a part of the plot), but the cop says that he ("i") *as a self* will be reborn in "heaven".

that's the thing where perspectives can't meet-- the christian emphasis on the individual "soul" vs. the pagan embracing of nature as a whole and de-emphasizing and denying of a permanent self. so the act is definitely cruel, but it's only cynical if you take the individual above all else, which we "moderns" do, but the pagans don't--they hunt their prey and they prey is an equal, not "beneath" them. like rowan the hare haaa haaa haaaa. that's great comedy btw. but yes howie is a fool. lord saruman... i'm not sure what to think of him, i can read him in different ways, and i like that.

i haven't seen drowning by numbers. another one for the list!