The Incredible Shrinking Man

"The Incredible Shrinking Man" (1957, Jack Arnold, Universal International) is a classic 50s sci-fi film based on the book and screenplay by Richard Matheson.

Scott Carey (Grant Williams) and his wife, Louise (Randy Stuart), were enjoying a short holiday on his brother's boat when a strange mist engulfed their vessel. Luckily for Louise, she was inside the boat at the time, but Scott was completely covered. Some months later he notices that he is losing weight and height and that none of his clothes are fitting him!

Doctors find a possible cure which seem to halt Scott's decrease for a time, but soon he begins to shrink again! As well as affecting his relationship with his wife and drawing a lot of unwanted attention from the media, Scott also soon learns that the home can be a dangerous place when you are the size of a borrower!

A surprisingly emotional film with good dialogue, sympathetic characters and amazing effects for the time! I felt completely drawn in to the action and could easily believe that Williams was truly shrunk. The action scenes with the cat and the spider are truly inspired.

I love a good classic sci-fi horror, but am more than aware of some pretty terrible films from the era. "The Incredible Shrinking Man", however, is not one of these. The film still stands well today and is extremely watchable.

The outlandish subject matter does have some glaring flaws: how would a doctor make the connection so easily between the shrinking symptoms and their cause? But the film remains surprisingly provocative and thoughtful, with a haunting ending.

Although the film makes fun use of props and proportions to enhance the physical impact upon our protagonist, it actually maintains quite a cerebral subject matter, focusing more on the psychology of this change. A quite disturbing film.

[Image: Universal International]

Hani

V/H/S/2

"V/H/S/2" (2013, Simon Barrett, Adam Wingard, Eduardo Sánchez, Gregg Hale, Timo Tjahjanto, Gareth Huw Evans & Jason Eisener, The Collective, Haxan Films, Magnet Releasing) is the sequel to the 2012 found footage film.

Similar to its predecessor, the film is an anthology of short horrors, all found footage, encased within one wrap-around horror story, which is also found footage. Whilst following the same equation, it manages to separate itself from the original.

As in most anthologies, and the original film, some of the stories are hit and miss, and some of the effect qualities vary from pretty schlocky to 'oooh, that was gross'. But on the whole, I really enjoyed this one over its predecessor and thought it held together much better as a film.

I'm not a fan of found footage at the best of times, finding it more likely to give me a migraine that the chills, but V/H/S/2 does well in the format. Some of the 'shorts' could have been doing with being a little shorter though, as they began to get a bit monotonous and Go Pro cameras will probably enjoy all this advertising.

 

 

[Image: Magnet Releasing]

Hani