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If you thought that American horror would never be able to recover from the knowing self-parody of films like 'Scream' and 'The Faculty', then you may well be pleasantly surprised by 'They'. It's not funny, it's not postmodern - it's just unremittingly, heartstoppingly terrifying. After her father's suicide, five-year old Julia Lund (Laura Regan) suffered horrific nightmares, and was sent to a psychiatrist. Now, nineteen years later, Julia is herself an advanced student in psychology; but after she witnesses the suicide of a close friend (who also suffered night terrors as a child), Julia's nightmares return with renewed ferocity. Her former psychiatrist diagnoses Julia's condition as 'post-traumatic stress' and 'paranoid schizophrenic delusions', but Julia becomes convinced that she is being pursued by rapacious, light-fearing creatures from another world... 'They' reduces us all to quivering children, terrified of the dark. It features a series of carefully manipulated set-pieces that will have your pulse racing, your hairs standing on end, and your body leaping out of its skin; and it ends with an image so numbingly claustrophobic, and so darkly irrational, that it will remain with you long after the film is over. Director Robert Harmon clearly understands that what is unseen and unknown can be far scarier than what is fully realised on screen. The presence of the creatures that haunt Julia is felt throughout the film, but they remain shadowy figures, merely half-glimpsed and constantly in motion, inhabiting only the dark recesses which evade celluloid's visual grasp. Rarely have creature modelling and computer generated imaging been used with such effective restraint. Recently in 'Halloween Resurrection' Jamie Lee Curtis' character was killed off for good, but with Laura Regan, who looks like Curtis' elfin daughter, there's a new scream queen in town. She was great earlier this year in 'My Little Eye', and in 'They' she is thoroughly convincing in her portrayal of Julia's frightened breakdown. Essential horror viewing, but make sure you leave before the credits finish rolling. They come for you when it's dark. Anton Bitel (Unverified), 06/11/02 |
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