Rome Film Festival Diary - Sunday

Sunday like it’s a working day. Interesting. Early rise, but this time car drive instead of metro ride to the Auditorium, makes it feel less worky-ish already. I was in for a movie called Let me in. I found out while lining outside the theater, five minutes before the screening, that it was a horror. I gasped. Looked around for some sign that would suggest me the way. Switch to another movie? Get in?

I’m not too fond of horror movies and here’s why. There’s two categories for these type of films:

First. Very splattery and mostly aiming at you getting sick to your stomach, with blood geysers, black vomits siphoned around the screen and whatnot. Not that much horrific, just stupid, I mean what am I watching? Don’t get me wrong, one of my favorite directors is Quentin Tarantino, I got nothing against blood fountains, it just depends of what use you make of them. I once was so stupid as to agree to watch Silent Hill. Oh come on… The possessed nurses from a Lady Gaga video are supposed to be scary? The men without the heads, the big walking turkeys? What do I make of them? And don’t get me started on The Final Destination 3D. What was that even supposed to be? This guy’s interiors are splattered all over your third dimensional aura and pieces of a vehicle fly over your head, along with knives, nails, drills, snakes and shattered glasses. What is this, Disneyland? What am I, four? How in the world do adult people believe that that could be remotely scary for other adults? I won’t even go into the Saw franchise cause I’ve never seen one of those abominations and nor I plan to, ever.

Second. Dark and eerie, this type of movies plan to have you worried about the littlest swish in the room. They would like to mess with your head, but most of the times just fail miserably as even my couch can predict what’s behind that door, or around that next corner. The only good examples I have for this category are The Blair Witch Project, which I watched when I was 14 and in full hormonal swirl, and Scream, which was still predictable but nicely, ironically done. Other than that we face a full blown dullness. The Ring. What was scary about that? The dirty hair maybe. Should I be worried to answer my phone after I watch it? Yeah right.

Either way the point is these movies are not scary. They are either disgusting, in the first case, or boring, in the second.

I find a lot more adrenaline, and do get scared exponentially more (I’m really just a big chicken shit after all) by thriller movies. More so if they have a spiritual side to them. Let’s try with The Sixth Sense. Not much of an advertised scare but it slowly builds on you; sometimes even after all these years when I wake up in the middle of the night to go pee I’m afraid I’ll meet the dead lady playing with the thermostat in the hallway. Here’s another thing, I bought this cool App from iTunes that records any noise that occurs while you sleep. I have a teeth condition that I want to keep an ear on, also I’ve been told I talk a lot in my sleep and no one ever volunteered to tape me, so I decided I was going to do it myself. Anyhow, I bought the App something along the lines of 10 days ago and I have yet to use it because I’m afraid during the night it’ll pick up noises that I don’t want to ever know were whooshed in my room, like spirits talking, like in the movie.

I say if a story sticks with you for so many years and has you still a little conscious about stuff, than that was a scary story, nothing less.

Well the film I saw Sunday mostly belonged to the first category, kind of sugarcoated though, I mean just the right amount of blood was in it. It tells the story of a teenage girl vampire (not heavily made-up, greatly coiffed, super fit and sparkly) that develops a deep friendship with a troubled kid her same age. It wasn’t scary, not at all, but it was an interesting tale of friendship. Yes, the horror side of the film didn’t impress me, the relationship side did. It comes from Cloverfield’s director and it’s ok to pass a couple hours.

Which is exactly what I did. After that I was out to a bunch of press stuff. First Matt Reeves conferenced about making the movie, and being best friends with J.J. Abrams. I hate you am so happy for you.

Then walking around the Festival I saw Valeria was doing an interview show, so I went in, and ended up staying there for more than an hour.

Finally two well regarded Italian actors, Margherita Buy and Silvio Orlando, were doing a joint symposium to discuss their careers. I was curious about what they had to say, but they actually said close to nothing, except how lovely it was to work with one another. Cut the crap, I’m going home.