This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. We're into October, which means that we're going to get horror-themed editions. This time out, it's horror that's based on a true story. This was a bit tough for me at first, until I thought about movies that aren't necessarily in the horror genre, but about people who suffered terrible horrors. With that in mind, things got rather easier, and a search of the blog claims I haven't used any of them before:
Three Came Home (1950). Claudette Colbert plays Agnes Newton, an author living in British Malaya with her husband (Patric Knowles) and son when the Japanese invade in 1941. All of the westerners are rounded up and put into concentration camps for the duration, with harrowing conditions that are tough to survive. Agnes is lucky that the commander of her camp (Sessue Hayakawa) had read her books and liked her, which enables her to survive.
Europa, Europa (1990). Marco Hofschneider plays Solomon Perel, a Jew living in Germany who suffers Kristallnacht, escapes to Poland, and then to the Soviet Union when the Nazis invade Poland in 1939. When the Nazis invade the Soviet Union in 1941, Perel decides to pass himself off as German, eventually winding up with a very Aryan girlfriend and becoming a member of the Hitler Youth, all the while being in tremendous danger if anyone should discover his secret. (As a Jew, he is circumcised, unlike Christian Germans.)
Dahmer (2002). Jeremy Renner plays Jeffrey Dahmer, so of course everybody knows what the story is about, although it covers a much longer time as Dahmer's first murder occurred when he was just 18, and the serial killings for which he was eventually arrested only started several years later.
3 comments:
The first two are wonderful if very dark films but I haven't seen the last and probably never will.
I went with more strictly horror titles but it was a tough week, horror isn't my favored genre by any means.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)-Plot: An attorney (Laura Linney) defends a priest (Tom Wilkinson) accused of negligent homicide after an exorcism.
Basis: Anneliese Michel died after being subjected to an exorcism. She was found to have been malnourished and dehydrated. Her parents and the responsible priests were charged with negligent homicide and sentenced to three years' probation. Her epilepsy was likely the real culprit.
The Mothman Prophecies (2002)-Plot: A man (Richard Gere) investigates the Mothman, a strange red-eyed creature that appears to signify impending disasters.
Basis: Journalist John Keel wrote The Mothman Prophecies after investigating hundreds of reports of sightings and other strange phenomena in Point Pleasant, West Virginia during the late 1960s.
The Entity (1982)-Plot: A woman (Barbara Hershey) is tormented and sexually molested by an invisible demon.
Basis: In 1974 Doris Bither claimed to have been repeatedly sexually assaulted by an invisible entity leading to her being observed by doctoral students at the University of California, Los Angeles.
I've always been curious to check out Renner's run as Dahmer but I've never gotten around to it. I'm 0/3 on your picks this week.
I wrote and forgot to save it...ughhh. I love Three Came Home and it perfectly fits here. Claudette Colbert gave one of her best performances here. I haven’t seen the other 2 and even though I like Jeremy Renner, I doubt I will see that film. That person was just too disgusting for words.
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