The Haunted Prestige

Well I watched The Prestige and The Haunted Strangler last night.
I bought The Prestige yesterday and Netflixed The Haunted Strangler which was a Criterion Collection release of a Boris Karloff movie. This is your classic fair of Karloff giving his on screen persona a workout.

By all accounts Karloff was one of the most kind hearted people to ever grace the stage. It boggles the mind how he turned being the bad guy into a legendary career by being such a good guy in real life. He did it though and he did it well. He thrived while his contemporary Bela Lugosi struggled. You can read a lot about that in a previous post so I won't revisit it here and will focus more on the actual movie.

It is good. Average for a Karloff movie. Kind of a surprising movie for Criterion to include into their exclusive collection but it is enjoyable none the less but average. There are much better Karloff movies out there that benchmark his career but if you need a fix this does nicely.

The Prestige, now there is a movie that is quite remarkable. I'm a fan of Christopher Nolan. Ever since Memento put my brain into overdrive trying to understand the story Nolan's work has intrigued me. That is the kind of filmmaker I enjoy, someone who puts something on screen that challenges you. That what you think you are seeing isn't what you are seeing.

This movie suffered at the box office though but I predict a strong DVD life. It was released roughly around the same time as The Illusionist which I loved so it probably came off as "the other magician movie" which is completely unfair. These are two very different movies.

Where The Illusionist is a love story The Prestige is a story of revenge and obsession that goes to some extreme lengths. I really don't want to say anything more than that, it would spoil this marvelous movie experience and all of its twists and turns.

Christopher Nolan is pretty visionary in his storytelling methods. He tells a lot of things visually without having to explain it. I do wish this DVD had a director's commentary though. I'd love to hear about how he set up his scenes and more of the technical aspects of this film.

All in all these two movies were a great topper to a great day last night and my mood continues to improve if that is possible and I believe I'm living proof it is!!!! As good as I feel, I hope that every single one of you has a day that is at least twice as good!!!!