Movie Details
| Title: | The Appointment | |
| Director: | Lindsey C. Vickers | |
| Year: | 1982 | |
| Genre: | Evil Children | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 11.02.24 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 11.02.24 | Internet | This Screening is part of event: Virtual All Night Horror Movie Marathon 5 It's pretty fun to just get a movie and a "watch this" and go in completely blind. Doesn't happen too often for me... I suppose you could do it any time you wanted by picking a random title on Netflix or something like that... the closest I used to get was picking something up from the video rental shelf but even then I had a box and a title to go from. Here thanks to Grant and his friends I get to do that four times today. The first, out of order by accident, was a chance to see a movie I'd liked the first time again after a decade. This one, supposed to be first, I knew absolutely nothing about. It's British, 80s, pretty low budget. It felt like a TV movie at first but I think that's more down to the 1.44:1 aspect ratio and quality of acting from the girl, but anyway the movie stars Edward Woodward (the police inspector from the OG Wicker Man) and... the premise of the movie is that he has an appointment and therefore has to miss his daughter's recital which she is very upset about. But... I guess she's also gifted and so MOST of the movie is the night before where both parents have strange dreams and dogs appear in the house and then the next day Woodward takes just the most relaxed long commute I've ever seen. Maybe I missed details about how far he had to go or why he was going wherever he was going, but dude pulled over to read the paper in a restaurant, pulled over to phone his wife, lost his watch and turned around to go get it. And we are subjected to all of it. I guess you call it atmosphere, and this is one of those movies where, at the end of it once it's over and the is-it-really-just-ninety minutes is over you can distill the movie down to a few scenes and think back fondly. For one, the beginning is quite nice with this official-sounding voice-over talking about some terrible crime and creepy ambiance as a girl walks through the woods before a dummy of her is pulled so violently and forcefully into the woods that her shoes come off. They really yanked that thing! It kind of reminds me of the end of the first Nightmare on Elm Street when Freddy yanks a dummy of Heather Langenkamp's mother through the window of a door. You know it's a dummy, but just seeing something move that fast is still enough to startle you. And similarly, at the end of the movie when the event you've spent all movie waiting for, trying to stay awake for, when it finally happens it is pretty intense! Probably makes up for the seventy minutes of droning and sleeping and pacing and checking of watches that precedes it. There's not a ton of movie here, which is not uncommon at all with most low budget or exploitation movies, so that feeling creeps in. If I was watching at an Alamo I'd be waiting for the wait staff to drop checks to let me know there's only forty-five minutes left. The actress who plays Woodward's wife is ok but the daughter is agonizing. Every line of dialogue is just painful, contributing more to a made-for-tv vibe. And I'm not joking, really this movie is a dinner, a couple dreams, and a car ride. But, it does end well and that's the most important thing. Between the first few minutes and the last, there's enough here to like. I don't think I would've chosen to see this but that makes it all the more fun to sit down and watch blind. |
