SUSPERIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love Cuckoo's nest but it's such a downer...Susperia has me intrigued.

Yeah, I'm gonna give Cuckoo's Nest a pass. I'm kinda tired of movies I've already seen ... unless there's something extremely special about them.

Much more interested in new finds ... Susperia is a go.




Oh, and The Haunting this weekend is extremely special.

I'd never seen The Haunting before and it was on TMC the other night. I could only get through about 25 minutes before cleaning the kitchen seemed more appealing.

The atmosphere of a cemetery screening would probably help a lot, though.

One question about movies there, how is the sound? At least the 30 minutes has a lot of voiceover and even on TV it seemed a bit muted.

The sound is surprisingly good in the cemetery.

I beg to differ. The sound is abysmal.

We sit in the "chairs" section, off to one side, so one channel of the stereo mix is inordinantly prominent, to ill effect. Perhaps there's a better mix in the "floor" section.

Also, the speakers are so far out from the screen that the illusion of dialoge synch is hard to come by. This problem is more prominent with older films, it seems.

Um, but the sound sure is loud, if that's what's meant by "good sound."


* * * *

I'm gonna try to get there early Saturday ... so hopefully we'll see, er, hear if a closer position helps the sonic experience in any way.


In any event, The Haunting is a fantastic film, atmospherically abetted by being shown in a cemetary.

What I mean by "surprisingly good" is that I never have a problem making out dialog. It's outside, I have zero expectation of theater, or home theater, quality sound. All I need is to be able to hear it well enough to know what's being said, and that's what is delivered.

As far as Suspiria not making sense, you also have to remember that almost every Argento movie was edited like crazy by its US distributor. The version that's been circulating for the past several years is uncut. To make the matter especially confusing is the ad line: "The Only Thing More Terrifying Than The Last 12 Minutes Of This Film Are The First 92." No version of this movie was ever longer than 98 minutes.

Oh I hope we're living there by the time this movie shows...

GD's expectations for outdoor sonic quality are somewhat lower than mine.


Um, it's 2007. These people rake in rougly $15,000 every weekend. I've heard excellent outdoor soundsystems since the early 80's. No excuse.

Awww come on, that money goes to keep Svetlana Kiev (and her undead buddies) grave markers nice and shiny. (I really really want to see Night of the Living Dead there!!!)

I didn't notice the sound system was so awful when we saw Gilda, but then again, that movie itself doesn't exactly have 5.1 surround ;)