No Such Thing (2002)

A Disappointing Continuation

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I had absolutely no knowledge of this film before watching it . Taking a quick glance at Wikipedia I found it was a horror film that received a very limited release in 2002 in three cinemas and was quickly released on to DVD . One can instantly understand why it flopped and why the distributors might have been embarrassed by it . It opens with a monster talking in to a tape recorder but the make up on this monster is so amateurish and inept that I thought I was watching some sort of meta-fictional play within a film . This feeling was reinforced by the tone of the mis-en-scene which in no way feels like it belongs in any type of horror movie so much so I thought I might be watching another film titled NO SUCH THING but as the titles came up it confirmed this was the film I referenced on Wikipedia The film itself isn't entirely inept where the technicalities such as editing and cinematography are concerned though the incidental music seems entirely inappropriate . In fact the whole tone feels inappropriate . It's not camp but does make pretensions towards being art house cinema . If you're expecting a horror film then you're going to be disappointed because it feels more like a fairytale but it's difficult to see what audience this fairytale will appeal to

The worst waste of time and film. A good double feature with Battlefield Earth. This film has no rhyme or reason and you will be very disappointed unless you are heavily sedated. You too will wonder what the heck Helen Mirren was thinking. I know she said in a recent interview she has to do what she needed to survive, but damn. Trust me, the plot has nothing to do with the movie and the movie has nothing to do with the plot. I sat through the entire what ever this is, and kept saying to myself, this is going to get good, it's going to make sense, there has to be something! But, I was greatly mistaken. Right through to the last scene you too will say, did they run out of budget and just shut the whole thing down?

This movie is just plain awful. The story line is like some infant trying to bash a puzzle together. The acting is so terrible that one wonders if the director was even present at the movie set, and the dialogue? It's like some D&D-nerd wrote something together when he was fourteen. Usually when I see a bad movie I don't care, I just turn it off. But this one was so bad I just had to warn other viewers. Well actually it can be pretty fun to watch just because it so friggin' bad. Just don't expect ANYTHING whatsoever.So since one has to write ten lines I'll just have to add that one of the greatest displays of bad acting is when the "actress" playing the doctor listens to the woman at the car rental with her fist underneath her chin. She's trying to make a pose from the ancient Greek era look relaxed while just standing around. It's just ridiculous.

This is truly a bizarre film - I don't even know if I mean it in a good or bad way, just plain bizarre. If you consider it a black comedy, I guess it's very interesting and sometimes is very funny. This is mostly due to the actors: especially Robert John Burke, who expertly plays the Monster, a mythological alcoholic and overly cynical creature that has existed since the beginning of time. Helen Mirren is also a highlight (as she always is) in the role of the work driven and very cold-acting Boss of the female costar (Sarah Polley as a quirky Beatrice, who does the best she can given the material and dialogue she had to work with). However, aside from the acting, the story is so bizarre, I don't know if I really like it or not - it's the elements I already mentioned that I can appreciate and understand that make it worthwhile for me. Hence the rating I give it - 6 out of 10.