The Passion of Darkly Noon

The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995)

Extremely Trashy
Ranking: Maybe

Second part of the Scream Triple Feature which also included the boring fest that was Hush and Fatal Attraction. I didn't really care to watch this movie, but the description of it in the little TV guide said: "A cultist takes up residence with a scantily clad woman", and I figured I had to.

I had stuff to do, so I missed about the first twenty minutes of this movie whilst bumbling around outside in the dark (don't ask), but from what I gather it's about a guy (Brendan Fraser) whose weirdly religious parents (Mel Cobb & Kate Harper) are killed somehow. He gets picked up by some dude (Loren Dean) and ends up staying with aforementioned scantily clad lady (Ashley Judd) out in the woods.

He develops a pervy obsession with her which becomes a problem when her boyfriend shows up. Then there's this whole thing about a crazy lady living in a trailer out in the woods, and a silver shoe floating down the river which I didn't get at all. Eventually, the guy goes crazy, wraps barbed wire around his chest, paints himself red and goes to punish the sinners...

The film looked beautiful, it was artistically shot and chopped, but it was just kind of... ugh. The acting wasn't terribly good, not that the actors had a lot to work with and so much of the movie was just idiotic. "It's deep, witch" Mr. White kept saying to me in a sarcastic tone.

And Ashley Judd is so frigging annoying. I don't get why people like her. Maybe they think she's hot or something? We kept comparing her to Gwyneth Paltrow in Hush and decided Ashley was much more irritating.

As for Brendan Fraser, I usually like him, but I didn't think he was that great in this movie. He was okay. But we kept wondering how old exactly he was supposed to be? He acted like a little kid most of the time, but maybe it was just his upbringing? He was probably supposed to be homeschooled or some damn thing.

Anyway, the movie kind of reminded me of Tideland only the characters weren't as good and the situation wasn't as interesting. Jeliza Rose kicked infinite more ass than Darkly Noon. Or, like, Bug , but that's probably just the Ashley Judd thing. Friggin Ashley Judd.

Oh yeah, and Viggo Mortensen was in this movie... no comment.

I mean, I kinda liked it, I thought it sort of had potential and was a pretty well done little fairy tale. But I didn't really dig the characters all that much. I think we were meant to sympathize with Darkly maybe, but I didn't give a shit about him.

Ah well. Not a terribly engaging movie for me. I'm kinda torn over it. It was mostly just weird and slightly repulsive throughout, but I guess it sort of had its moments. I don't know. I'm still out on this one.

END

Written and Directed by: Philip Ridley. Starring: Brendan Fraser, Ashley Judd, Viggo Mortensen, Grace Zabriskie, Loren Dean, Lou Myers, Kate Harper, Mel Cobb.