So let’s talk about elements of fear again. Today’s topic: the skin crawl. The skin crawl is vastly different from real fear. The skin crawl makes you wiggle in your seat. Your spine gets itchy and you find your ass scooting up the back of the couch trying to get the hell away from the TV. Real fear, on the other hand, is paralyzing. Real fear, which I’ve found rarely on the screen (mostly it just rears its ugly head in dreams), roots you to the ground leaving you unable to function in the face of pending doom. Except for your bladder. That fucker has an operating system of its own. So what do you think will be easier for a movie to accomplish? Bring on the creepy crawlies!
Forget Me Not
nailed the skin crawl. How? Well, first they kept the creepy things just out of sight. When you can’t lay eyes on the creepy thing… when the danger is just beyond what you can fully perceive it’s always scarier. You hear vicious barking behind a closed door and your scared your about to get your head torn off. You open the door and see a puntable ankle biter, not so much. Forget Me Not kept the scary just out of sight just enough to get a “what the fuck was that?”. And then there’s the freaky crawly dead thing. You know the shit that got really popular with The Ring. Dead folks that are both ghastly white and decaying dark.
And they move way too fucking fast. Nothing all crooked and outta wack like that should be able to move that quick. Just isn’t right. Those bastards give me the creepy like nothing else.
And they move way too fucking fast. Nothing all crooked and outta wack like that should be able to move that quick. Just isn’t right. Those bastards give me the creepy like nothing else.
The premise of the movie unfolds slowly like a good story should. The movement of the story begins as a group of friends graduate high school. Main character Sandy and all her peeps are stoked to be getting out of school and hitting the resulting party and celebration trip. After said party the gang heads to the graveyard to play a tricked out scary version of hide and go seek (‘cause leaving your graduation party to go play in the cemetery is a great idea. Really). As they begin they are joined by an unfamiliar girl who is under the impression that our leading lady should remember her. Sweet Sandy is lost, not remember mystery girl but is quite upset when mystery girl dives over the edge of a cliff and disappears. The action builds as members of the group are offed one by one in fairly grisly fashion (not very bloody or vicious but a solid R). The twist is that after their untimely demises no one seems to remember them but Sandy. I appreciated that the viewer had to put two and two along right with Sandy. After each death there were changes in “reality”. With each death the severity of the changes mounted. I’m only a little ashamed to admit it took us a couple dead teens to catch on to what was happening. Without spoiling the shit out of everything I’ll just say that this is a past coming back to haunt you kind of flick.
So what’s the downside? Bad acting. The kind of acting that makes critic turn up their noses. But not so bad that I was hoping characters would die quickly so that’s something.
Bottom line, we caught this on Netfilx but I think I’ll have to add it to the collection at some point. It’s worth a rewatch.
