#means this long forgotten and deeply obscure slice of 80s horror can finally be seen by a (slightly) wider audience. Vickers had only one | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mariocki · 2 years ago

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The Appointment (1982)

"When girls reach Joanne's age, they're growing up fast. They're full of petty likes and dislikes, jealousy... sexual uncertainty. Fiercely possessive. And suddenly, being a father is much more difficult."

#the appointment #1982 #british cinema #horror film #lindsey c. vickers #edward woodward #jane merrow #samantha weysom #john judd #alan stuart #auriol goldingham #pamela rose #trevor jones #brian west #the history of The Appointment is fascinating and not something i can really do justice to in these tags so i recommend reading up if #interested. conceived as the first in a whole series of high end british film productions shot with an eye to international tv sales‚ bts #fall outs with producers and investors (the national coal board pension fund‚ of all people) nixed the project and condemned this film to #video rental obscurity; there it stayed‚ and the negatives and prints were all lost to the mist of time. those fine bfi people have spent #literal years tracking down a master copy and finally found a sole (standard def) video master which has now happily seen a release and #means this long forgotten and deeply obscure slice of 80s horror can finally be seen by a (slightly) wider audience. Vickers had only one #prior directing credit (excellent short The Lake) and his experiences here led him to abandon filmmaking but i honestly feel with that we #lost potentially one of the great voices of british cinema. here‚ as in The Lake‚ Vickers demonstrates a willingness to take his time and #to devote himself to setting scene and atmosphere; truth be told there's very little plot to this film. a man disappoints his daughter‚ has #a work meeting‚ suffers nightmares (or premonition). it sounds like nothing but it's executed with such precision‚ such razor sharp care #that it pins you down for 90 minutes. two setpieces in particular (one in the first 5 minutes‚ the other making up the final 20) are of a #level of technical artistry rarely seen in this genre‚ this era‚ this country. absolutely beautiful filmmaking‚ and for that i can forgive #it the small amount of flab around the middle. there's an awful lot going on with this film and simultaneously very little; i wrote more on #that on letterboxd but i don't really have the room for it here. Woodward stars (and is very much the centre) in a performance which is #typically (for him) very layered and very clever. actual dialogue is comparatively rare but he does a great deal with body language and #facial expression. that this never found huge success is perhaps unsurprising (it's a slow burn with emphasis on slow) but i really hope

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