Crush; Cure

It's not the 1993 thriller called The Crush with Alicia Silverstone, or the 2001 comedy called Crush, which you've probably never heard of, with Andie MacDowell. It's the 1993 Crush, which you've also probably never heard of, with Marcia Gay Harden. We rented it because it was directed by Alison Maclean, who later did Jesus' Son, which is, btw, pretty good. The other thing that links these three films with similar names is that they all are overly-contrived in both plot and characterization, manipulative, and boring. Joe and I fast-forwarded through much of this movie, and we noticed that we still more or less knew what was going on anyways. The surprise ending was no surprise.

Then we watched Cure, not the Robert Smith band of the 80s, but the Japanese psych-horror-thriller made in 1997, just before Ringu (1998) pretty much blew open the popularity of that genre, worldwide. For one thing, it was a relief not to have to brace myself though scenes of torturously extreme violence. Some creepy imagery, sparingly used, is plenty. It’s a police thiller about murder, hynosis, memory and identity, where seemingly well-adjusted people commit bizarre murders using the same technique of slashing the throat with a giant X. The main characters are, for the most part, really well-drawn, rounded, intriguing, and though the pace is slow, it’s tense enough to have kept me interested. I like a story that takes its time to build into a deep, menacing drone. Joe, however, thought the film was “just okay” since he kept falling asleep through it.