Stoker Reviews

An another Korean director's Hollywood debut, the 'Oldboy' fame. Compared to his other movies it was not that impressive. The character India was a bit like the Jodelle Ferland in 'Tideland'. This movie was more stylish, the camera work was excellent, the cast and the locations were so good.

This story was written by the 'Prison break' star Wentworth Miller. I was little disappointed in the characters which never came close to me an emotionally, but as a cinematically it was as awesome achievement. The portrait of character India was little let down after all her special abilities were so powerful than any others in the movie which were not used properly. All it was done was transforming one personality to another, that was the mainstream story of this movie.

The whole movie presented in anime style, in fact frame to frame it was. It would have been at least near to a masterpiece if it was the traditional way of story telling than adding too much style. The character Charlie makes all the difference in the movie but seems borrowed from another movie especially Hitchcock's 'Shadow of a doubt'. Overall it was a nice watch, pretty enjoyable and don't expect much from the story and the twist.

Watched on Blu ray - November 4th

Chan-Wook Park's first foray into the hollywood mainstream resembles a hitchcockian thriller in many ways, but it also displays the distinctive visual touches of the South Korean filmmaker. Unlike the director's previous work, Stoker takes a noticeably more restrained approach to dark themes.

Although the actual on-screen gore and violence is reduced, the focus on creating a foreboding atmosphere leads to the viewer having to use their imagination to fill in the missing pieces. In this regard, Stoker is very impressive. It's visuals and tempo weave their way into a disturbing tale of familial conflict and violence. As the great Hitchcock once noted, the most disturbing type of violence comes from within the family home. The threat posed by your own flesh and blood is far more disturbing than that of an unknown outsider.

At it's worst, "Stoker" is stiff, awkward, and simply too artsy for it's own good. At it's best, however, it is beautifully photographed, well-acted, and loaded with atmosphere.

Although there are certainly a lack of likable characters, "Stoker" gets points off the spookily edgy presentation of it's subject matter, and from the great performance and characterization of the seemingly fragile lead's Uncle Charlie, and enigmatic charmer with a killer smile and a lifetime's worth of secrets.

Young India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) is thrown off balance by her father's death and the appearence of her mysterious Uncle (Matthew Goode,) who evokes feelings in her of... what? Yearning? Anger? Sadness? A beast lurking just below the surface, waiting to jump out and take over?

India's needy mother cannot understand her daughter, and it seems India's father was the only one who could reach her, primarily through long hunting trips. Uncle Charlie has a stalker-ish way of following pale, serious India around and popping up behind her, but is India the victim of his strange desires?

The dialogue of "Stoker" is very chilly and stylized, and sometimes hard to buy into %100. The cinematography is beautiful. From a Daddy Longlegs crawling up the heroine's socked leg to the popping of a blister, director Chan-Woo Park seems to tap into the beauty lingering behind every image.

Later in the film, I was starting to feel like Uncle Charlie's motivations were annoyingly unclear, a setback that even Matthew Goode's astonishing acting could not fix. By the end, I had mixed feelings. One one hand, Charlie was a fascinating character.

On the other, his motivations didn't go much deeper past the initial obsession. I know the 'traumatic childhood' trope is a bit of a cliche, but give me something here!

"Stoker" is a chilling, restrained, and altogether visually sumptuous work of art. Matthew Goode is a dominating presence among a good cast including Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman, and "The Silver Linings Playbook"'s Jacki Weaver.

I recommend this for people who are familiar with Chan-Woo Park's Korean films and want to see the director do something new and different should give "Stoker" a shot. Those that aren't may still find a lot to like in this Gothic chiller.

The dialogue does hurt the film a bit, and I must say the Kidman acted really bad, but other than that the film was pretty good. Good story, great visuals and overall atmosphere was good.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

When I first heard the plot to Stoker, I thought it sounded like a rip-off of Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt – right down to the uncle being called Charlie! But here, instead of fearing that he's a murderer, our main character, India, just sort of mistrusts him.
Now, don't get me wrong: I was still looking forward to this movie, since it is Chan-wook Park's first English-language film. Alas, I didn't like it. But not for the reasons you might be thinking.
The opening scenes really set the tone for everything to follow. And I thought the beginning of Beautiful Creatures (which I rented along with this one) was pretentious! I'd seen nothing yet! Not even the most talented actors could make these lines work; a lot of them state the obvious.
And I hate to say this, but the movie is at times pretentious in a technical sense as well. For example, that weird thing with the light in the basement.
It's a shame, because the story itself does have potential. The whole narrative is basically about how the homicidal Uncle Charlie gradually influences India. Though I think that scene where she masturbates to the murder he committed in front of her was a step too far; that was just plain fucked up!
In conclusion, no other movie this year, and probably none of the ones to come, left me so crushingly disappointed. I'm just going to go and watch Oldboy (and Shadow of a Doubt) again.

My rating: 35%

Stoker marks director Park Chan-wook’s English language debut feature. In his home country of South Korea, Chan-wook has previously made thrillers with vicious subject matters with arguably the most notable example being Oldboy. Considering the alteration of language, location shooting and visual style, Stoker could be his career-changing or career-slipping project. Chan-wook enters Hollywood and goes off to a flying start as he provides us with a thriller that contains his trademark style of brutality but applies it at a more suspenseful level. In that sense, it is less extreme than what he has previously done. Consequently, Stoker is a fantastic first attempt at Hollywood cinema from Chan-wook and is a chilling film to watch.


While Chan-wook’s individual contribution to Stoker made it a success, the homage to Alfred Hitchcock played a huge part. For example, the plot follows identical trends to Shadow Of A Doubt as it focuses on the lives of a traumatized family that exposes dark secrets; not to mention one of the main characters from both films share the same forename. Stoker lacks originality regarding build-up of narrative structure but progressively with the aid of Hitchcock-like suspense, it becomes a newly creative and impressive climax. Furthermore, Stoker contains Hitchcock-like techniques through filming style, particularly editing. The film’s suspense is mostly down to the quick-cuts between multiple character shots which, therefore, create further entrapment for them as well as the audience. On a similar note, Stoker reflects a lot on psychoanalysis, like Hitchcock. The film displays psychological damage following troubled past and present incidents, which became another strong point.


Despite Stoker uses various Hitchcock methods and, whether this is relevant or not includes a little reference to Bram Stoker from the film’s title, Chan-wook’s work paid off and he displayed his own contributions to it. In certain incidences, Chan-wook pays homage to the horror genre and represents its traditional conventions. For example, Stoker is set in a large house outside a forest, which are the two prime horror locations, and they create a surreal, menacing touch. In addition, the mise-en-scéne, particularly the plain character costume design and atmosphere within the mansion, create an uncomfortable impression that they reveal a lot about the characters and in which the audience are waiting for something menacing to occur. The only issues with Stoker are that the pacing mid-way through the film seemed somewhat flat and slightly lost its chilling tone. Also, horror films are the centre of shocking plot twists but Stoker aimed to have one but unfortunately, it was clichéd and not very thought-provoking.


In some ways, Mia Wasikowska portrayed India similarly to Alice In Wonderland. Her character in Stoker is different but it is the approach that makes them similar. While Wasikowska’s pale, plain features did not work in Alice In Wonderland, they certainly did in Stoker. Over the years, we have seen multiple traumatised teenagers trapped within themselves and society. Wasikowska’s role as India was impressive as she added an even more chilling, bitter effect in a similar performance to Sissy Spacek in Carrie. Meanwhile, Nicole Kidman portrayed India’s unstable mother Evelyn. Kidman, known for her role in past horror film The Others, appears both physically striking and cold but the character of Evelyn displays mental instability. In fact, Kidman has slowly been drifting off the Hollywood map but her performance in Stoker is her best in a while. Matthew Goode was convincing in the role of Charlie Stoker. The aim of this character was to appear charming with a mysterious, scheming personality. In fact, the message behind the characters is that anybody can become anything following a traumatic event.


Although Stoker lacks originality within plot, the implication of Hitchcock’s references worked in its favour and mixed convincingly. Horrors and thrillers in this era are becoming repetitive with level of suspense, plot and character types but Stoker genuinely mixes conventions of both classic and modern thriller. It is not a scary film as such but it is a suspenseful, gripping ride. Finally, Park Chan-wook’s English language debut has begun impressively and now that he has succeeded with Stoker, he deserves to produce more Hollywood features.

Here’s a weird mix. Park Chan-wook’s first English film is arty to the point of distraction, positively drunk on maximizing slow-motion and disjointed editing to create and needlessly decorate a thin story about violence in a rich family. It pouts and strikes poses like some southern gothic Vogue fashion spread, and it all leads up to nothing much in particular.

This is pretty generic material any which way you want to stretch it out and making it as ornately decorated as possible is not going to help it out. Paying attention to eye lines is the least problematic area in this film’s overblown sense of style. The basic beats owe much to Shadow of a Doubt but it lacks Hitchcock’s masterful hand in directing such material. It generally concerns a young girl who is predestined to be a violent killer, incestuous feelings for her uncle and a complicated relationship with her mother.

In telling this story, it was decided along the way that turning up the sound effects and music was a great idea. A quick bit involving India Stoker drinking a tiny bit of wine is so overwrought that it might blow out a speaker in the process. Her breathing sounds like Darth Vader and her drinking sounds like a waterfall. It’s needless and distracting. The same could be said for the scenes in which she makes a horseshoe (or coffin, I guess) around herself out of shoeboxes. Or strange dissolves like eggs to eyes, and so on. And the scene where India is masturbating and recalling the murder of a classmate she did with her uncle is so melodramatic it reaches a level of campy hysteria I didn’t think was possible going into the film. I laughed at the whole enterprise in that one scene.

The only saving grace is the uniformly excellent work from the main cast. I applaud Nicole Kidman and Mia Wasikowska for choosing such challenging and dark material, but their gifts have been put to better use elsewhere. And Wasikowska is starting to look a little too old to be effectively portraying a high school student. And Goode’s icy cool and deceptively attractive exterior masks depths of monstrous feelings that he plays beautifully. Jacki Weaver is essentially wasted in a thankless glorified cameo, but her neurotic aunt adds a certain spark to the proceedings that’s highly entertaining.

But what was the point of it all? The title, and family name, is a symbol that goes nowhere, and a complete head-scratcher. If Bram Stoker, Dracula’s creator and godfather of all vampyric mythology in the modern Western world, is supposed to be the obvious symbol, the film never does anything explicitly vampyric or interesting with the blood-sucking imagery it conjures up. But that is the film in total. There are plenty of pretty images and dense symbols that are undecipherable because they lead nowhere and mean nothing. It’s stylized but thin, a very sophisticated visual palette working triple-time on a narrative that was an afterthought of an afterthought.