I Know What You Did...

Rating: Null/10 (23 January 2005)

Genres always exist, become living things, for a reason. A popular genre is the guy (or demon) who has the some omniscience and the ability to either create intricate scenarios which always work flawlessly. Often this is a serial killer.
The reason for the genre comes from some unavoidable facts in fiction. You have the writer who _is_ omniscient and _does_ have the capability of creating complex scenarios that do work. It is the writer's world after all. And we have the reader who occupies a place between the characters in the story (with whom we relate) and the writer (because we see and know things the characters cannot).
So it is a natural thing to propose a character that also occupies this space. I'm making a study of the complex ways we've evolved to do perform this trick. But one way is very simple: just have a character with these qualities, period. For some reason (an ability to impute Lucifer?), we accept this more readily if the god-like character is "evil."
Right, them. The game in this genre is one that grew up in the detective genre, indeed, there is often a detective still remaining in most editions of the genre. The game is a struggle among the three: you the viewer, the writer and the god-like demon to outsmart each other in the giving life to the world we see.
So, built in to the genre is the final twist. We know it is there, it is a structural necessity. All parties know it is there. An entry in the genre is judge on only one factor: how successfully did the bad guy (not the writer) flummox the viewer? All else is filler, usually noisy or grisly to distract us from the fact that it _is_ filler.
So how did this film do? Not well enough to fool me. But then, I know the game. And I must be evil.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.