Film Summary CCCLXXXIV (The Man In Black)



It's early hammer and it's kind of, well. Boring.

And it's a shame, the first 10 minutes had a semi interesting premise. There's this incredibly rich man who's dying and he practises yoga. Now it's not 'real' yoga which is nothing more than stretching and simple meditation all with the gaol and improving one's health.
No this yoga is in the same ballpark as Voodoo is in most movies. Essentially it's an excuse for strange and awkward Magic. Something that you don't really have to explain to the audience because of its 'foreign' nature.
So this man that practices the yoga decides to do this final experiment and where he'll put his body into a dead stance and then get himself revitalised. I can't remember what purpose is served but it sure was a lovely excuse for the man to die Initially.
Something goes wrong and he can't be revitalised. Which is good news for his wife and either his sister or sister-in-law. The two of them want him dead so they can inherit his wealth. But all of his money is going towards his daughter.
The two of them have a simple dilemma. They either have to convince the girl that she's going mentally insane so that they can have her finances removed from her via the laws in The Inheritance that states if she's mentally unstable that the finances should be transferred over to his wife. Or they have to straight-up murder her but to do it in such a way that it won't lead back to either of them.

Unfortunately this is where the story starts to wind down.  Most of our character interactions are between either the ditzy naive incredibly wealthy girl or the heartless and manipulative mother who may also be a mother-in-law but I wasn't entirely sure on that either. It's all incredibly straightforward. There's no weird twists or odd characters to get mixed in with the story to give it a slightly different flavor. It's just the mother and the daughter interacting with one another in a very standard way. And of course you know the father's going to come back in some form because he has involved with this mystical Magic from a land Beyond the Sea.

There is this one guy who pops up later on. He's kind of friends with the mother-in-law and her sister but he's also interested in the young girl for himself. So he likes to play the field and play the two against each other and try to screw up the Stepmother's game but ultimately he's just another creep in the mix. Who has his own manipulative game to play.

It's just too middle of the road. The story doesn't degrade so far that you start to find the whole thing comedic or get so lost in a subplot that it becomes an entirely different experience, like that Plan 9 from Outer Space movie.
But it doesn't elevate at any points to make you really invested in the characters. I think with a little work and maybe even more time invested, the story could be made better. Give me a reason to care about this girl who just inherited a ton of money. Maybe let me know a little bit more about the father, hell let me get my investment in with the mother.
Start her off as nothing more than a miserable old bag who just wants the money for cynical reasons. Then develop to her a little bit and show a little humanity or at least give us a good reason why she wants to maintain this stagnant Ultra Rich lifestyle. Maybe have other reasons for why she was so eager to kill her husband in the first place. Maybe there's a love affair, perhaps she wanted to burn the whole place down. Maybe she wanted to make something out of that money and invested in something. There are so many little options that could be given to a character like this just to give us the slightest bit of motivation.

Or give us a flashback showing that the father was a miserable man. Maybe he planned to squander all the money on more decorative Goods. We're starting to become overly obsessed with his Hobby and ended up becoming a Frets to the people around him. You know, subvert everything flip it on its head turn the evil nefarious wife into the heroin.

Maybe my mind is just not in the right place. And I just can't appreciate her simple to-the-point film like this right now.
Or my expectations were just too high. I see the Hammer logo on a film and I'm thinking Dracula, or the werewolf. One of those fine Hammer Classics that pops up from time to time. Something with big-name screen present actors like Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing.

Perhaps this film was doomed from the start.

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