MovieChat Forums > The Dunwich Horror (2009) Discussion > What's with the quick-jumps??

What's with the quick-jumps??

posted 15 years ago by mcnichol-2
5 replies | jump to latest

I was following the film pretty well until I realized that the quick-jumps (I have no idea if there's a technical term, haha :o) weren't just gonna be used for one scene.

Maybe I missed something, but I don't recall having mini-seizures whilst reading any of Lovecraft's works.

I was just hoping for some rational explanation behind them because I found it all incredibly distracting in an otherwise pretty cool adaptation. :)

For the record, the only Asylum film I ever cared much for was the War of the Worlds adaptation, mainly because of its characterization-focus, but I've given you guys a shot a few times and anything with a little bit of Jeffrey Combs is always worth a try in my book. :)

[–] silovik812 15 years ago

Not sure exactly what you mean by "quick jumps", but if you mean the split-second glitches when Wilber Whately is on the screen, I'm sure it's supposed to show that Wilbur, being both human and non-human, exists slightly "out of synch" with the ordinary world. At first I thought it was an editing error, until it happened a couple more times, and then I got it.

[–] mcnichol-2 15 years ago

^ah, yep, that's what I was talking about. thanks!!

I totally get that it was to convey that message about Wilbur, but it was just more frustrating than anything else, imho. :/

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] khamsin59 14 years ago

It is also used in the scene between Wilbur and Lavinia just before he goes to get the Necronomicon. Recalling that the Old Ones existed outside both space and time, these quick cuts give the impression that these people move differently in our world than the rest of us.

[–] tehck 14 years ago

The problem I have with that effect is that it was never clear whether the other characters perceived it or not. Was it something only we could see, or did Armitage, Walter, and Fay see it too? I see similar problems in scores of horror movies, particularly with music and sound effects. Much of the time, it's easy to tell the difference between the background "score" and the sounds heard by the characters, but I've seen many, many examples in which it wasn't at all clear whether a sound or even a musical interlude was "in" or outside the story.