The opening music had been referenced throughout my life and never knew it was from this film. The winding mountainous landscape coupled with the swinging camera movement in the opening credits was spellbinding and kept me nauseous with curiosity and a twinge of fear.

I was not a big fan of almost exclusively used fading to transition between scenes. The only exception seemed to be for time stamped scenes. While it was consistent, it felt “empty.” Something about it for the horror genre didn’t feel immediate enough for the pace of the story.

There were early references to mazes, winding around objects, being stuck, isolationism, cabin fever, claustrophobic spaces, the haunting of leaving breadcrumbs to find your way back, and the literal words “around every corner…” voilà—the theme.

Organized, yet entropic, directing and editing style. The film was a little too on the nose with its references and follow through. I felt some “nuggets” of information were blatant with either editing, screenplay, or camera positioning. The consistent winding camera movements behind the characters throughout was unique. The film def has some amazing shots/frames. I’d ‘GIF’ the eff outta this movie (high praise from me), but wow if I didn’t think of the drawing used to describe the quality of the Game of Thrones seasons (below) as this film went on. ‘Twas a little drawn out for me.

But, that bloody elevator scene is some damn good cinema, bruh.

Shelley Duvall’s entire face is expressive! Didn’t much care for her acting in this one though. Also, this was not my favorite Jack Nicholson role (that’d be “Chinatown”), but he delivered.

I wonder if my impression of this film would be different if I hadn’t spent my whole life seeing parodies and references to different elements of this film without awareness. The suspenseful score drives you in, but leaves you wanting more from the entire work. My hope was to happily check this “classic” horror film off my list and to have thoroughly enjoyed it. And yes, finally, I did it! But now my hope  is to never see this film again.

One last thing: and I hate to do it, but I see a specificity in this film like I do in Jordan Peele’s work. There, I said it. I sees it and I don’ts take it back. 😜😜😜