Let's Scare Jessica To Death!

Gives IT her all. Sorry. I'm just excited to hear what you think.- OP

I tried watching it the other day. I understand that her character is supposed to be fresh from the psych ward, but what the fudge? She acts like she's mentally retarded, high, psychotic, or like she has a concussion. Sometimes all at once.

R2 I feel the same way, but then there are flashes of...wait...is she fucking phenomenal? It always walks the line between ludicrous and incredible for me. She actually moves me in the seance scene. I don't know- it doesn't keep me up at night but I have always been perplexed!- OP

I feel the exact same way, OP! I can't decide if she's doing an incredible job or a terrible job - a truly one-of-a-kind performance!

I actually think she is amazing at the beginning of the film- the scene in the cemetery where she does the rubbing on the headstone is actually pretty amazing. She shows this great fragility you don’t see very often. Her costars aren’t that great, so sometimes I think she is carrying the film for everyone.

Yes, it kind of goes off the rails near the end of the movie, but she does do a damn good job.

Hey can we also just WHOOP IT UP for such an absolutely campy title?! MAAaaAAAaaAARY!

Love this campfest of a film!

[quote]She acts like she's mentally retarded, high, psychotic, or like she has a concussion. Sometimes all at once.

That's the standard Zorah Lampert performance.

It's a great title nonetheless.

Goya Oh Boya!

....

I can never get over how greasy she looks throughout the movie. I know it was a low budget production but they couldn’t afford some powder?

Also they missed an opportunity casting her as Jorja Fox’s mother? grandmother? on CSI.

Goya had no flavah!

R12 ME TOO with the greasiness! Was it a character choice?

I assume it was hot/humid wherever they filmed, r14, because the greasiness shows up occasionally on some of the other actors as well. But never as bad as with Zohra. So I’m guessing a combo of her skin type and the heat plus no budget for makeup and lighting kept her greasy.

It was a ghost story, she was slimed.

She’s brilliant in it. She’s schizo and very, very nervous, but trying to grit her teeth and get through it.

The movie is great, and it’s hardly a “campfest” — how’s it possible there are so many faggots who don’t understand what camp is and what it isn’t?

I'm so happy that this thread is sort of taking off. Truly. And talking about noticing how greasy her face is in the film with another human being has given me LIFE on a gloomy day!-OP

Team Legit Brilliant Performance!

No she's good. I could tell from just the trailer alone. A lesser actor would definitely have looked ridiculous delivering the lines.

[quote]Yes, it kind of goes off the rails near the end of the movie

In what way, R5?

She was an odd actress, full of tics and strange reactions. In the vein of Sandy Dennis, Geraldine Page and Karen Black. But you can't deny they were magnetic onscreen.

I love all four of them, R22. Mesmerizing ladies.

Oh, I didn't know what you meant. I was just gonna suggest she look in the mirror.

Love Zohra, love Jessica. Love her pioneer woman rape victim in Audie Murphy’s Posse from Hell. She was damaged goods, signaled by her slightly torn dress.

Goya beans? Zohra Lampert is CANCELLED!

That was a really creepy movie. They sure don't make 'em like that anymore. A24 movies come the closest, but even those can't compare. It's such a simple movie, too. There aren't a lot of big special effects or tons of blood. It's all mood and performances.

It didn't work.

I preferred the remake:

"Let's Scare Jessica Lange to Death before the Lange Loon starts another thread about her"

Zohra Lampert has this strange way of speaking in both “splendour in the grass” and “opening night” at the end when she tells gena rowlands how proud she is of her and her performance. Is that why her film career didn’t prosper?

Genuinely creepy horror film from another era. Great use of editing and sound to create an unsettling atmosphere.

I think the voice over adds a level of creepiness to it ("don't say anything, pretend everything is okay") which is just the sort of internal monologue you expect from someone who is one broke fingernail away from completing flipping her shit. I always wondered about that house -did it have running water? What kind of people just let some weirdo drifter live with them? It's the 70's I guess. That scene with the creepy friend on the tractor with his throat torn out freaked me out as a kid.

r30 She always seemed low-energy and spoke in a sort of narcotized tone. It worked for a few roles but she was not exactly an ambitious go-getter in her career. David Lynch probably could have done something with her.

Does she remind anyone else of Sofia Coppola? That’s who I think of when she’s on screen.

r34 Physically I can see it: both soft and sleepy-eyed and lithe. But every time I see Sofua Coppola I think "pretentious rich girl," and the type who is pretentious about art and music and what is cool, perhaps the worst kind of pretentious. Zohra just comes across as a sweet, somewhat shell-shocked peasant.