Subliminal messaging isn’t always about advertising. Some filmmakers use it to try and create a certain emotional effect in their audience, without them consciously knowing why they felt that way. The first thirty minutes of Gaspar Noé’s film Irreversible contains an extremely low frequency background noise that is virtually inaudible to humans, but capable of causing uneasiness and nausea. Noé deliberately inserted the noise into his soundtrack to make people feel sensations of disgust while watching his movie. But trust us – it’s far from the only disturbing part of the mo
Director Martin Scorsese wasn’t exactly subtle with the tension and terror of Cape Fear , the story of a convicted criminal who seeks revenge on the lawyer who put him there, terrorizing him and his family, particularly his teenage daughter. Beginning the movie with chilling music and a blood red close-up on the daughter’s eyes warns audiences that the story she’s about to recount is a violent and truly unsettling one, due in large part to Robert De Niro’s acclaimed performance as the film’s villain. The family survives in the end, with the lawyer successfully killing his former client – but the damage has been done. To remind viewers that Cape Fear is as much about the loss of innocence as it is about revenge or protecting your family, the film returns to the “spared” daughter, this time fading from innocent white to red – and keeping audiences from feeling too good about its happy end
Gore Verbinski’s remake of this Japanese horror film takes the idea that watching movies affects us, and stretches it to a terrifying extreme. The meta concept is reinforced when single frames from the haunted videotape flash up during other scenes in the movie. Again, not all copies of the film feature the same frames. But fans can all catch a flash of The Ring at the very start of the movie, where it meshes with the crescent moon in the DreamWorks logo. These hidden frames are worth re-watching the movie all on their own – just don’t answer the phone when you’re finis
James Cameron’s 3D blockbuster smash may have taken audiences to an alien world, but it begins at home, in a futuristic Earth. Actually, Avatar begins in a dream sequence, with the movie’s hero Jake Sully explaining that his sleep has become filled with visions of flying ever since he was wounded in combat, opening his eyes every morning to find he’s still confined to a wheelchair. His adventure on the planet Pandora piloting an artificially-grown human/Na-vi hybrid allows him to do more than fly, game secrets|https://movietriviafocus.com/ successfully defending the planet from his own side’s forces. The final shots of the movie mirror the beginning directly, showing Jake once again opening his eyes – this time, to a new body, a new people, and a new purpose. To take things further, the end credits are run over the exact same shots of flying as Jake’s first dr
No other actor embodies the age of American Westerns like John Wayne, with his role as Ethan Edwards in The Searchers considered one of his finest roles. The film opens inside a West Texas homestead, revealing a stunning landscape as Ethan first returns home after leaving years earlier to fight in the Civil War. When his brother’s family is killed not long after, and their two daughters kidnapped, Ethan sets off to find them no matter how long it may take. The youngest daughter Debbie is finally tracked down years later, and Ethan personally delivers brings her back home. Although it’s technically a different home, she is welcomed with open arms, and the future, for once, looks bright. With no place for an aging soldier inside, Ethan is left to walk into the wild all by himself. The shot is a perfect mirror of the one which started the film, and director John Ford’s iconic closing image is just one of the reasons The Searchers would go on to be seen by many as a masterpiece, and one of the greatest films ever m
Total Recall is a simple enough story: an everyday Earthling in the not-too-distant future, Douglas Quaid, dreams of a passionate affair with a beautiful woman on the surface of Mars. So when a business offers to implant false memories for a price, Quaid decides to make his dream a reality – at least as far as his mind is concerned. The procedure goes awry, and Quaid’s false memories disappear, revealing that he really WAS a secret agent working on Mars, and the woman from his dreams wasn’t imaginary. At least, that’s what he thinks. The movie never states whether Quaid’s return to Mars really happened, and whether he succeeded in releasing air into its atmosphere, and saving its poor population. But taking a quick glance at just how closely the film’s final scene resembles Quaid’s dream, those suspecting it was simply a fantasy have even more evidence to back up their cl
Now known as one of the greatest action movies of all time, it’s easy to forget the softer side of Die Hard hero John McClane. When the New York cop flies to Los Angeles to spend Christmas with his family, he brings a gift with him: a large stuffed bear, complete with a red ribbon tied around its neck. If the movie followed the novel it was based on, that bear should have made it to John’s daughter, but director John McTiernan never got to show that scene. Apparently, nothing said fatherly love to the director like a teddy bear, since his next movie The Hunt For Red October doubled down on the idea. When Jack Ryan had saved the day and headed home to his wife and daughter, he did what any good dad would do: picked up a teddy bear of his own, red ribbon and