DVD Alternatives to This Weekend’s Theatrical Offerings

MaryAnn Johanson October 22, 2010

'Poltergeist (25th Anniversary Edition)'

We know how it is: You’d like to go to the movies this weekend, but you’re dying to witness firsthand some of the ghostly spooking action your camcorder keeps picking up. So stay home and rent some movies instead. And when someone asks you on Monday, “Hey, did you see Paranormal Activity 2 this weekend?” you can say, “In the flesh.”

INSTEAD OF: Paranormal Activity 2, in which more regular folks in an ordinary suburban house are haunted by supernatural visitors while some cheap camcorders spy on it all for your entertainment…

WATCH: Paranormal Activity (2009), of course, the movie that started it all by reproducing the gotcha thrills of a carnival funhouse — boo! — without even the bonus visceral experience of being jostled around in a bumper-car ride. Or go with a classic haunted-house flick, such as Poltergeist (1982), and discover all sorts of bad things that can happen when you build your suburban tract home on an old Indian burial ground. Or try The Amityville Horror (1979), exaggerated based upon a true story of a Long Island home beset by spooky occurrences after a family is massacred there by one of its own. For more from director Tod Williams, an unlikely helmer for a flick like this, see his The Door in the Floor (2004), which sounds like it could be a horror movie, but is actually about a family falling apart in metaphysical ways; it’s based on a John Irving novel, so the bloodletting is no more than figurative.

INSTEAD OF: Hereafter, in which Matt Damon sees dead people, but doesn’t want to, is on a collision course with a French woman (Cecile De France) and a British boy who have also had a taste of the afterlife…

WATCH: The Sixth Sense (1999), in which Bruce Willis‘ child psychologist helps a young Haley Joel Osment cope with his ability to talk to dead people. For more of Matt Damon navigating realms of grief, check out Syriana (2005), in which the death of his little boy paves the way for a high-priced oil deal. For more of the fantastic Cecile De France, who’s mostly known in her homeland of France, don’t miss the shocking High Tension (2003), a slasher film with more of a twist than most. If you need more of director Clint Eastwood in sentimental mode, go with his gauzy romance, The Bridges of Madison County (1995), in which he also stars as a photographer who has a brief, intense affair with a lonely housewife (Meryl Streep).

That’s it for wide releases this week, and sadly, some of the best limited releases are actually losing screens today. Since chances are getting worse that you’ll be able to see either of these next two on a big screen, DVD alternatives are your only options.

INSTEAD OF: Buried, in which Ryan Reynolds‘ contractor in Iraq wakes up in a coffin with nothing but a Zippo and a cell phone for company, and learns that his captors want a ridiculous ransom to release him…

WATCH: The Vanishing (1988) — the French/Dutch original, not the pallid American remake — about a man who searches for years for his missing girlfriend; the film reveals much, at the same time, about the man who kidnapped her, and why he subjected her to an ordeal not unsimilar to that of Buried. For another flick about being trapped without all the claustrophobia, don’t miss Phone Booth (2002), in which Colin Farrell must not hang up the communications device in the titular enclosure, lest he be shot by the man tormenting him. The cell phone as lifeline trope plays out remarkably well, too, in Cellular (2004), in which Kim Basinger‘s kidnap victim doesn’t know where she is but is able to talk to Chris Evans, and solicit his help, via the remains of a mobile phone. For more of Ryan Reynolds in indie mode, see The Nines (2007), in which he plays three different roles in what could be considered alternate universes; there’s a bit with a cell phone, too.

INSTEAD OF: Never Let Me Go, in which Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan, and Andrew Garfield are childhood friends destined to be organ donors in a dystopic parallel England where such things are a matter of bureaucracy and custom…

WATCH: The Island (2005), in which Michael Bay explores similar ideas without letting any of the tedious idea-stuff get in the way of the running around and the explosions. For a film as similarly thoughtful as Go about a world familiar to ours but much more grim, don’t miss Children of Men (2006), in which Clive Owen is just barely coping as the human race heads to extinction when we lose our ability to reproduce. For more dark wonders from director Mark Romanek, see his One Hour Photo (2002), in which Robin Williams‘ creepy loner gets too close to a happy family. For more understated British drama, revisit The Remains of the Day (2003), about an unfulfilled romance between a butler (Anthony Hopkins) and a maid (Emma Thompson) in a country manor; like Go, it is based on a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro.