4) The Body Horror Scene
One thing Josh Trank insisted on implementing, from the beginning, was a David Cronenberg-esque influence on the origin story. It made sense, too.
Unlike the X-Men, who are born with their mutations, the Fantastic Four were forcibly changed. Having your bones become stretchy or getting set on fire or turning into a rock monster would certainly not be a pleasant experience, especially if you had to live with the condition for the rest of your life (as is the case with Grimm).
Trank understood this, and in one of the movie’s best scenes, we see this at play as each character starts to have their physiology altered. Reed’s arms are crudely retracted amongst the crunching sound of bones merging, Johnny screams in pain as the fire engulfs his body, and Ben pleads for someone to help him as he tries to escape the rocky tomb he’s become trapped in like Fortunato at the end of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado.
All of this is shot in a dark environment with sketchy lighting, dark blue hue and the aforementioned score by Beltrami and Glass adding to the tension and anxiety that the team’s feeling.
Published: Oct 22, 2017 09:46 pm