However, test screenings yielded complaints from audiences that the film was too slow, so Mulligan and his editor, O. A popular book becomes a flop at the box officeĭirector Robert Mulligan, who also directed 1962’s To Kill A Mockingbird, initially set out to make a film with Hitchcockian suspense elements, and Tryon’s story gave Mulligan the tools to make both a moving and suspenseful picture about a loving yet troubled rural family. The film ends up being terrifying not for the evil imagery, but for the creeping realization that, underneath the sunshine and superficial pleasures, something darker is brewing - maybe it was there all along. Like nostalgia itself, it is a mistake to fully trust the perspectives of Niles and Holland. Concealed beneath the film’s heavenly fabric is an undercurrent of deadliness and danger. We listen to Jerry Goldsmith’s lovely score, as it romanticizes the beauty of the moment - and then, for some unexplained reason, the score starts hitting evil-sounding notes upon glancing at the sharp prongs of a nearby pitchfork. The camera takes the perspective of the bird as it soars over Pequot Landing. In one of the most visually imaginative sequences of the movie, Niles plays “the game” to get inside the mind of a black bird perched on a fence.
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