I'm just much more of a David Lynch person than a Steve Spielberg one.

This film revels in anachronisms. Indeed some of the "real special effects" of yore are kind of fun to marvel at, even as captured in well-mapped modern shots, lighting, reflection, tracking capture them.

The story hearkens back to a simpler time, when even the complex moments (anti-Semitism, death of a parent, collapse of a marriage) are caught in a pretty simple contrast. Granted flashy technicolor fills the frame, the story is pretty black and white, cut and dried.

I think the film speaks to many, and particular the generation before me (my Aunt, Uncle and parents enjoyed this). For those viewers, there is nostalgia and whiff of something akin to therapy.

As Mitzi says to Sam, you can capture something frightening on film, and then watch it over and over again until you are no longer afraid of it.

I walk away wondering if David Lynch (whose cameo here is almost worth watching through till it appears) watches films over and over, or is more interested in something new and striking.