Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Horror Movies, no, Movies in General

I'm going to talk about something near and dear to my heart, and its not politics. I love horror movies, I love reading the likes of Poe and King, truly these two gentlemen are masters of horror. I cannot speak about Poe, but I can about King, as I have heard some of his commentaries on his own work. Everyone has something that bugs them, something that gets under their skin, when reading the work of Stephen King, its the stuff that goes bump in the night, and makes his skin crawl.


A while back I caught a documentary about horror films, why it is that some of us love them, we go in and want to be frightened. Its a stimulus thing, surprise surprise. Some of us are wired to crave that skin crawling sleep with the lights on type of fear. That said, I haven't seen a really great horror film in years. Sure the final Phantasm movie tried, but it was hamstrung by its budget, and it for a sequel it was a good movie, it was lacking, but lets face it, it was the end of the line, and movies we go in knowing are the end of the line often lack the luster of the first. They also tried to shoehorn in a conclusion into a series that dealt with abstract thoughts, along with a disjointed jarring story, and really, Scrimm's imminent passing probably cut short a lot of what they wanted to do. Then there was the Evil Dead remake/sequel, yes it was heavy on the blood, guts and gore, but it was a pretty good rehash of the original. If they could have made that movie back when the first was released, I figure this is what they would have done. We have a remake of IT coming out in the next few months, and the novel was King at his finest, clowns... Just about everyone hates clowns, and even if you have never read IT, or seen the John Ritter staring miniseries of it, IT seems to haunt your dreams.

But something is wrong with the movies and novels I love. I can blame some of it on King loosing a few steps as he has aged, his horror novels no longer carry the spine tinging isolation of The Shining, or the epic good versus evil of The Stand, replaced are generic villains who aren't all that frightening. Yes, Mr. Mercedes can be considered horror, but only in the notion that many of the events portrayed in the novel could actually happen. Truthfully its more of a who done it murder mystery, with a few horrific events. Hey, its what he is interested in now. You have Preston and Child, who are into the whole murder mystery sci-fi horror genre, and much of their work is dark, isolated, and violent. The villains often use the supernatural to achieve their goals of throwing off the investigation of Crew or Pendergast, from legitimate aliens to the Devil himself. But I said something was wrong with the movies and novels I love, and the truth is, its not so much the novels, they tend to do everything in their power to set a mood, the effect they have hasn't diminished much, and then they work within that mood until the final act, in which everything comes out in the wash.

Movies on the other hand, yeah, they are becoming more and more disappointing. And without dragging up the entire history of film, I can say its been going down hill for a while now, and not just in regards to horror movies. Back in the day, horror movies had the power to scare people to the degree they wouldn't walk near a theater showing specific films (just read up on the history of The Exorcist). At one time, a horror movie could instill fear within the opening credits (see Stanley Kubrick's The Shining), or very quickly establish that something was very wrong, and you didn't know what it was. Yes, they often drug is out, slowly building the pressure and fear with things being slightly off (again Kubrick did wonders with The Shining). I have mentioned that movie twice now, and a lot of people absolutely hate what Kubrick did to the story. I recommend rewatching it, if its been a while, and just watch all the little things that change, or make no sense (the room with a window that shouldn't even exist). That is how to make a good horror movie, it builds on itself, feeding the notion that something is wrong, that things aren't what they seem.

Today, we get cheap jump scares, and half assed slashers. Leslie Vernon was good, but it was a satirized view of the slasher genre of horror movies, we were supposed to laugh at it, because it used and abused every aspect of what horror movies have become. It did it with glee, and while not a scary horror movie, it did the job, it was entertaining. The first Blair Witch Project did the same thing, yes, on its face it is a silly movie, a bunch of kids who get freaked out in the woods, and we were given a vomit inducing visual roller coaster of WTF.... But a lot of people who lived in the sticks might have laughed at the movie in the theater, but when they went outside at night, it likely stuck with them, it had weaseled its way into the back of their minds and festered like a bad wound. As I was saying, we get cheap jump scares, with a cue, we have been conditioned to jump at specific moments to achieve the effect that we have been scared, and really we've just been startled, not actually scared. Then, studios wonder why the latest greatest horror film flops, people hate it, and why they even bother to make a film in a dying genre. Its because there is no real plot, or there are no real scares, nothing to take home and make you wonder if something is under your bed or lurking in the shadows.

Again, this isn't exclusive to horror films. Action films have tons of car chases, shoot outs, brawls, and explosions. Seriously, if you have seen one Transformers movie, you've seen them all. If you've seen the first Taken movie, you've seen them all, and really Liam Neeson has been typecast as the badass guy who is going to find you and kill you, just because you did this or that. Don't screw with John Wick's dog, or you're going to have hell to pay. Comedies fall into this same mold, boy meets girl, they eventually fall in love, something happens, they hate each other, only to realize later they do love each other. Just change a few things around, put in different actors, and poof a new movie. Its why I don't really bother going to the theater anymore. Yes I am planning on going to see The Dark Tower in a few days, and I am planning on seeing IT, but outside of that, no real plans. Because like so many movies, you've seen one, you've seen them all, and why reward unoriginal hack job movies? Studios are going to go with what they think are going to make money (see Ghostbusters: Answer the Call). Speaking of that movie, that was a blatant attempt at a cash grab, it was poorly written, poorly shot, and poorly edited movie. The actors and actresses tried to save that ship, even though they had little to work with, but that was just painful to watch. Rumor has it another Ghostbusters media is in the works, hopefully they aren't trying to milk the cow to death. So, want to stop generic action/horror/comedy films with more product placement than a NASCAR stock car? Do what I do, don't go to the theaters to see it, don't rent it, don't buy a copy or order it On Demand. Just go down to the library and check it out, by not making money on a movie, they won't keep churning the dredge out. Yeah, its going to kill the theaters, they have to put bodies in seats to stay open, but at some point, enough is enough.

I have high hopes for the IT remake, the original story is solid, but has issues (mainly its being altered from a novel), but if done right, that movie has the potential to make all of us want to flee from the local party clown. Yes, the trailers I have seen have set a pretty good tone for the film, and I am hoping that the screen writers and director really want to hold as true to the story as possible, because its not all blood guts and gore, its something fundamental, something that really bothers us all, that villain which has no empathy for its victims, and could be something completely innocuous. Pennywise will have a completely different feel, but lets be fair Curry was hamming it up, having fun tormenting his fellow actors, he brought a version of IT to life that cannot be replicated. Lets see what the new guy does with it.

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