The Horror Bell Curve

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Humor----Creepy----Eery----Gory----Slasher

The bell curve for what is scary changes over time.  I think most people know that, but I don't know how many people track it.  I thought Nightmare on Elm St. was scary as a kid.  Now I find it campy.  As a kid I got kind bored during The Birds, but now it's a little bit eerie.

I'm going to try and make a graph of "What is scary in 2012" and use existing movies as examples.  Keep in mind that I am using 2012 as a frame of reference. Moving along the X axis to the right is what used to be scary when I was younger.  The Y axis shows what I think is scary now.

In 2012, what is "least scary" is Humor.  Almost every horror movie I have seen uses humor as a tool, but when it is used too much, the "scary" factor falls to zero.  See Piranha 3DD or Shark Night 3D.  This has always been at the bottom of the scale.

The next level up is "Creepy" This is the type of movie that almost freaks me out, but then the scary part is revealed to early and I'm no longer scared.  The Sign is the one movie that sticks out the most for me in this section.  It was so good and scary up to a point.  When the family hears the signals on the radio, and the home video shows the alien run across the alley...that's SCARY!  But, then at the end you see a full blown CGI alien just hanging out in the living room.  It's like you almost got me there Shamalyan, but you tripped at the finish line.

The next level is Eery, and that is what freaks me out right now.  This is that perfect situation where what you are watching is totally plausible, and yet it only has to be slightly scary to freak you out.  I'm sure decades of reality TV has made this genre grow.

I'm not sure if it's fair to put this on the x axis because I don't know of any older movies that were at this level.  I think the closest before this were certain episodes of The Twilight Zone (TV Show).  This is that magic genre where belief means more than what is actually happening.

Think of The Blair Witch Project.  That kicked it all off.  This is such a polarizing movie, that I've probably lost a lot of people, but hear me out:  This started a genre where you don't have to suspend belief.  Part of you actually believes what is happening.  Think of Paranormal Activity.  90+% of that movie is not horror, but if that happened to you in real life, you would freak the hell out.  I know because I have laid in bed at night imagining if I just felt a brush on my toe, I would hit the ceiling.  Check out V/H/S when you can.  I saw a sneak preview and it is exactly what I am talking about:  when the video and audio make you believe it is real, the plot doesn't have to try too hard.

Now we're on the downside of my bell curve. We're talking about things that used to be scary, but now...not so much.  First up: Gory.  I love gore.  I want Tom Savini to have my next three kids.  I wish he would do makeup and effects for every movie ever made, plus my Christmas card..  Screw CGI.  But the truth is, we've seen it all.  You can watch CSI or Bones on free network television and see amazing realistic gore.  It took me a long time to understand the word "jaded", but I think this sums it up.  I wonder if any makeup artists went from Hostel to Bones.

Finally, we get to the Slasher end of my bell curve.  What used to be the scariest thing in my life is now something I can fast-forward.  Somewhere in middle-school I spent the night with a friend and watched A Nightmare on Elm St.  My first scary movie, and it was a great one.  These are the moments that set your horror movie watching life.  You cower under your covers fearing any exposed skin is fair game to demons.

But, with each subsequent slasher, the fear would dissipate.  I will always love the movie Halloween.  It's one of the movies that I would take with me to a desert island...but I've seen it so many times, for me it's like watching It's a Wonderful Life.

My ultimate point of this diatribe is to tell you that we all evolve.  Simple monsters and blood used to scare me, but as I get older, what scares me most is reality.  I think this has to do with the fact that as we get older, we don't fear death will happen to us....we believe it will.

Evil Dead Trilogy...In Reverse! Pt1

A follower of Bruce Campbell on Twitter said he had his girlfriend watch the Evil Dead Trilogy with him for the first time - in reverse order.  He said she loved it, so I thought I'd try the same with my girlfriend.

It kinda makes sense. I don't know the actual stats, but I would guess more people have seen Army of Darkness since it isn't an actual "horror" movie.  It's more of a comedy/action movie with gore.  I'm pretty sure I've seen it on TV at some point, and I don't think I've seen the first two on TV at all.  Anyway, my point is that the third movie can appeal to a broader fan-base, so I thought it would be a good way to start.  She already likes Bruce from Burn Notice, so we're already off to a good start.

Army of Darkness

The greatest part about having someone watch Army of Darkness first is the intro.  Basically in less than five minutes, you're given this back-story: Ash was with his girlfriend in a cabin in the woods, she turns into a zombie so he has to kill her.  The evil got into his hand, so he cut it off and fashioned a chainsaw as a replacement.  He uses incantations from the Book of the Dead to ward off the evil, but he is accidentally sent back in to the middle ages.

Can you imagine if someone tried to pitch that for a movie?  If the first two movies hadn't already been made, I don't think anyone would have come up with such a far out jumping-off point.  I think the meeting in Hollywood went something like: "So, we already made these first two movies...and Sam Raimi's already on board, so....can we just keep going where we left off?"

If you've ever played Duke Nukem 3D on a PC, you're old.  You also probably heard most of the famous catch lines from this movie.  I have to admit that I played the game before I saw this movie, so I was one of those idiots who thought that Duke Nukem was original with his "Groovy" and "Hail to the King, Baby".  Bonus Tip - The first "Groovy" is spoken in Evil Dead II when Ash first puts on the chainsaw.

So, my girlfriend and I finish Army of Darkness and she actually says "That was better than I thought it would be".  Pretty high praise, really, for a girl who doesn't watch any horror at all.  The real test will be transitioning into a movie that is slightly more horror than humor...and then into the full early-80's, slow-paced, low-budget masterpiece.

Fingers crossed!

Friday the 13th Part III

As of 30 minutes ago, it is officially Halloween. I have been a very, very, bad blogger and haven't posted in months, so to make up for it I am watching a classic- Friday the 13th part III.

Any moderate fan will note that the first movie didn't really have Jason except for the great scare at the end. The second movie had a bumpkin with a pillowcase mask as the villain. I'm not sure how this franchise made it to a third movie (and even 3/4 of the way into this movie) before it finally made one of the most recognizable horror icons of all time. I'm not sure if a franchise could make it that far nowadays without having that singular iconic character. I guess Hostel made it to a second film without a major villain, but I'm not sure if it's in the same vein as most iconic horror films.

I want to heavily emphasize that anything I would have already written about this movie was already done here: http://www.x-entertainment.com/halloween/2006/september15/ and this is another great read http://x-entertainment.com/halloween/2004/october25/ about seeing Jason's face in the Friday movies. X-Entertainment is pretty much awesome.

It is pretty amazing/unusual that the movie that created the face for Jason is a 3-D movie. I really wish that there was a version of this movie that I could rent in its original 3-D. I'm not sure how scary a horror movie would be with red and blue tint, but it would still be interesting. It's very obvious that this movie was supposed to be in 3-D. There are way too many scenes that have nothing to do with the plot, but have items protruding towards the viewer.

If someone out there ever reads this and does some investigation- can you please tell me: How many Friday movies have an Olympia beer truck in them? The third one does. I once went to a screening of the first movie in a theater, and I thought there was a scene that had an Olympia truck, but it isn't shown in the DVD. I'm just interested because it's kind of a nostalgic beer for me, and it would make it even cooler if the beer was in more than one of these movies. "It's the water" Perhaps Jason just drank too much Olympia and went on a killing spree...perhaps.

At any rate: Here's to Shelly- The owner of the original Jason mask. Who knows how many nightmares this forgettable "boy who cried wolf" character has created by lending his hockey mask to one of the greatest counselor killers of all time? I know a lot of us would like to have seen Shelly get some vindication for his nerdiness amongst the popular crowd of Friday 3...but his sacrifice not only saved a franchise- it forged new ground and created one of the most sequeled horror franchises of all time.

Lost Boys: The Tribe

There have been rumors of a sequel/remake to Lost Boys forever. I always thought it would have to be a really good movie, or don't even bother making it. I think I've found a new way to save a crappy movie- go straight to video. I don't know what that would do for most movies' revenues, but at least from a critic's standpoint, it allows you to be pleasantly surprised.

From what I understand, Lost Boys: The Tribe was supposed to be a theatrical release. I saw a few episodes of The Two Coreys, but not all of them, so I kind of know what is going on there. Haim was trying to get back in the movie business and get off the drugs, and Feldman was trying to help out and make a movie along the way.

I actually liked this movie better than I thought I would. It's nowhere as good as the original, but it has some really good effects and a few hotties mixed in. Corey Feldman finally grew into the voice that he was trying to use in the first film. He still seems like he's forcing it a little bit sometimes, though.

I liked the cameo in the beginning with Savini. I bet it was him that created his own head. It looked great. I think I would have liked to see what would have happened if he was a major character in this film. He could have been the main vampire. I suppose he would be a bit too old to be hanging out with the other characters, though.

There were some pretty good effects and gore. There is one scene where a vampire gets stabbed in the heart and he starts retching blood. It was pretty realistic.

One thing I always enjoyed from the original film was the theme song. I liked the new updated version in this film. I suppose I mostly like it because they didn't change it very much.

Overall, it was worth watching. I wonder if this was a straight-to-video movie that had theater film money behind it and that's why it turned out ok.

Are You Scared

I'm re-watching the "Are You Scared" DVD.

Here goes a test of faith. In case anyone out in cyberspace actually reads this, be forwarned...I'm going to talk about the opening trailers to the DVD. I actually bagged 3 or 4 in a row that I had already seen. I felt like I had some mystical badge of honor that kept growing with each trailer. I thought- "I've seen all of these movies...I must be a connoisseur".

Then the trailer for "Something Dark" happened. wow. oh. my. god. Trailers are created to be amazing. That's kind of the whole point. You're supposed to be able to take a crap-ass movie and make it at least rentable. This was the worst trailer I have ever seen. No, really, I'm serious. It looks like a home horror movie that I made with my sister and my mom. The cherry on top is some dude who's fake beard moves on-and-off of his chin while he speaks. I honestly can't believe that they chose these scenes as the cream-of-the-crop to put into the trailer. By default, of course, I'm going to have to rent it and blog about it...but it's going to take a whole lot of bourbon.

By the way: "The Feeding" which was the next trailer...it was one of those trailers where you could tell the movie probably sucked, but at least the trailer made you kind-of want to see it. It's almost worth renting "Are You Scared" just to have a 5 minute lesson in how to make a crappy trailer and a decent trailer.

Here's a little bit of movie trivia- question marks are bad luck. At least that's what I learned from IMDB when I read about the trivia of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". That movie title has no question mark, even though the title is interrogative. "Are You Scared" has the same antigrammatical faux pas. Let's see if that helps...

FYI, I saw this film once before, but I couldn't remember much about it.

Hmmm....the first scene is like "Saw"...but way less suspensful.

I just realized that this DVD only has 2-channel stereo, and that's the only option.

Jason just blew up. So far, this movie doesn't have any of the suspence that Saw has. The thing about Saw was that at least a few of the people either beat the challenges or tried as hard as they could. This is more like Saw 2 where no one really tried that hard, and the movie just tried to hurt people without much personal gain from the characters.

I like the drill scene. Apparently the directors/editors/sound editors/negative cutters liked the scene too...they drug it out forever. They put the kind of treatment on it like when Braveheart was screaming "freeeeedooooommmm!!!!"

Wilhelm Scream when the shotgun guy falls down the stairs...add this to the ever-growing list. His task and death are pretty weak, though.

"He keeps to himself mostly"...I have always liked that line because it's usually true.

And then in the end...you lost me, I really had no empathy for any of these characters. I didn't even care when one character accidentaly killed another. I kind of hoped the villian would just kill them all and do it fast. Unlike "Saw", the police officers were barely even useful characters.

The chick cop is the slowest walking character ever. How can her partner get into the building in a matter of seconds, while it takes her a half an hour? Plus, she didnt' do anything. The whole point of her character was to show up afterwards and try to guess about what happened.

The ending was made just to maybe create a sequel. I'm not sure if there is one, but I didn't really see anything sequel-worthy. I swear, I really will review a good movie soon.

The Ruins

I was in one of the chain bookstores a few months ago looking for some new horror novel to read. Nothing was grabbing my attention, so I asked one of the workers if they had any recommendations for "something to keep me awake at night". She kindly told me that "The Ruins" was a book that she had recently read and it was pretty good. I told her "thanks" and went to find it. After finding it and reading the brief description on the back I decided that it sounded interesting enough to buy.

However, on my way to the cash register while looking at the front cover I discovered that it was "now a major motion picture". I promptly decided to put the book down on a shelf and go watch the film sometime instead.

One thing led to another and somehow I ended up not going and seeing it on the big screen. Anywho, last night I finally watched it and I must say I was pleasantly impressed.

It goes into the somewhat recently updated category of the "don't leave America because its scary everywhere else" type films which started with Hostel back in 2005. The Ruins follows a group of college students on their vacation to Mexico. Without giving too much of the plot away, the body of the film is about going to some ruins and having a run in with some nasty pumpkin vines.

Roughly 95% percent of the film takes place with the protagonists stuck on top of the ruins. Considering this isn't a dialogue driven script and that there really isn't that much action the film surprisingly managed to keep me entertained throughout.

I really cannot comment on the theatrical version, but the Unrated version had some pretty graphic scenes. I typically don't like gore if it is too realistic, but The Ruins had some really great scenes that made me go "ugh" more than once.

I truly enjoyed this movie and found it pretty disturbing. I might even read the book!

Breaking Dawn

Alrighty. So last week I decided that I don't need cable anymore. I've been tossing around the idea for awhile now. I have the movies-by-mail subscription that allows me to also watch loads of films online. With a combination of that and fear.net's free movies as well as basically being able to watch most network shows online what do I really need cable for? So tonight they come and take my dvr cable box away.

Anyways, the reason for telling you all this (if anyone really reads this blog) is that last night I had time to watch one more "on-demand" movie. Of course it had to be a horror flick. So there I was with the a hard choice to make. Do I go with an HD version of a favorite film or pick one that I haven't seen before that might be a stinker. Being the risk taker/man-with-no-fear that I am I chose a film at random.

The movie I watched was Breaking Dawn. The film is about a young medical student studying to be a psychiatrist. She is assigned a mental patient who she is supposed to "get through to" in 6 weeks time. However, the opposite happens and the patient shares his dellusional behavior with her. The tag line for the movie is quite fitting actually "A mind is a terrible thing to lose." Kinda clever huh!

This movie has some pretty intense scary scenes. There is one where the protagonist wakes up with a little old asian lady staring down at her speaking some foreign language. Freaky! I do have to say though that I had the M. Night type ending figured out after the first 15 minutes of the movie though.

Overall, I'd say as a horror film this one isn't half bad. That is unless it is the last horror film you get to see on cable.