Welcome to the show folks...
1. THE WOLFMAN GETS AN R.... BUT...
...is it really necessary to make a good horror
movie?
The Horror-Squad seems relieved that Universal's long delayed remake of 1941's The Wolfman is getting an "R" rating. In fact, they say that many fans would consider it "neutered" if it got an PG13 rating.
Now that strikes me as peculiar.
When I was a kid some of the things that scared the living piss out of me weren't really gushing with blood and gore, and a lot of the films that were rated "R" when I was a kid are now broadcast, with blood and violence uncut, on weekend afternoons.
And then there's CSI. I mean people are getting massive doses of gizzards, innards, and grue on a thrice daily basis thanks to the CSI franchises and their ever present reruns. Which leads us to a paradox.
Horror fans consider anything less than an "R" rating an insult, but with audiences so inoculated to gore and violence horror filmmakers have to crank up the blood, guts, and sadism to get that "R" but often at the expense of what gives the horror genre its real strength, which is suspense. People lose the fear they feel over the fates of the characters, and simply wait for the next gore-spouting money shot.
Or maybe it's just me.
Be sure to let me know what you think in the comments.
1b. WHAT'S UP WITH THE WOLFMAN?
Is that production cursed? It was originally marked to be released in November 2008, then February 2009, then April 2009, then November 2009, and now February 2010.
Come on, it's a werewolf movie, it's not supposed to be Ben-Hur, what the hell's going on with that production. It's been bumped back so many times I'm starting to think it was a Weinstein production.
Sheesh.
2. REALITY TV HITS BOTTOM/STARTS DIGGING
ABC is starting a new show called Conveyor Belt ofSyphilis Love, and the premise is simple. Men go by on a conveyor belt and try to convince women to pick them for a one night stand and if they're lucky, a cover story on a tabloid over their "unauthorized" sex tape. It's an idea so morally and creatively bankrupt, I thought it was NBC show.
Why do the networks keep doing these increasingly sleazy pseudo dating shows?
1. They're cheap.
2. They don't need big ratings to make money.
3. There will always be an audience willing to watch people debase themselves on television and dreaming that someday it could be them on that conveyor.
1. THE WOLFMAN GETS AN R.... BUT...
...is it really necessary to make a good horror
movie?The Horror-Squad seems relieved that Universal's long delayed remake of 1941's The Wolfman is getting an "R" rating. In fact, they say that many fans would consider it "neutered" if it got an PG13 rating.
Now that strikes me as peculiar.
When I was a kid some of the things that scared the living piss out of me weren't really gushing with blood and gore, and a lot of the films that were rated "R" when I was a kid are now broadcast, with blood and violence uncut, on weekend afternoons.
And then there's CSI. I mean people are getting massive doses of gizzards, innards, and grue on a thrice daily basis thanks to the CSI franchises and their ever present reruns. Which leads us to a paradox.
Horror fans consider anything less than an "R" rating an insult, but with audiences so inoculated to gore and violence horror filmmakers have to crank up the blood, guts, and sadism to get that "R" but often at the expense of what gives the horror genre its real strength, which is suspense. People lose the fear they feel over the fates of the characters, and simply wait for the next gore-spouting money shot.
Or maybe it's just me.
Be sure to let me know what you think in the comments.
1b. WHAT'S UP WITH THE WOLFMAN?
Is that production cursed? It was originally marked to be released in November 2008, then February 2009, then April 2009, then November 2009, and now February 2010.
Come on, it's a werewolf movie, it's not supposed to be Ben-Hur, what the hell's going on with that production. It's been bumped back so many times I'm starting to think it was a Weinstein production.
Sheesh.
2. REALITY TV HITS BOTTOM/STARTS DIGGING
ABC is starting a new show called Conveyor Belt of
Why do the networks keep doing these increasingly sleazy pseudo dating shows?
1. They're cheap.
2. They don't need big ratings to make money.
3. There will always be an audience willing to watch people debase themselves on television and dreaming that someday it could be them on that conveyor.
My only hope for the Wolfman movie is Anthony Hopkins. Del Toro can have his good days and bad days. I, too, am often puzzled by the attitude that any horror movie has to have blood and guts aplenty.
ReplyDeleteThe scariest horror movie I've ever seen was 'The Changeling', with George C. Scott as a widower who's rented a large haunted house. Excellent use of sound, lighting, and suggestion to scare the fertilizer out of you. There was only one 'jump' scene in it (but very effectively done) and it had the only blood seen in the whole movie.
The scariest movie, period, I've ever seen was a BBC production called 'Threads'. It was set in Sheffield, UK and showed the follow-up to, and aftermath of, a full-out nuclear war. The entire plot can be summarized in the sentence "And then it got worse."
And it keeps going on, for years after the war itself. More gore than 'The Changeling', but nothing that would be out of place on a tamer episode of CSI.
I know all about The Changeling, in fact I even wrote a review about it in my Discount Bin Film.
ReplyDeleteIt still holds up.
As for Threads, I've always avoided watching it, because I just can't stand relentless depression.