HORROR WEEK: The Blair Witch Project

If running around in the woods for an hour and a half is scary to you, you’re scared pretty easily. The Blair Witch Project, the movie that started the found-footage horror genre, may be inventive, but there’s something that’s inherently not frightening about a pile of rocks sitting in the woods. While movies like Paranormal Activity were able to bend the audience’s perception of reality enough to be truly frightening, it’s very difficult to watch The Blair Witch Project and shake the feeling that it’s just a movie about three idiots with a $400 camera who went camping. And yes... it’s as bad as it sounds.

Starring three nameless actors, The Blair Witch Project is the film that supposedly revolutionized the horror genre with low-budget effects and a documentary format. I have a lot of respect for movies that start trends, but the thing is, the trend that this movie started sucks. Found-footage has been done to the death, and nowadays films of its ilk have enormous budgets and insane special effects, making it impossible for this generic original to compete. I admire it for not resorting to jump scares, and attempting to keep up the suspense consistently for 90 minutes, but the result isn’t scary-- it’s terribly boring.

Not much can be said about a movie like this, because there isn’t much to it. It’s just an overload of shaky cam, bad dialogue, and classic horror movie decision-making. “Hey, I have a map. Let’s throw it in the river! What a hilarious prank!” People don’t act like this in real life, so why should they in movies? I don’t ask that all movies directly parallel reality, but people should still act like people, and they should still make decisions based on logic and rationale. And sorry if I can’t imagine a situation where this happens, but I don’t see someone charging out into the woods, dragging along a couple of unqualified morons, to film a documentary on something as nonsensical as the “Blair Witch.”

I watched this movie at 10:00 at night, in the quiet of my room, and I wasn’t remotely frightened by a moment of it. If you’re willing to allow yourself to be immersed in the ludicrous world the movie creates, then I’m sure you’ll be scared. But for the viewers who actually have taste, and don’t find close-up shots of someone’s runny nose to be scary, this is not a good movie by any standard. The most frightening moment comes when the characters stumble across a grouping of human-shaped effigies hanging from the trees. But even here, I couldn’t shake this lingering thought in the back of my mind: “Wow, the budget on this movie must have been ten bucks.” Not to say that good movies require big budgets-- far from it. But to have a certain level of quality, a certain amount of money must be invested in the final product. And here, it felt like they grabbed three people off the street and said “Do you want to be in a movie?” Then they got some interns to set up rocks in little piles, and WHAMMO! A horror classic!

No effort was put into this movie, so I’m not going to put any more into my review. Final Score for The Blair Bitch Project: 2/10 stars (official anus-of-cinema seal of approval)! The acting is bad, the characters are dumb, and there’s not one moment where you are emotionally invested in the movie whatsoever. The iconic line in this movie, “I’m so scared,” is monumentally misguided. Sure, you’re scared! Show us instead of tell us! Anyway, this movie isn’t watchable even as a timewaster. If you want to get the same effect, take a cheap camera from Best Buy, then flush it down the toilet. After a week, go down to the sewers, recover its memory chip, and watch the video it took. It’ll probably be better than this piece of shit.

HORROR WEEK: Tucker & Dale VS Evil

Most people (elitist cinema snobs) will write off Tucker & Dale as a typically stupid, loud, and gory comedy with not much to it. And to be honest, I felt like it was going to be just that. Fortunately, I was proven wrong, as this film is not just about mayhem and cheap laughs, but has a very sweet, pleasant, and (dare I say it) heartwarming pair as its central characters. It's original, funny, and genuinely a lovable film, reminiscent of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's collaborations. If Shaun of the Dead redefined the zombie genre, this definitely did it for killer hillbillies.

Tucker & Dale VS Evil is the story of two harmless and simple country folk who, through a series of horrible accidents, are blamed by a group of college kids for the murder of their friends. After seeing one of the kids fall from a rock into a lake and hit her head, Tucker and Dale bring her back to their vacation cabin (which is basically a piece of crap, but it's a mansion to them). Dale falls for her and helps her get better, but in the meantime, the kids think that they abducted her. They then attempt to get her back, resulting in a series of gory and hilarious mishaps that send them flying into woodchippers, impaling themselves on sticks, and shooting themselves in the face.

This premise isn't exactly Oscar material, but it's certainly fun to watch, and I can imagine that it would be even more fun for fans of the horror genre. Telling a classic campfire story from the perspective of the 'villains' is the next logical step in making horror films, as they seem to have run out of any other ideas. Fortunately, Tucker & Dale VS Evil resists any attempt at taking itself seriously, resulting in great spoof material and a lot of over-the-top fun. Tyler Labine is great as Dale, the hapless yet kind goofball who falls head over heels for the college girl, and Alan Tudyk is great as Tucker. Then again, any movie with a former Firefly star will win bonus points from me. HE IS A LEAF ON THE WIND, MOTHERFUCKERS!

The movie does get a tad repetitive when it comes to the college kid's dialogue, but that's probably on purpose. "It's gonna be us or them!" kind of gets old after hearing it fifteen times, but as a riff on typically bland and generic horror movie dialogue, it works great. The writers have also upped the number of kids from the usual horror movie count of five to a grand total of eleven, resulting in plenty of spare characters to kill off in various fun and disgusting ways, including but not limited to: A weed whacker to the face, an exploding hillbilly house (spoilers! Oops), and chamomile tea. Don't ask... just watch it.

As is with all horror spoofs, it has its fair share of blood and guts gratuitously spilling everywhere, which will undoubtedly dissuade those who don't know what to expect. But for those of us who can appreciate a good horror/comedy, this is some enjoyably ridiculous and awesome shit. All the performances are admirable, the story is ludicrous yet compelling, and most importantly: The characters are well-developed. Even I, a stuck-up Bay Area resident who looks down his nose at hillbillies, was rooting 110% for these two to come out of everything okay. And THAT is a real cinematic feat.

Final Score for Tucker & Dale VS Evil: 7/10 stars. It doesn't try to be revolutionary, but it doesn't really have to be. It's just an awesome, hilarious, and epic story of two lovable rednecks and the preppy college girl who loved them (fuck, spoilers again). Turn off the uppity critic inside of you, relax back with your Pabst Blue Ribbon and overalls, and have yourself a good old-fashioned hick time.

HORROR WEEK: Final Destination

Ah, yet another fine premise hindered by horrible execution. Final Destination, the film that spawned four subsequent installments, may be dumb, but it’s dumb fun nonetheless. Sure, it’s basically no different than thousands of other young adult movies about kids who have amazing powers (Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, etc), but Destination seems to understand why movies like those are so bad, and even play off of them a little. It’s not a spoof, but parts of it are so ludicrous and hilariously over-the-top, it’s hard not to laugh.

Final Destination stars a plethora of child actors (most of whom will be recognized by any X-Files aficionados out there) as a group of French class students. While en route to Paris for a school trip, a student named Alex has a prophetic vision that the plane they are on will crash, causing him to leap out of his seat, cause a panic, and get off the plane with a few of his classmates. Of course, as it always is in these kinds of movies, Alex is right and the plane blows up on takeoff.

This is an epic premise, and gives way to an astoundingly awesome series of events that pits Alex against the FBI, who clearly think the circumstances are a bit suspect. It’s got a little bit of that ‘question authority’ factor that I (as a teenager) enjoy so much in movies. But a lot of the acting is pretty bad, especially from the main characters. It’s not like you’re supposed to really take the movie seriously, but most of the characters overemphasize their dialogue, making the whole thing feel more like an MTV video than a serious horror movie (which it isn’t). This is pretty much the horror equivalent of a Michael Bay movie: Character development is virtually nonexistent, but for clean and unbridled craziness, this is what you want.

The deaths themselves are amazingly ludicrous, to the point of outright slapstick humor. I never thought I’d laugh out loud at a woman being impaled by a set of kitchen knives, but I definitely did here. Sadly, this was not really the filmmaker’s intent, because the movie is SUPPOSED to be truly scary. However, it’s hard to be terrified when you’re watching a guy slip on toilet water, fall into his shower, and get strangled by the shower curtain. Not to mention a girl who walks into the street, says “You can all drop dead,” and then gets hit by a bus. Shock humor is fun, and this movie utilizes it to no end. By the time the final sequence rolls around (which involves a clothesline and lightning), you’re watching a movie so gleefully ridiculous you can’t help but enjoy it.

But at its core, Final Destination is really nothing more than an empty, fluffy film that just so happens to have an intriguing premise. There’s not much else that sets it apart from the pack, no memorable scenes, bad acting, bad dialogue, and some pretty dumb sequences. It pains me to say this, because I actually had fun watching it, but it’s nothing more than nonsensical gore and asinine plot points. Its central premise relies on the characters finding messages that death itself sends them, but why does death have a plan OR pattern, and if it did, why would it share it with them? Cheating death is one thing. Cheating the audience, though... that’s the anus of cinema.

Final Score for Final Destination: 4/10 stars. Much like Kick-Ass, Pacific Rim, and Event Horizon, this is an immensely entertaining movie to watch, and the perfect bargain-buy horror movie rental for a slow weekend. Sure, it’s filled with obnoxious characters and confusing death sequences, but that’s what movies like this are made for: Hilarious in-home commentary. It’s by no means a good movie. However, for outside-the-box concepts and chaotic gore, there’s no better place to turn to.

HORROR WEEK: Resident Evil

Horror week, now only halfway complete, is beginning to show signs of slowing down, because frankly, action/horror doesn’t make any sense. You’d think that a movie about a zombie outbreak in a chemical lab that is contained by Milla Jovovich in a pair of ridiculous boots would know enough to not take itself too seriously, but sadly, self-awareness is not an attribute that Resident Evil lends itself to. It’s a Michael Bay movie, but without his warm human touch and excellent scriptwriting. In other words, it’s the bottom of the barrel.

Resident Evil stars Jovovich (the director’s wife, what a coincidence) as Alice, an operative for the Umbrella Corporation, which couldn’t sound any more evil if it tried. After one of the company’s labs releases a virus that turns its technicians into zombies, Alice and a team of racially diverse SWAT guys lead a charge into the underground headquarters to seal it off and blow shit up... or something. But it’s not like people see these things for the plot, which I think is required to give Jovovich amnesia at least once per movie. No, they see it to watch random guys get sliced into cubes by lasers in a scene that looks like it’s straight from a video game. Oh wait-- it is!

Paul W.S. Anderson, who has in the past given us such game-changing hits as Event Horizon, a film about a trans-dimensional demon spaceship, and the Resident Evil sequels, makes little to no effort here to give his characters depth. I suppose I shouldn’t be looking for character development in a movie based off of a cheesy video game, but I’d like something a little more than Michelle Rodriguez playing the tough Latina chick for the 9,000th time in a row. None of the characters are even remotely original; they’re just straight off the chopping block of bad action movie cliches. And what’s really disappointing is that this ISN’T disappointing-- Because it’s what you expected all along.

As for people who go into Resident Evil looking for dumb action and good zombie kills, I guess they’ll be impressed. However, if the concept of seeing a SWAT team get trapped in a room where lasers fly at them and they have to jump them (A-button/B-button/Left trigger/Right trigger), then this is not the movie for you. It’s really just dumb, with very little entertainment value whatsoever. One would think that a movie about zombies, a rogue computer, and badass ninja women would at least have some campy B-movie strengths. However, one would suppose wrong. It’s just a mean-spirited zombie flick that doesn’t bring anything new to the table and basically is just an opportunity for the makeup department to go wild with their zombie effects.

The dialogue, unsurprisingly, is shit. Video game-to-film adaptations aren’t exactly famous for their spectacular scriptwriting, but it really blows me away how badly some of the dialogue in this movie is. People don’t talk like people in Resident Evil; they talk like expressionless and emotionless robots. The most inspired dialogue is when the heavy-handed and blatant political commentary on corporations comes in. If you thought Elysium was too obvious with its message, good holy God, stay away from this one. “Corporations like Umbrella think they’re above the law... but they’re not.” Wow! Such an inspiring piece of social commentary. How scathing.

Final Score for Resident Evil: 2/10 stars. It sucks, but fortunately it’s at least got a small sense of humor about how bad it is. Even the movie’s fans, who constantly crave the next installment in the seemingly unkillable franchise, seem to know how campy, corny, and stupid the movies are. Nothing about it is good, but it doesn’t aspire to be anything more than ridiculous trash, so it comes off as being agreeable popcorn entertainment and a semi-enjoyable distraction from far worse Hollywood blockbusters. If you’re capable of watching a movie while shutting your brain off, then this is truly the film for you.

HORROR WEEK: Halloween

After being told for years that Halloween is the best effort the slasher genre has ever made... I unfortunately am forced to agree. Horror is a fascinating genre, because when it’s successful, it’s good, but when it fails, it’s (no pun intended) horrible. Halloween is at the peak of the slasher subgenre of horror, which features scantily-clad teenagers running around and falling down while being chased by a nutjob in a mask wielding a machete. As one could imagine, that gets old after a while. I really don’t see why someone would put themselves through watching something like this. Either the appeal is just lost on me, or I am the only sane man on the face of the Earth. Maybe a little bit of both.

Halloween is the first installment in the long-running and lucrative Halloween franchise, because (as it always is with horror movies) one wasn’t enough. At the beginning of the movie, a young boy named Michael Meyers (who later went on to star in Austin Powers and Wayne’s World) inexplicably murders his sister and is sent to a mental institution, where he is examined thoroughly by a psychiatrist (Donald Pleasence). After years in isolation, Michael escapes, drives away, and begins to wreak havoc in his hometown once more.

It’s an okay premise, but it’s completely undone by a myriad of horror movie cliches and tropes. In every horror movie, the exact same things happen, and Halloween is no exception. Really, you could chart this and every subsequent horror film quite easily. It starts off with 40 minutes of dialogue and ‘character development’, which mostly consists of bad teenager writing that smacks of a 40-year-old trying to write for young people. It then starts with the lamest of horror scares: The sudden disappearance, where the main character looks out the window, sees the killer, does a double-take, and he’s gone. Of course, this is never creepy enough for her to freak out. She just goes right to sleep.

And then the killing begins... first to go is the topless girl. Then, she and her boyfriend are strung up in various disgusting ways by the killer, just so that whoever stumbles upon them will have a fit. Then, the victim spends a good amount of time crying in the corner, giving the killer a chance to sneak up on her. But fortunately for her, he only has bad aim when he’s trying to kill the main character! I could go on, but it would just be more of the same (much like slashers are). People make dumb decisions like hiding under the bed instead of running away, and then when they DO run, they always fall down. It’s repetitive, boring, and I’m fucking sick of it. There’s only so many times you can watch someone die in a disgusting way before you finally say “You know what? I think I’ll watch something with a brain.”

Final Score for Halloween: 5/10 stars. It gets points for its classic status, and for the fact that it started the entire slasher genre, but I can’t really respect it for starting a genre that I hate. It’s cliched, silly, and (worst of all) it’s not even remotely scary. Everyone makes dumb decisions (such as TEACHING MICHAEL TO DRIVE), nobody knows what’s going on (such as when Jamie Lee Curtis turned her back on Michael, allowing him to escape-- TWICE), and the film simply reeks of bad dialogue and bland acting. It’s a creepy enough movie to watch on Halloween night with your friends, but if you want to see a horror film that is satisfying and intelligent, I suggest you look elsewhere.

HORROR WEEK: Paranormal Activity

When something happens five times, is it still technically classified as “paranormal?” Well, no matter whether it’s original or not, it’s still pretty fucking scary. After the enormous success of The Blair Witch Project, directors everywhere decided that the next frontier of horror lay in the world of found-footage films. Some were shoddy reproductions of the original-- in fact, all of them were. But some of them did it right. Paranormal Activity is one of those special few which actually put some effort into their scares, story, and effects, making it one of the best horror movies of the past decade. But remember... that’s not saying much.

Following in the footsteps of classic horror movies such as The Exorcist, Paranormal Activity is about a malevolent demon that stalks and haunts a girl named Katie and (after she moves in with him) her boyfriend Micah. This premise is far from original, but wonders are done with it. Not many movies are actually capable of making a moving door scary. There’s a lot of scenes in the movie where literally nothing is happening at all, yet the suspense and terror is no less palpable. Sure, there are jump scares, which I regard as being the lowest form of horror, seeing as they’re a cheap and easy way to scare the viewer. But even in between the sudden noises and things that go bump in the night, the movie never lets up the gut-wrenching suspense.

Paranormal Activity is famous for its camera format, in which it uses a typical video camera to tape the events as if it were being filmed by an amateur. However, this concept (as it always does) leads to a lot of problems. Although it does feel more realistic, it also forces the hand of the scriptwriters to write in reasons for the video camera to be present at all times. The result are thousands of throwaway “Put away your stupid camera” lines, which feel increasingly repetitive and out of place. You’d think that eventually, the guy would have the sense to... I don’t know... PUT THE STUPID CAMERA AWAY. Also, it’s pretty easy to tell right from the get-go that none of the cameras used are actually $400 camcorders-- In fact, they’re often some heavy-duty shit. The zoom-ins, framing, and quality are just too precise to be a cheap camera from Best Buy, as the filmmakers purport it to be.

The acting isn’t much to speak of, but then again, nobody really cares about acting in a horror movie. Micah’s character mostly consists of being aloof and self-centered, which really is nothing new to the genre. There’s always the skeptical character who, of course, is eventually proven wrong as the supernatural occurrences become more numerous and frightening. Meanwhile, Katie is pretty generic as well, and all she really has to do throughout the movie is yell “MICAH MICAH I’M SCARED, MICAH OH PLEASE MICAH COME BACK TO BED MICAH.” Sure, looking terrified is a big part of acting in a horror movie. But I really can’t commend the performance of someone who is given so little to work with.

But Paranormal Activity is really at its best when presenting the audience with some of the simplest scares ever crafted. There are extended shots of a door moving, a sheet rustling, footsteps, and a slightly ajar attic door. And I’m not going to lie-- it’s not very involving. However, once you turn off the movie and go to bed, and start hearing strange noises outside... you won’t be able to control the terror. I can’t say much for Paranormal Activity as a filmmaking achievement, but when a movie’s main plot point is the scariness of randomly moving household objects, and it succeeds in scaring the crap out of the viewer, you have to admit that it has some merit.

Final Score for Paranormal Activity: 6/10 stars. It’s pulse-pounding, scary, and involving entertainment, and even though the camerawork is shoddy, the fade-outs are lame, the dialogue is bad, and the acting is even worse, I can’t deny the fact that it actually scared me a bit. And since that’s the one goal of horror movies, well, mission accomplished. It does what it sets out to do-- scare the pants off of people using a minimal budget and random noises. There are plenty of cliches (people being dragged down the hallway is a classic horror effect), but demonic possession never gets old. However, I don’t intend on watching the sequels, as the creators undoubtedly used the ideas that weren’t good enough for the original in the subsequent installments. It’s not that the series is bad... it’s just inevitably repetitive. They should have left it off on a high note and kept the activities paranormal.

HORROR WEEK: Suspiria

Continuing horror week, we now have a film that, I am happy to say, is the outlier of the pack. Suspiria, Dario Argento’s deranged horror classic, is such a breath of fresh air for the genre that I almost want to stop my Halloween horror marathon now in order to leave off on a high note. Doing for the horror genre what Star Wars did for sci-fi, this visually spectacular film revolutionizes practically everything I thought I knew about horror. At its core, it’s what 2013’s Only God Forgives wanted to be-- A visually superb, thinly scripted drama that succeeds due to its spellbinding cinematography and outright lunacy. Thank God at least one of them accomplished this.

Suspiria is, no doubt about it, a surreal film. In fact, this is just as much a piece of surrealism in art as Salvador Dali’s melting clocks. When one watches a movie like this, they shouldn’t expect anything more than to be visually dazzled but deeply confused. As long as they know what they’re getting into, the film should not disappoint. It’s not horror in the conventional sense, but that’s part of the problem. Horror movies should be like this. In the genre, constant suspense is a lot greater asset than the momentary terror of cheap jump scares. And Suspiria keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat.

Suspiria is about Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper), a young American ballet student who travels to Germany to attend a dance academy. Sure, this premise sounds like a romantic comedy, but when the blood starts flowing (within the first five minutes, no less), you forget about the somewhat tame premise and become immersed in the world that the film creates. After a series of deranged and imaginative sequences involving maggots and an epic roof-hanging noose-death, Suzy begins to suspect that something is wrong with the school. A little research reveals that the academy was founded by a witch, and that a coven of witches (the teachers) continue her legacy to this day.

It’s a silly premise, but it definitely works, mostly thanks to the elaborate set design and spooky lighting. Every scene is awash in primary colors, making it beautiful viewing. Long, dark hallway corridors and effective cinematography add to the suspense. Really, if it weren’t for the camerawork and lighting, this wouldn’t be a very scary movie, seeing as most of its premise is ludicrous and none of it makes any sense. But this is a movie that aspires to make sense not to the mind, but to the eyes. It’s one of the few films I’ve seen in which visuals can actually carry weight. There aren’t any spectacular special effects, there aren’t any explosions... but the claustrophobic feel of the movie is incredibly powerful.

Another part of the film’s success is due to Jessica Harper, who has an old-Hollywood feel to her that makes her a very likable character. Her facial expressions convey a lot more than the dialogue she speaks, which is a feat that few actors can accomplish. Even when the story is at its silliest, she still manages to hold it together with a look of pure terror that can frighten even the least energetic moviegoer. It’s not TERRIFYING, but it’s still disconcerting in a very deep way. Somehow, the movie comes off as both uncomfortable yet hugely enjoyable viewing. You could watch this deep into the night with the lights off and enjoy it while seeing it, yet as soon as you turn on the lights, you’ll be terrified.

Final Score for Suspiria: 9/10 stars. This is a great movie, one that defined its genre... or should have. It’s unfortunate that movies like Friday the 13th cater to the larger horror fan base, seeing as they are the anus of cinema. The best horror films are like this one-- tight, tense, strongly written, concise, and visually epic. After seeing teenagers get killed in a cabin for the 9,000th time, you might want to turn to something a little less mindless. This is a horror film that engages not only your adrenaline, but also your mind. What a pleasant surprise.

HORROR WEEK: Scream

When directors take a stab (pun intended) at the horror genre, certain things should be expected of them. Firstly, a little creativity must be involved in the making of the movie, as horror fans have gotten tired of seeing the same old plot played out over and over again. Secondly, attention should be paid to the actors and dialogue, two things that are often neglected in the genre. And finally, the deaths need to be fun. It pains me to say that Wes Craven, the hit-and-miss director who has in the past given us A Nightmare on Elm Street and Deadly Friend, hits only one of those high points with the derivative and boring Scream.

Retelling the classic (or as I like to call it, recycled) story of the small community terrorized by a serial killer, Scream stars Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott, a teenager whose friends begin dropping like flies after a mysterious killer surfaces in her town. After doing in Drew Barrymore in an iconic sequence, the killer (known as Ghostface) goes after Sidney. Now, here’s the thing: Rotten Tomatoes calls this movie a comedy, but there’s nothing funny in it. Sure, there are plenty of cute nods to horror fans, with references to Halloween and some of Craven’s own films, but there’s nothing about a girl being hung from a tree in front of her parents and disemboweled that one can really find humorous. Sorry-- but the movie just isn’t funny. In fact, I don’t even know if that was its intent.

What is probably Scream’s greatest asset soon becomes its worst affliction, as the in-jokes with slasher fans become so numerous and tongue-in-cheek, the casual viewer will want to slit their wrists. The horror genre has become so self-referencing and self-deprecating, it’s nearly impossible to take seriously. Even Scream, which some call a spoof, was in turn spoofed by the even less entertaining Scary Movie. It’s a never-ending cycle of stupidity, emphasized by franchise-blending movies such as Freddy VS Jason. It’s almost as if the genre knows how dumb it’s become, and has decided to accept its fate and live out the rest of its decidedly numbered days as an ever-spinning wheel of bad pop culture references. What a disappointment.

The characters in this film, as if it needed to be said, are one-dimensional and utterly uninvolving. Clearly, this was intentional, as nobody creates characters this badly without knowing what they’re doing (unless they’re Tommy Wiseau). But contrary to popular belief, when you make a crap movie and you KNOW that it’s crap, that doesn’t make it any more of an ‘art form.’ It’s still crap. Perhaps slightly more clean-cut, but crap nonetheless. The dialogue is atrocious, stilted, and annoying. And even the camerawork, which features a ‘spooky’ atmospheric that seems to bend the shape of the lens, is distracting and uninventive. This movie isn’t merely conventional-- it’s aggressively average.

And yes, horror fans, before you lose your minds over my lack of respect for this movie, I understand that it’s supposed to be self-referencing, unimaginative, and an affectionate look back on teen exploitation flicks of old. It holds such campy, bad horror in reverence. But here’s my problem-- Why couldn’t it revere the GOOD ones? Instead of reusing every single horror cliche in the book, why couldn’t Craven (a man who has proven himself time and time again to be very creative with the genre) think of something new to bring to the table other than this lackluster and banal exercise in dreary camp? How depressing.

But for all its flaws, Scream does deliver some good scares, some ridiculously over-the-top deaths (one even involves a garage door), and a damn good plot twist at the end. Although it’s not good by any means, the movie still was able to cohere a story that should keep less demanding horror fans watching. And although the dialogue is bad, the acting is worse, and the whole thing is one big amalgam of ideas stolen from other, better films... it’s still a far better movie than Friday the 13th.

Final Score for Scream: 3/10 stars. This is pretty lenient, but I suppose that I had a fun time with the film at the end of the day. If you’re willing to set aside more interesting horror movies for a while, turn off your brain, and watch something with absolutely no redeeming qualities other than pure and unbridled entertainment value, you won’t be disappointed. I just hope that this obnoxious exercise in pop crap is just a momentary detour from the genre. Because as the number of horror films I see for horror week gets higher... so do my standards.

HORROR WEEK: American Psycho

Good news, drama fans-- Social commentary is alive and well in the world of cinema. It’s not often that a director can blend horror and scathing humor in such an effective way as in American Psycho, but it’s definitely pulled off here. One doesn’t usually look for biting wit in a horror movie-- especially not one about a psychopathic Wall Street partner who murders people in his spare time-- but the beauty of American Psycho is that you don’t even have to look for it. It hits you over the head with the bludgeoning force of pure insanity.

American Psycho stars Christian Bale as Pat Bateman, a well-off member of the creme de la creme of Wall Street. He has a corner office, a hot secretary, a fiance, and a beautiful penthouse with an epic view. However, he also has a crippling addiction to murder. Firstly, let me say that I loved how well the film plays off of horror movies of old, giving Psycho a fresh and undeniably entertaining twist, while still being original enough to have merit of its own. Instead of presenting us with the typical horror tale, it puts a twist on everything, making the killer the lead, and in the process forcing the audience to become accomplices to his killings. Undoubtedly, those watching it will feel the same malice that Bateman does when murdering innocent people. Which is unsettling... but that’s the point.

Before seeing American Psycho, I was under the impression that Bale was a bit of a bland, boring, and overrated actor. His performances in The Dark Knight trilogy and Rescue Dawn were overrated at best, and his line delivery (especially if it sounds like he has throat cancer) is weak. However, this performance blew me away. Never before have I seen the character of a serial killer tackled with such precision, intensity, and outright glee. He injects an incredible amount of energy into an otherwise one-note character, and the result is some truly classic scenes. Bale has never been more entertaining to watch, and if for nothing else, see American Psycho for him.

The dialogue is spectacular for the most part, but the haphazard scripting is often saved by Bale’s giddy insanity. Coining such seemingly innocuous (yet, in context, extremely creepy) lines such as “Do you like Huey Lewis and the News?” the movie trucks along at a mile a minute, keeping the audience riveted. When one makes a shock/thriller like this, they are forced into outperforming themselves in every scene as the movie progresses, so as not to let up on the suspense. But American Psycho will keep asses in the seats... provided that the audience members don’t have weak stomachs.

But although American Psycho definitely deserves commendation for its epic scripting and memorable performances, it can’t help but be a little scattershot. At the end of the day, the movie boils down to a series of well-done yet emotionally empty scenes that have little weight to carry. It’s pretty haphazard, but as long as you don’t expect it to be very coherent, you’ll have a good time. And really, it’s hard to be picky when you get to see Christian Bale axing a guy in the forehead yelling “TRY GETTING A RESERVATION AT DORSIA NOW, YOU FUCKING STUPID BASTARD!!!”

And really, American Psycho is a horror/thriller, but it’s also a commentary on the mentality of Wall Street, capitalism, and society in general. There are scenes that borrow heavily from horror classics, sure. But the movie is at its best when it shows the insanity of the banking world as crazier than Bateman himself. One scene, in which Bateman and his friends sit around a table comparing each other’s business cards and sizing the competition up, speaks a lot more about the world of money than the world of serial killers. Not only is it entertaining, but those who have soul-crushing jobs in the industry should take away a lot from it.

Final Score for American Psycho: 8/10 stars. Not only is this film terrifying, it’s terrifyingly ACCURATE. It portrays a man who is crazy in two ways: For power and for blood. And surprisingly, the time when he is craziest is when he is leading a normal life, pretending to be a whole person. “There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable... I simply am not there.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

HORROR WEEK: Friday the 13th

For the past decade or so, there’s been a visible decline in the overall quality of the horror genre. Most horror films made since 2000 have been remakes, re-hashes, and gag-inducing sequels. The once-promising genre seems to be dying a slow and painful death, and a lot of people look back on the ‘glory days’ of horror, back in the 70’s and 80’s, as a time when the genre had some merit. However, movies like Friday the 13th should make people remember that even back then, the genre was crap. Sure, there have always been some outstanding additions to the horror film canon, but those are most certainly outliers. As a rule, horror movies are bad. And this is one genre where if something’s bad... it’s REALLY bad.

Friday the 13th is a perfect example of this. Supposedly a ‘slasher classic’ (as if there were such a thing), this monotonous, repetitive, and boring movie tries and fails on multiple levels to grip the audience, but can’t muster so much as a decent scare or good line of dialogue. Few movies are actually inept on every level, but this certainly takes the prize-- it has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It features the classic horror plot (which at this point deserves to be called ‘recycled’)-- a group of young twentysomethings go out to a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and are subsequently attacked by a mysterious killer. How original.

The movie was clearly made for shock value and nothing else, seeing as no effort was put into the characters or plot. But even the deaths are lame. Horror movies are made to be scary, but I wasn’t scared once throughout this entire movie. There wasn’t even a decent jump scare, for God’s sake. And that’s not something that’s hard to do. Usually, when horror directors aren’t very good, they ratchet up the suspense not through consistent, palpable terror, but by utilizing sudden noises and unexpected deaths to make the audience members jump out of their seats. But Friday the 13th couldn’t even accomplish that. Pathetic.

Seeing as this so-called “horror” movie doesn’t have any actual “horror” in it, that should really speak volumes about how inept the rest of it is. Normally when a movie is bad, you can tell that all the effort went straight into one aspect of it, while the filmmakers neglected the rest of it. Michael Bay pays a ridiculous amount of attention to explosions, and none to the characters. Nicolas Winding Refn spends all his time getting intricate lighting and camerawork, but forgets to actually write a script. Meanwhile, Friday the 13th director Sean S. Cunningham spent absolutely no time on every aspect of the movie’s creation. The gore is unrealistic, the scares are nonexistent, the dialogue is atrocious, the plot is repetitive, and the acting absolutely REEKS. “If you were a flavor of ice cream, what flavor would you be?” Holy good God! Did the writers actually think that real people in REAL LIFE TALK LIKE THAT? I hope not. It’s like pod people trying to emulate human small-talk, but coming off as robotic and generic. It’s inexcusable.

I could overlook a few minor flaws in plot points when it comes to the horror genre, because everything we see nowadays in horror has been done to the death (no pun intended). But when a movie hits every trope, idiom, and lackluster scene that makes the genre the laughingstock of cinema, it’s hard to ignore it. This movie is so generic it hurts. From the crazy old coot who warns the group about a “death curse” to a retarded twist ending that will have people slapping their heads over the idiocy of a reverse Psycho rip-off, this movie is truly the ultimate grab-bag of lame horror cliches. I want to cut it some slack because most horror buffs call it a ‘classic,’ but when the scariest moment in your horror film is a snake, I see no reason to.

Final Score for Friday the 13th: 1/10 stars. This is not only the anus of horror movies, it’s the anus of cinema in general. It has horrible acting, reprehensible dialogue, and takes a good forty minutes to even ATTEMPT to deliver a good scare. The horror genre has a lot of potential, and I wish that better horror films were made nowadays... but movies like this not only make me lose hope for the genre, they actually give me a newfound respect for horror of today-- Even Resident Evil 5. Because even though most horror films today recycle old ideas, at least they’re original enough to stand alone. If only the same could be said for Friday the 13th.

FILM REVIEWS: Evil Dead

Oh good God... where to begin. Let’s start by saying that I respect the original Evil Dead movie (maybe a bit less now) because even though I hate the horror genre with a PASSION, The Evil Dead basically started it. It was original, which earns it a lot of points in my book. But not only that, it was an exercise in low-budget, campy, yet entertaining horror. THAT is what directors should be doing with the horror genre nowadays; not revisiting old classics and neutering them like this. Basically, Evil Dead represents the worst tendencies of the genre-- excessive gore porn, gratuitously unimaginative decapitations, and the WORST. DIALOGUE. EVER. Let us begin... the anus asunder-tearing.

Evil Dead is the 2013 remake of the horror classic, which really should have been left alone. I don’t understand people who call themselves horror fans, yet loved this movie. If someone remade Raiders of the Lost Ark or Die Hard, it wouldn’t matter if it was any good-- THAT’S JUST NOT FUCKING DONE. You don’t touch a classic, a plain and simple fact that seems to have eluded Sam Raimi, who has gone back to his most famous film and redone it with better special effects George Lucas-style. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a genocide. Why can’t directors just leave their movies and their franchises alone? When will Hollywood learn that reboots never work?

Anyway... Evil Dead basically takes everything you loved about the original and flushes it down the toilet. Instead of practical, claustrophobic pacing, we are given an unabashedly stupid story about a group of five kids (it’s always five) who stay at a cabin in the woods in the middle of nowhere in order to help one of their group overcome her crippling addiction to generic movie drugs. Sure, this is a new take on the now-monotonous story, but it just drives the point home that this movie should never have been made. It just tries so hard to be different from the original, but overall it’s just an unremarkable movie that spends so much time setting up death scenes that it doesn’t bother to even PRETEND to be creative.

Anyway, long story short: They find a book bound with human flesh in a dungeon filled with cat bodies. Of course, the next logical step is to read the fucking thing out loud, ignoring the warnings scrawled in blood all over the pages and summoning a shitload of demons from hell... or whatever. First the crack addict gets possessed (and they can’t tell for a while, because... she’s a crack addict) in the exact same way as the original did it: Rape by tree branches. She then proceeds to go full raging methhead on them, forcing the gang to lock her in the basement. Then some other girl gets possessed, which the director uses as an excuse to have someone literally try to cut their face off with a shard of glass. If that doesn’t make you sick to your stomach, well, I guess the legions of horror junkies who eat this shit up have gotten to you already. Anyway, the last female character gets possessed, leaving the two guys to fend for themselves. And they do so surprisingly well, even after getting shot at least two dozen times with a nail gun. They’re such troopers.

But the biggest sin this movie commits is the finale. After burying his crackhead sister alive, the main character digs her back up (assuming that the demon is gone from her body) and tries to revive her using an improvised defibrillator. And, even though she had been in a car accident, burned by boiling water, buried alive, and possessed by the devil, she miraculously recovers. But then another one of the baddies is back, and the main character has to shoot a gas tank to kill it, but that kills him in the process. So now the main character is dead. And we’re supposed to start rooting for his druggie sister immediately without even questioning why the director JUST KILLED OFF THE HERO OF THE MOVIE. Seriously. It’s fucking stupid.

This atrocity tries to be campy horror, but all it achieves is being horrifically campy. It goes absolutely over-the-top, with a rainstorm of blood, incredibly gross and pointless vomiting sequences, and a complete lack of good taste or entertainment. Also, it somehow feels the need to cause every character to lose a hand at some point. Fucking brilliant shit right there, man. It does nothing more than set itself up again and again for the most blatant, banal, and generically egregious decapitation sequences ever put to film. This is a total fucking embarrassment to the genre, and all but kills the memory of what the once-great horror genre was like back in the 70s and 80s.

Oh, did I mention that the dialogue is terrible? Characters say bland horror movie dialogue as if they just want to get through the movie without putting in any actual effort. And not only that, but they do it in the most boring way possible: Monotone delivery with Kristen Stewart’s facial expressions. Watching these useless and interchangeable characters rattle off their memorized lines without one iota of acting capability is bad enough, but when they’re telling pitifully generic backstory about supposedly heartbreaking deaths in the family via wordy exposition? Oh God, somebody slit my wrists.

Final Score for Evil Dead: 2/10 stars. Really, unless you’re a psychopathic killer who gets off by watching people get decapitated, I see no reason to watch this movie. It’s offensive to all five of my senses. Yeah, I could SMELL the bad emanating off of this thing. The bottom line: This is a grossly misguided, unnecessary, boring, gory, ugly remake of a far superior movie. But it’s also a perfect analogy of what horror has become. I just never thought the genre would stoop this low.