Imbolc 2002

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Editorial

Editorial by Marc Calavera

I want to talk about horror movies today. Horror movies have been enjoying a resurgence at the box office for whatever reason, and we've all been flocking to see them. But I wonder if we're doing the right thing.

Most of today's horror movies are crap, don't you think?

Let me take a few of the more widely talked about movies and show you what I mean.

We started in the nineties recovering from all the slasher movies. Sort of. At least the slasher flicks became more self-aware, like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. I didn't care for these, except for some of the silly characters. They were just more hip versions of Jason and Michael trying to decimate the population of America for no real reason other than the fact that teens can be annoying.

Can't we all?

The next really new thing was the Blair Witch Project. Everyone said it was scary, there was a HUGE buzz and even that fake thing on the Sci-Fi Channel (which had my nephew absolutely convinced that the whole thing was for real). So we went, and we came home--or at least I did--and said, "That's it? I shelled out six-and-a-half bucks for that?"

Drew Carey called it the Blair Boring Witch Project, and I can't say I disagree. The film wasn't particularly good, wasn't particularly well-plotted, wasn't even particularly scary. The story wobbled with the camera and was completely unbalanced. The bouncing "reality TV"-inspired angles gave my girlfriend motion sickness and on her way out of the theatre towards the bathroom, she said "Let me know if I miss anything."

She didn't.

What it was was different. That's what Hollywood needs today: different. It was a good start. Unfortunately, what Hollywood did next was take a step back.

When I heard they were going to remake The Haunting, I was both excited and disgusted. Excited because the original Haunting is one of my favorite horror movies of all time. All the creepy takes place off camera and lets you imagine the whole thing. I slept with a light on the first time I saw it. I thought, so now, with what we can do today, it has so much more scary potential, it will be great.

I was disgusted because Hollywood had, of course, already been there, done that. I should have known, because they actually made it less scary than the original. Not only that, but they made it trendy by playing the abused children card. Sure the effects were great, but hell, the only scary scene in the whole thing was [SPOILER WARNING!] Owen Wilson losing his head.

These are just two of the films that illustrate the whole trend of scary films, and I had pretty much resigned myself to more of the same, until The Sixth Sense and The Others came along. The Sixth Sense, while not entirely original and fresh, had a new take on the "I see dead people" theme (managing to be both hip and fresh), and two excellent, if underappreciated, actors to pull it off.

And The Others. The Others brought back my faith in Hollywood moviemaking, thank God. The Others was what I hoped the revamped Haunting would be. All of the scary stuff off camera, creeping me out with the actors' reactions. It was different, with the new take on the haunted house story, it was interesting, a real I-forgot-about-the-popcorn flick. And it had a twist ending that worked--something you don't see very often anymore.

And who expected Nicole Kidman to act that well? Not I. I saw her in To Die For.

So perhaps Hollywood can still produce a few good horror flicks.

At the very least, they're not making any more Know What You Did Last Summer flicks.

I hope.