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Post by Michael West on Mar 1, 2006 7:40:20 GMT -5
Ash Wednesday.
Being a Catholic, this means I must fast today and eat no meat. But what I do get to eat today, and every Friday for the next month and a half, is a lot of seafood! ;D
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Post by Michael West on Mar 23, 2006 6:32:18 GMT -5
Got a rejection letter from Cthulhu Sex magazine for my story "Trolling." It wasn't exactly what they were looking for. Funny. Tom Moran and others who read it said that Cthulhu Sex sprung immediately to mind as the perfect market for it.
Well, as has been the case most of my life, when a door closes, another opens up. I was at my Indiana Horror Writers meeting on Monday, and one of the members suggested I try Playboy. I must admit, I had never considered it, but it did feel like a good fit for this tale. I sent a query e-mail to the magazine to see if there would be any interest, and they responded the next day saying, "Send the story to us at..."
Needless to say I was pleased. Being published in Playboy would be BIG for my career, and so I have my fingers and toes crossed that they will like the tale and will give it a home.
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Post by Michael West on Apr 2, 2006 11:20:46 GMT -5
Got a rejection from Cemetery Dance. No notes or suggestions, but Timid came over to visit last night and I read the story aloud to him. We were up until 3am (which had really become 4am) discussing it. He had many wonderful suggestions. Hopefully the tale will now find a home with the next magazine I submit it to. ;D
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Post by Michael West on Apr 7, 2006 6:06:58 GMT -5
Thank God it's Friday!!!! ;D Been a loooong week. Getting some great pollishing work done on a story I hope to submit to Dark Discoveries. Will keep you all posted. Will spend much of tonight and tomorrow installing ceiling fans. Yippy. However, I do plan to see Slither Saturday night. Looks like a blast! Sunday is going to be a day for just me and the wife. We're going for a little get away and some much needed fun.
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Post by Michael West on Apr 9, 2006 21:50:51 GMT -5
Well, my weekend was a mixed bag. Spent Friday night and all day Saturday trying to install ceiling fans in my sons rooms and my office. Got one of the three done and the rest in various stages of completion. Didn't get "done" until almost 11pm yesterday. Too late for me to get to the late show of Slither. Now plan to go to that Tuesday night. Today was a day for my wife and I to get away. No kids. We spent the day at a little get away, then did some shopping. I had a lay-away at Hot Topic that I paid off. However, when I got home, I found that the clerk forgot to take the security tags off. I thought I could remove them myself, but anti-theft technology has come a long way since I worked retail. These tags shatter, filling your fingers with shrapnel. Then, they squirt a blue dye. Thank God the shirt I had was black! Got one of the tags off, but will have to take the rest of the shirts back to the store to have the others removed. Didn't get any real writing done this weekend, but came up with the idea for a new tale. Might turn into something interesting.
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Post by Michael West on Apr 12, 2006 6:36:19 GMT -5
Saw Slither last night. What a great movie! It was funny, and scary, and it knew how to blend the two well. There were only about 10 people in the theater, but everyone was enjoying themselves. It is such a shame that the movie is not doing better at the box office. Once this thing hits DVD, however, I predict it will be HUGE. It's the perfect party movie, the way Evil Dead 2 and Bad Taste were in the 80s (and still are IMHO). This was the most fun I have had at a movie in ages! ;D Got a large popcorn, thinking that whatever I did not eat, I could take home to the kids. I ate about a forth of it and was going to have them top it off before I left (Gotta take advantage of those free refills!), but the stand was closed. I'm behind in writing my reviews. Expect postings for Slither and Hills Have Eyes soon.
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Post by Michael West on Apr 15, 2006 7:42:51 GMT -5
Well...spent the night in my basement due to tornado warnings. House is still standing and everything appears to be fine. Had some pretty good hail storms, one lasting about 10 minutes. I've never seen it hail that long before. Just had Dish Network installed about a week ago and I got to experience my first weather-related outage. It's bad when you can't watch the news to see where the storms are, had to listen to the warnings and reports on the radio. But this morning, the sun is shining and all seems to be right with the world. ;D Spending the day finishing that ceiling fan installation, and tonight will color eggs with G-fan, Killer Penguin, and Timid. Should be a lot of fun. Also, finished my revisions on that pesky short story Cemetery Dance rejected. Hope to get Timid's opinion tonight and re-submit it this week.
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Post by Michael West on Apr 18, 2006 3:43:39 GMT -5
Watched Celebrity Cooking Challenge on NBC tonight with the wife, and it struck me...why do Hollywood executives think they can do things better than the Japanese? You could go back to Seven Samurai's evolution into The Magnificent Seven, or Raymond Burr being cut into Godzilla and Godzilla 1985, but it has really stepped up in recent years with the remakes of already great J-Horror films like Ringu, Dark Water, and Ju-on. To the average viewer, Celebrity Cooking Challenge is just another reality game show featuring actors and sports figures, but fans of The Food Network's Iron Chef know better. This is a rip-off! One that lacks all of the charm and unintentional humor that made that original show a must watch event in my house for several years. For those who are unfamiliar with the wild and wacky world that is Iron Chef, here's a brief overview: A chef walks into Kitchen Stadium to challenge a master of a certain style of cooking (Italian, Chinese, French, Japanese) to a duel. The Chairman, a man named Kaga, who supposedly used his vast fortune to built this arena, then unveils a "Secret Ingredient" (anything from sea urchin egg sacks to Kobe beef) that both chefs must use in all their dishes. After an hour of hilarious play-by-play (both dubbed and subtitled), the dishes are tasted and judged by a panel that usually included actors, actresses, singers, and fortune tellers. NBC kept the ticking clock, but they jettisoned everything else that made that show great. There is no weird "Secret Ingredient." Instead, the participants just make whatever the hell they want in an hour. There are no chefs to challenge, the celebs all cook, and the professional chefs get to run in and bail them out at various points in the match. The tasting at the end is done by a pair of food critics with no personality. And worst of all, instead of a Chairman Kaga (or even a William Shatner from the American Iron Chef special of a few years ago), you are forced to listen to Alan Thicke voice overs the whole time! The show did have one nice little twist of having 2 ingredients for each stars dishes hidden in a pantry, forcing them to run to the other side of the stage, burning up time as they searched for them, but it would have been so much more fun to see celebrities going head to head with the actual chefs. (Can you imagine Wolfgang Puck being beaten by Miss USA? ) Instead, we get pampered C-list "stars" against other pampered C-list "stars" with the pros there to teach them how to read a cookbook! To all those executives out there who might be trying to find a way to turn other Japanese programs into dumb American reality shows, listen to your high school Home Ec teacher: Don't tinker with a good recipe? Leave well enough alone!
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Post by Timid Wily Lava Child on Apr 18, 2006 12:47:07 GMT -5
Watched Celebrity Cooking Challenge ...This is a rip-off! One that lacks all of the charm and unintentional humor that made that original show a must watch event in my house for several years. ...NBC kept the ticking clock, but they jettisoned everything else that made that show great. ... the professional chefs get to run in and bail them out at various points in the match. ...The show did have one nice little twist of having 2 ingredients for each stars dishes hidden in a pantry, forcing them to run to the other side of the stage, burning up time as they searched for them, ... To all those executives out there who might be trying to find a way to turn other Japanese programs into dumb American reality shows... It may be less about the Japanese show than you're presently thinking. For instance the chefs balling people out - that's a recent facet of American tv. A show called Hell's Kitchen was based almost entirely around arranging for the superstar chef to have opportunities to do this (it also featured chefs hiding others' ingredients to stall them). (*edit - I just realized that you wrote "bail" them out, not "ball" them out. My mistake, and it dilutes my point) The contest show, and the celebrity show - these are having a resurgence again as well, and in a sense, how could you do a cookoff without seeming like Iron Chef? How could you have a venue that doesn't resemble Kitchen Stadium (which it sounds like it might have, from your description - I didn't see it)? Or not have a time limit? And doing that, why, then, would you toss in those other Iron Chef elements, unless you did want to rip it off? I submit that it was inevitably similar in the ways in which it was, and that its badness is owed not to being a copy of something they had no right to steal from the venerated Japanese, present source of all that is good, but rather is due to the producers being horribly inept at producing anything of quality at all. I would wager that it's the same with these horror remakes. They aren't crappy because they dared to proceed from good source material, their punishment for stepping into the Holy Land of Horror, but because, as I have written before of the current state of horror cinema - they're *bad*. Badly acted, badly written, badly timed, silly, and well, but inappropriately, edited, and well photographed. These folks, in lieu of badly remaking a decent Japanese-H film, would have just badly made some other horror film. And let's face it, horror films today are about marketing packages, so the connection to some other work isn't motivated by a steal, or a creative out, it's just the hook, part of the financial equation. The viewing public has tought producers that if they spend 8 or less million dollars on a film featuring one, decent (in acting ability) 20-something tv star, a skilled music video director, a skilled music video editor, a skilled music video cinematographer, and some hook, they absolutely will make their small amount of money back with interest. All of the other things that make a film worth seeing need not apply - in fact, it would be better if they didn't. Quality seems to be a problem for the horror film audience. Dark Water? Devil's Rejects? Slither? Romero's recent thing? Flops, even within their own genre. The thoroughly enjoyable remake of Dawn Of The Dead and its predecessor, 28 Days Later were clearly aberrations in that they were both films of quality, and successful. I know I've argued this quality thing before, to the ire of some on this board, but I stand by it. Great scary movies are very few and far between, usually many years apart, and now people won't go see them. Crappy ones have been coming out at the rate of one every 2-3 weeks for 16 months straight. Japan's got nothing to do with it. Want to see a great horror film? Try Hard Candy. I know, I know, it's a "thriller", which probably means that by some pedantic standard it's not really a horror film, but it has been called genuinely creepy, genuinely suspenseful, and genuinely shocking. Of course, since it's well done, it has been relegated to limited run status, which means locally, it will play the art house. Go figure.
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Post by Michael West on Apr 19, 2006 23:00:10 GMT -5
It may be less about the Japanese show than you're presently thinking...I submit that it was inevitably similar in the ways in which it was, and that its badness is owed not to being a copy of something they had no right to steal from the venerated Japanese, present source of all that is good, but rather is due to the producers being horribly inept at producing anything of quality at all. I would wager that it's the same with these horror remakes. They aren't crappy because they dared to proceed from good source material, their punishment for stepping into the Holy Land of Horror, but because, as I have written before of the current state of horror cinema - they're *bad*. Badly acted, badly written, badly timed, silly, and well, but inappropriately, edited, and well photographed. These folks, in lieu of badly remaking a decent Japanese-H film, would have just badly made some other horror film. I'm not saying Japan is The Holy Land, Dave. Well...it is, for me at any rate , but we will not stray from the point. I'm just sick of a lack of creativity in general. Entertainment Weekly did this big story a few weeks ago about where the next big franchises were going to come from. They were all remakes or adaptations from other material. I would just like to see some hot young (or maybe not so young anymore) writers' new visions and ideas get a shot at seeing the Xenon light, that's all. And I have given up trying to win you over on the whole J-Horror thing, but I think there are some very bright spots in American horror as of late. I greatly enjoyed The Hills Have Eyes, which kind of goes against everything I just said--it being a remake and all. And then there's Slither, Dave. Slither. Pure...joy. ;D
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Post by Michael West on Apr 19, 2006 23:13:43 GMT -5
Well, received a nice critique of a story I recently finished. It was a long one too. Over 8,000 words. Glad it didn't totally suck. ;D Ready to send it, and another tale I just did a polish on, out into the cruel world in hopes that they find homes. A member of my writers group recently had another sale by a professional (and well-paying) publication. I listened to his announcement in the same way I listen to my brother talk about the threesomes he's had: really happy for him, but jealous as Hell that the same thing isn't happening for me. On the bright side, my tale "God Like Me" is about to be released as part of the limited edition Raw Meat anthology. All of the authors are signing name plates, so each book will have my autograph on the inside cover. I will give more info as I have it. Well, enough of this web surfing. Need to get some writing done before bed.
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Post by Timid Wily Lava Child on Apr 20, 2006 2:03:18 GMT -5
I'm not saying Japan is The Holy Land, Dave. Well...it is, for me at any rate , but we will not stray from the point. You've acknowledged it. That's step one. You're on your road to a cure. You've taken your first step into a larger world. I'm just sick of a lack of creativity in general. Entertainment Weekly did this big story a few weeks ago about where the next big franchises were going to come from. They were all remakes or adaptations from other material. The fact that they're asking "where the next franchises will come from" ought to have said it. Why that, and not just "the next great films"? They're thinking about movies the way people think about sports teams. Franchises, indeed. I would just like to see some hot young (or maybe not so young anymore) writers' new visions and ideas get a shot at seeing the Xenon light, that's all. Same here, and I took that out of it, I just don't think it has to do with ripping off stuff so much as with what's done with stuff, ripped or not. And I have given up trying to win you over on the whole J-Horror thing, You're going to have to forgive me if I never call it that though. I've never been one to embrace jargon. It tends to sound exclusionary, and I hate being enculturated. (I remember being at your wedding rehearsal, and refering to a piece of "japanimation" I'd enjoyed, and someone correctively saying, "Some people call it anime, Dave." It was really smug. I never used that term again, unless I was discussing things I did not like about the genre with someone else who brought up the word. Mind you, there's some of that I like, but I'm just saying... but I think there are some very bright spots in American horror as of late. I greatly enjoyed The Hills Have Eyes, which kind of goes against everything I just said--it being a remake and all. The Hills Have Eyes is a "very bright spot"? I'm remembering someone saying that Pumpkinhead was the best horror film since Aliens. And then there's Slither, Dave. Slither. Pure...joy. ;D I do wish we had been able to see that one together. I suspect I would have liked it. Should be gone by tomorrow though, so I'll miss it.
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Post by obliv326 on Apr 20, 2006 3:39:06 GMT -5
a couple quick things...
when ent weekly is talking about new franchises, almost by default they are going to have to be adaptations of familiar material. frfanchise implies a film and a built in number of sequels, which in itself implies a number of stories, hence you are going to look to established characters from other media. after all, how can you possible know what films are going to dewserve sequels before you release them?
the only examples i can think of are the lord of the rings trilogy, and what a disaster that would have been if the films had not been great. even harry potter didnt start shooting the next one before the fikrst was released, and it was virtually guaranteed a hit, regardless of quality...and i would argue that the first films lack of quality is proof of that.
you also run the risk of looking silly if you think youre starting a franchise and you fail. anyoine remember remo williams: the adventure begins? if not, that was the title, or something like it...assuming a string of sequelse to follow, w/fred ward in the title role, in what i think they assumed would be the next james bond...we're still waiting for that sequel.
one other point, re: horror, and ive made it before...you seem to want to close the book on some films w/definitive statements of their obvious badness, as if it were a given. horror movies are notorious for being ahead of their audience. just b/c a film doesnt instantly registere w/an audience doesnt mesan it is a failure and is doomed to be spat upon for all time. many of the things you are saying about devils rejects or land of the derad were said about the thing and blade runner 25 years ago. ive had the same thing happen myself. there are movies i watched a few years ago and thought very little of, then gave them a chance later and liked wquite a bit. day of the dead is a perfect example. i saw it on video in 1985/86 around there, didnt like it...didnt even really watch it all the way through, i was so disinterested. a few years back, i rented it, on a whim, when the special edition dvd came out. i liked it so much i ended up buying it. right now it stands up pretty well to dawn, which is one of my all time faves.
not only that, but i think its a little unfair to throw some of the films youve mentioned under the bus. i liked the dawn remake, and 28 days later, but i dont think you can just write off devil's rejects, or slither, and certainly not land of the dead, as complete abject failures. i know you like to assume pumpkinhead is a joke, but i dont remember thinking it was that horrible.
as far as the standasrd for success, i dont know the box office of those films...seems like rejects did fairly well, if the others disappointed at the box office, but i know critically all of those films have some solid support and received at least fairly positive reviews, acknowledging also that there are a core group of critics who absolutely will not give a pos review to a horror film, so even split reviews can indicate a success. i believe devils rejects did very well in home video. house of 1000 dolls did, finding its audience only after it hit the dvd mkt. i am pretty certain land did, and i would be willing to bet slither will be a hige hit on video. and as we speak, i am watching hostel, which i believe did pretty well both critically and financially, and has a great dvd release. saw 2 did pretty well also...i can go on naming fiolms that would disprove the "failure" of horror cinema that have come out recently...i just dont think it is the doomed genre that you seem to be painting...and in fact, when you factor in the ancillary mkts, i would bet that most horror films of any note do pretty well
as far as the horror audience, i dont think they are less discriminating, theyre just loyal. these movies have taken such a critical drubbing for so long, even the good ones, that the audience has to ignore most critical voicess and blindly follow their hearts. and as a guy who sees almost every horror movie at some point, i have tgo say tghey dont disappoint me a lot. most of them at least work on some level for a while, and as an aspiring film maker there are lessons to be tgaken from even certain parts of house of wax, or the exorcist prequel.
and for the record, i thought wrong turn was really effective.
you know, horror isnt the thing for everyone. obviously, you either have problems accepting it or you slide into kt more easily. i understand your criticisms of some of the genre offerings, but i dont think its quite as dire as you seem to believe.
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Post by Timid Wily Lava Child on Apr 21, 2006 0:00:55 GMT -5
Blast. I hate it when I'm the orange. anyoine remember remo williams: the adventure begins? if not, that was the title, or something like it...assuming a string of sequelse to follow, w/fred ward in the title role, in what i think they assumed would be the next james bond... I have spent much of my life avoiding that film. In my youth, I had a sixth sense about certain pictures, and everything I saw regarding this movie made it look like it would be dull, dull, dull. Well, it was a Movie Night movie a few weeks ago. My friend Scott and I diligently tried to make our film shoot go late, and even stuck around to talk with our friend Tom, but when we arrived at my place, they had held it, waiting for us. So I've now seen it. My lifespan has been shortened. It was as unyieldingly boring as everything I am made of had warned me, nonverbally, that it would be. horror movies are notorious for being ahead of their audience. just b/c a film doesnt instantly registere w/an audience doesnt mesan it is a failure and is doomed to be spat upon for all time. many of the things you are saying about devils rejects or land of the derad were said about the thing and blade runner 25 years ago...not only that, but i think its a little unfair to throw some of the films youve mentioned under the bus. i liked the dawn remake, and 28 days later, but i dont think you can just write off devil's rejects, or slither, and certainly not land of the dead, as complete abject failures. That's an extremely good point, the time-release thing, and one of which I am aware, and make myself often. But I think you mistook some of my message. I cited Devil's, 28, Dawn remake, Slither, Dark Water and such as good films. Unfortunately, they're also the least financially successful horror movies of 2005. My contention in this message was that American horror cinema, as a genre, is lurching toward artistic death because films which, as i would put it, seem to suck, are almost guaranteed to be financially safe. They're cheap to make, and they make good on the investment. With the exception of the Dawn remake and 28, the others I listed, the few films in the horror genre which were generally well received, considered Good Movies, if you will, actually did NOT do well, even in the shallow financial level* company of their lesser counterparts. (* on average, a horror movie needs to make about 20 million to recoup its costs. A Matthew McConaughey movie needs to hit about 100 million. No, really.) That's what astonishes me, and bothers me. The well made movies, and I don't mean just some that work on some level, but the ones that work as entire films - those seem to be rejected by their very audience. The shlock, on the other hand, is embraced? Now I can understand the latter in cases where it has been, say, 9 months since anything scary has come out at all. Then it's a treat, even if only on the level of a ride at a Poor Jack fair, but that's not where we are at the moment. We've been getting 2 a month now for 16 months. I mean - even here. I haven't read all of Mike's reviews, because I haven't seen all of these films, but the primary passion I've seen taken up on these boards regarding horror cinema has been with the rating, with having to put up with PG-13 rated versions of movies. Not acting, cleverness of plot, creepyness, engagingness - but the 20 seconds of red gunk coming out of someone's sliced armpit. Yeah, that's what's wrong with horror film today. But I fear that low level of expectation of all but the splatter factor is representative enough that little else needs to be catered to anymore. You don't have to make a good Alien sequel, just an Alien sequel. I mean... I'll take a Friday the 13th Part 3 once every couple of years or so. Good grief, I've recently run that very film myself, in 3-D, three times, on that very schedule! But I'd like to have a few more Shinings per each of those. What? i know you like to assume pumpkinhead is a joke, but i dont remember thinking it was that horrible. No, I don't assume it's a joke, I just don't like it. It's bitter and uncreepy. You and I saw it together, I believe, and we were kind of bored by it at the time too. Not that horrible isn't my yardstick, certainly not for Very Bright Spots, if it was once supoposed to be representative of one. It was no near-Aliens, I'll tell ya that. as far as the standasrd for success, i dont know the box office of those films...seems like rejects did fairly well, Not really - and I say that as a lament, because it was well received (artistically - I should be clearer about these things). Pretty much only those (critics) who can't like horror films turned their noses at it. That's the thing. We can run The Boogeyman, and get a sold out house Friday at 10pm. But Hostel? Wolf Creek? Slither? Bupkiss, comparatively (man, Slither - almost *no one* came to see that!). And that's reflected nationally. i believe devils rejects did very well in home video. house of 1000 dolls did, finding its audience only after it hit the dvd mkt. i am pretty certain land did, and i would be willing to bet slither will be a hige hit on video And good for them, but my point is, the way business is, those who finance this stuff are going to look at Rejects, Land o' the Dead, Dark Water, Slither etc. and see them doing well on video, but note that so did Alone in the Dark, Aliens Vs. Predator and The Fog (remake) - those had *already* made their money back in theaters. So make more of those, and less of the others. It's a bad trend, I think. In a few years there may just not *be* a Slither. Only a The Fog 3, starring Mackenzie Rosman. ...i just dont think it is the doomed genre that you seem to be painting...and in fact, when you factor in the ancillary mkts, i would bet that most horror films of any note do pretty well Yes, that's very right. It is not a doomed genre, in that it will go away soon. I'm going against a previous post of mine, where I thought the genre itself would capsize soon, because I re-checked the figures (not what the films made, but what they cost). The death I'm afraid of is one of quality. I don't want Full Moon Video to become the template. I don't want Texas Chainsaw remake to become the template. I don't want to look back on Mimic as The Good Old Days. I want more The Things, Dawn remakes, Dark Waterses, Shinings, Cabin Fevers. Frankly, I'd rather there not be a template, but that's the trend - Hollywood is getting more template oriented, not less (note Mike's post - the article was looking for the next franchises - templates). as far as the horror audience, i dont think they are less discriminating, theyre just loyal. I agree. I just wish their loyalty was honored with something stimulating, because intelligence is the least costly part of filmmaking. But - let's call it Critical Goodness (meaning a movie that's considered good by critics who don't have the chip on their shoulders against all horror) - right now this seems to be a strike against a film's potential financial success for the moment. And maybe that's what horror people want. You know, maybe it's just me. I don't like stupid, or maybe careless is a better word. I don't think flashyness of editing, or sudden shocks, or youthfully dismissive angry cleverness (the trait of 80% of all characters in today's horror movies), or irrational things which can only be excused as conventions of horror films (as Ebert described the pseudo-zombies in the receny Hills movie), or a few good kills... I don't think that covers for it. That stuff bores me, because it cues me to what's coming. But maybe that's just me. Seriously, I'm not being rhetorical. I hear hard Candy is the opposite of all of that - smart, genuinely scarey, and unpredictable. It's probably doomed. i understand your criticisms of some of the genre offerings, but i dont think its quite as dire as you seem to believe. I hope you're right. I really do. Because good movies are great. Bad movies suck. I want more great.
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Post by obliv326 on Apr 21, 2006 3:53:23 GMT -5
the orange?
it seems i did misunderstand your point...i thought you were saying those movies you listed (rejects, land of dead, etc) were sort of examples of everything that horror was doing wrong, and failing at every level, ie at the box office, at the critical level, and. well, just as films. i see what youre saying a bit clearer now.
its odd...there exists a sort of "ether", which is not really supported factually or anything, but is just kind of the general feel one gets around a particular film (or novel, song, etc) where it is perceived positively or negatively among fans, etc. most of those films you mentioned seem to have a positive "feel" in the "ether", if you understand what im saying. "street cred" it seems, does eventually hold sway, at least in the long run.
i think, perhaps, that the movie business is sort of illogocally set up...they still have the stadard of the "opening night" for the box office, when a film like, say house of 1000 corpses, doesnt make any real dent until it shows up on cable and home video. it just seems like things even themselves out in the "ether" eventually. for example, titainc, the biggest film of all time at the box office, and the winner of 9(it is 9, right?) oscars, is now pretty much reviled. part of it may be backlash, but i think that what happens is that all of it eventually goes into the mix when evaluating any piece of pop culture, and justice eventually prevails.
i am fairly certain that slither, land of the dead, and many of these movies, will sort of be judged fairly higher, and their final ancillary values will balanvce out. just as well, the films you were speaking of as bad examples, house of wax, say, or the texas cghainsaw remake, will eventually fall lower in their judgement as well, and will not enjoy that ancillary swell of the ones who "win", if you will...
time, i suppose, is the great justice, and eventually heals all wounds.
as for pumpkinhead, i cant remember if we saw it together...its certainly possible. i actujally liked it the first time i saw it, so it could be that i gave the wrong impression. it has been a while since i saw it...that night, actually, so i may very well not like it now. time, again...what can you say about time that hasnt been said?
i am aware of the whole "pg13 vs r" thing going on w/horror fans, and i dont think its just that the hardcore fans want that 2o secs of gunk, but there is a real feeling that movies that try for a pg13 rating do so not only at the expense of gore, biut at the expense of real scares and tension. i remember devils rejects being applauded for trying to be really shocking and scary, and i think maybe the idea is that fear, or at least real "horror" is an adult emotion...as are most emotions at their fullest. to attempts to water down the purity of the horror in the hopes of a wider audience...hell, thats the same as a band putting dance-y drums on their records to sell more copies. its selling out, and i thin k thats an honest excuse for outrage, or at least dismissal.
but im glad you clarified some of your last post. i didnt get some of what you were vtrying to say, which certainly makes more sense to me now
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