The Sad State of Mainstream Horror
I was all geeked up to go see The Devil Inside, which is the new shaky-cam, exorcist movie released by Paramount. Some wonderful teaser trailers, a nifty viral marketing campaign, and a kick ass red band trailer got me really excited. Alas, I can’t seem to help myself and I checked Rotten Tomato last night. Lo and behold, the sad state of mainstream horror:
On this list is another movie, Beneath the Darkness, which has a 0%. Yeah, I never heard of this movie either…and I wallow in trash movies. Apparently, this horrible horror movie stars Dennis Quaid, who has managed to squander whatever goodwill he gained after America’s Sweetheart broke his heart. This still shot tells me everything I need to know:
"What the f*ck was I thinking?"
As a rabid fan of horror, exploitation, blacksploitation, grindhouse, etc., I know that it is a niche market. That’s why when a horror movie gets a 40% on the Tomatometer, I figure that genre fans probably liked, but it’s not everybody else’s cup o’ tea. But how in the hell do you get a 7% and a 0%? The level of hatred for these movies is catholic. I believe that most people are more afraid of demonic possession than ghosts. And despite the numerous Exorcist retreads, I believe there is still plenty of life in that particular genre. It takes a special kind of ineptness to make movies this bad.
For every Paranormal Activity franchise (which has gotten progressively better) there are a number of Saws and shitty remakes. I’d hate to think that the most transgressive action in mainstream (horror) cinema this year was the birth of a vampire baby (although I heard it had a considerable ick factor). I know horror movies get short shrift because they are generally inexpensive to make but can turn a nice profit. However, there are some truly fantastic genre films being made that unfortunately never get the mainstream exposure that deserve.
Never fear, my next post will discuss my three favorite horror films of the past year and they are all either indie or foreign. True, you may have to look a little farther or dig a little deeper, but the payoffs are well worth it.
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