An Unhappy Camper Am I

I know, I know. I just finished ranting about a "found footage" movie that I didn't enjoy, and I'm already gearing up to hate on some more. It's a little much, but what producers apparently fail to understand is that horror is a delicate thing. Sure, it comes off as mean and nasty with a tough exterior, but really, it's all mushy and soft and insecure on the inside. Why Hollywood feels like punishing it so fervently is absolutely beyond me, though.

Since this apparently didn't stick (or, more likely, no one with the kind of influence necessary to stop these abominations reads my blog), let me break this down in a point-by-point analysis. And then, yes, I will pick apart a bunch of movies that aren't even out yet (as well as some that have already "graced" the theaters) that star non-threatening and attractive young people who find themselves going up against horrible forces that want to kill them in creative ways. Yes, I do get sick satisfaction out of this kind of stuff.

The Three Types of Scary: No, not all scares are created equal, and on some fundamental level, we all know this. The most elementary scare is the one that many haunted houses and high-school pranks rely on, and that is the jump-scare. It has its place in a scary movie, typically as a precursor to a more sophisticated type of fright, but I find that it's overused these days, especially in the "found footage" sub-genre. The second type of scare, which requires some skill to execute well, is based solely on tension. When the creepy violin music (or lack of sound altogether) is slowly injected into a scene and the audience gets on the edge of their seats in tense anticipation of what the director is going to come up with next. To poke at Paranormal Activity with a stick (again), this is pretty impressively done in the first film. Without any kind of musical cue, the audience comes to expect some kind of small supernatural occurrence every time the hand-held camera lingers for too long on a single object. When done right, this conditions the audience to react in a certain way, and can even be subverted for extra fear effect. On the other hand, when it gets abused, you get a bunch of tired attempts at horror that no one really cares about because the telegraphing was a little too obvious. And finally, you have the master stroke of horror; the big, frightening, will-scare-you-into-insomnia scare. The mind-screw. Incredibly difficult to pull off properly, this one requires a bit of synergy between the audience, the screenwriter, and the director. A movie like the original "Exorcist" will stay with you, not just because of the horrific imagery and terrifying acting, but because the whole movie gets into your head and pulls at those strings of curiosity. If you can get your audience to check behind their curtains before turning down the lights, you've done this one right, and you deserve a medal.

And now, rage time. It took me a while to get to the actual thesis of this little rant, but here is the catalyst: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2034139/ Yes. That is a link to the Last Exorcism 2. No, you probably should not click on it, lest you lose faith in mankind (and whatever idiot came up with the title). It's another "found footage" film, and it makes me foam at the mouth. Not in a good way. Aside from the inherent problem with the title The Last Exorcism 2, this will make or break my faith in people. You see, part of the appeal of the found footage sub-genre is that it comes off as a sort of documentary made by an everyman over his head. More importantly, when one of these movies sequels up without a clear setup in the original installment, it breaks suspension of disbelief. Take this movie for example. You're telling me that there was a SECOND documentary team that's going to deal with this possessed woman? Really? Even after the first on (SPOILER ALERT) died horrendously? (Yeah, you didn't see that coming?) Just... What the hell, Hollywood? Moving on...

The second target of the rage-cannon is targeted at the Paranormal Activity series. Oh, you thought that 3 was the end of the whole debacle? I'd hoped so, too. And I'm sorry. I'm so very, very sorry, but according to the head of domestic distribution over at Paramount Pictures... "I can't imagine that we wouldn't make a number four, and I imagine (Paramount Film Group president) Adam Goodman this morning is thinking about the challenge. I'm sure he's thinking, 'Now what do I do?'" (http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/48262/paranormal-activity-4-haunt-theatres-next-october) Okay, so it's not the most concrete news source I could dredge up, but Paramount reps have a number of interviews saying that they want to make up to three more movies in the franchise. Okay, so in case that wasn't 100% clear... PARAMOUNT PICTURES WANTS TO BRING US ALL THE WAY TO PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 6. I would like to point them at another horror series that went down the drain, even though it started off on a good note: Halloween. Do you want Rob Zombie directing the Paranormal Activity reboot, Paramount? Is that really your master plan? It is, isn't it? Getting the reboot money by having a music icon remake your movie? Bono put you up to this, didn't he? I honestly wouldn't be surprised... Look, showing us that this perfectly ordinary-looking couple recorded a haunting/demon stalking in their house was one thing. I could swallow that story. In fact, it was a pretty delicious tale. Telling me that the sister of the character in the first movie recorded her own haunting as well? That was stretching it. When I found out that their mother's boyfriend recorded the first instance of their haunting while they were kids? That felt a little insulting. But telling me, in all honesty, that the SAME GODDAMN HAUNTING is going to be recorded THREE MORE GODDAMN TIMES? That is a straight-on kick in the groin, Paramount. We are no longer friends. I can't really process that right now. Three more shaky-cam movies centering around the demon who wants a first-born child for some ancient pact or somesuch? Is the next movie going to go into the original demon pact, and be complete with some hapless doofus trying to record the whole event? God, that's going to be one of them, isn't it? I need to stop writing about Paranormal Activity. Okay. Moving on now.

There is one shaky-cam horror flick that I have high hopes for. It's called The House of Horror, and despite winning my personal award for having the least ambiguous horror movie name of all time, it looks promising. Why? Because it's not only shaky handhelds and things going "boo!" off-camera. No, unlike your average Ghost Hunters episode, House of Horror claims that it will focus on the aftermath of a found-footage horror movie. Six college kids go into deadly house, one walks out and claims that evil things in the house killed his buddies. And he might be possessed by the devil. No one really knows, and I can't make a judgment until I actually see it. In my head, I can picture the whole thing having a very Usual Suspects feel, with the survivor recounting his version of the events as the detectives spool through the actual tapes. Not 100% found footage, but it might be close enough to the style to count. I'm actually half-hoping this one flies under the radar a bit, if only so we won't have to deal with House of Horror 2: Electric Boogaloo. It's slated for a 2013 release, though, so for all I know it could end up getting shot down before it gets even a little bit of altitude. I really hope not, though.

As for the movie that already hit theaters, a lot of you may not have fond memories of it, and that's probably because you didn't buy in to the original marketing. Alternately, you heard about/saw/smelled the vomit from those who had seen the sequel. The Blair Witch Project. Don't groan just yet. On its own, if you went along with the viral ad campaign that it was actual found footage, this movie is pretty damn terrifying. No special effects to speak of, the acting is pretty genuine (as a result of the "director" scaring the living bejeezus out of his actors), and the plot is simple enough to follow. The only bone I have to pick with this bastard of a film is its ugly twin: The Book of Shadows, or whatever the hell that travesty was called. Not only did it tell the first movie to die in a hole by abandoning the revolutionary (for the time, yes. It absolutely was), shaky-cam style, the sequel fell back into "unnaturally pretty people keep dying in awful ways" formula that got tired in the eighties. As far as disappointing follow-ups go, I think this might even win out over the Star Wars prequels. Don't try to watch this movie. I'm not kidding. If you enjoyed Blair Witch, the disappointment will cripple you, and if you didn't enjoy the first film, Book of Shadows might give you an aneurysm. Part of what made Blair Witch watchable was the fact that the characters were not well-groomed or strategically mussed up. They looked like real, people; the kind of people who would actually be film students. Apparently the producers of the second movie forgot EVERYTHING that made the first one successful.

So, there you have it. Instead of a bit on writing, you get me hating on horror films. It's a nice deviation for both of us. Even if I think one day a shoddily made horror film is going to give me an ulcer. And you know what? I'll probably wait to get that problem taken care of until I have ranted thoroughly about how much I hated the film.

This is Rosenbloom, signing off.