Quote:
Originally Posted by keirarts
(Post 413823)
I think if a film has characters that inspire no passion either way then that is a flaw. |
This is one of the problems I had with You're Next. With slasher films, usually you can side with either the victims or the killer(s). When both are as annoying and disposable as each other you (well, at least I) stop caring/rooting for a victor and switch off. You can sometimes enjoy other aspects such as the cinematography, score, editing, or performances, but unfortunately these were lacking too. I would point out that I didn't hate it, as much as felt completely neutral towards it as a piece of film-making.
As to your points regarding 'ghost train' analogies, I do agree with you up to a point, although a lot of it is all in the technique and presentation of these ideas for me. In The Legend of Hell House, I feel that there is genuine build-up of tension and a lot of character driven development coupled with some theoretical scientific analogies being tossed about thanks to a tight script that results in a multi-layered, interesting, and overall enjoyable film. At the core, the idea is far from original but the film expands on this idea through other means. However, I don't see this in modern takes on the idea much at all. Not only are they often dumbed/watered down to achieve lower age ratings in order to generate more $ at the box office, but they are presented in a way as to almost splice in key scenes and build a story around those scenes rather than the other way around. CGI and jump scares have become the norm and I feel modern horror audiences have almost come to expect these.
A good example is The Woman in Black. The original was a made for TV film and was far from big budget fare, yet it managed to create atmosphere and tension on a meager budget aided by solid performances. The end result is a creepy and enjoyable ghost film. The remake on the other hand (baby faced Potter aside) instead relies on splicing in CGI jump scares throughout its running time almost as if we have a group of people gathered around a Mac saying: "look what I made to go into that new horror film!... "If they don't like it maybe we can splice it into that other horror film coming out in a few months... look, I can tweak the image a bit, change some colour and shadow effects around, and ta-da! Job's done." The story is still a solid one irrelevant of whether it has been copied from somewhere (an original story doesn't have to necessarily play such a big part in it, as there are no original stories really anymore anyway - everything tends to be a spin-off or a homage to something), but the overall presentation suffers thanks to these increasingly (and annoyingly) proficient devices being used by film studios and directors. Obviously, a lot of people enjoy these as patrons wouldn't be flocking to their local cinemas in droves to see them otherwise, but I just find them very lazy.
Perhaps I'm overly cynical/critical and jaded towards a lot of these modern horror offerings, but it is very rare for me to stumble across anything new in the mainstream horror genre now that I feel is worthy of more than a one watch in order to satisfy basic curiosity.
'Tis all subjective of course, though. :nod: