Last night I finally was able to get my eyes on FilmDistrict's newest horror flick,
Insidious. This isn't a review of
Insidious at all, but merely another example at an overwhelming trend within the horror genre. Let me tell you this, I loved Insidious. I found it to be genuinely creepy, well-casted (Patrick Wilson *drools*), and a very well put together film. The fact that they managed to make a PG-13 movie scary was very impressive and I thought Insidious was going to jump to the top of my list for the best of 2011 so far. That was until the ending hit. There are no words to describe my level of disappointment. I had been on the edge of my seat for 3/4 of the movie, only to slowly slump back in for the remaining quarter. I can't really judge the film for it though, not only because the beginning more than made up for it, but also because it seems that a good percentage of all horror movies suffer from a curse of terrible endings. Maybe the screenwriter didn't have enough time to fully formulate a conciece ending, maybe the budget was cut short, or maybe everyone in the process was just to ADD to even think of one and had to throw one together last second. Who knows? All I know is that in one of the most evolving genres in film, we suck at ending our films.
Meet M. Night Shyamalan. In 1999, people were calling this man the next Spielberg. In 2011, he's remembered as the man of many twists...many bad, bad, twists. After the success of his film
The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan found himself caught up in the trend of making films with twist endings in order to "shock" the viewer. The only issue with this was that his endings weren't that shocking. When it comes to bad horror movie endings, this man takes the cake. Witness,
The Village. A tale of a community seemingly trapped in a secluded wooded area in the 1800's by mysterious creatures that stalk and kill anyone that goes too far into the wilderness. Sirens at night alert the people to put themselves on lock down whenever a creature is spotted (a la
Silent Hill) and the main question that drug us to the theatres was to figure out what the hell those monsters were. When I saw that film in theatres, my head was about to explode with nervousness and excitement. The pacing was wonderful, the creatures were scary, and every plot change was captivating...AND THEN YOU FIND OUT THEY'RE NOT IN THE 1800'S BUT IN THE MODERN DAY, JUST KEPT IN THE WOODS. Wow...really? I mean, really? I was dying for their to be something much juicier and riveting, but instead I just get the Amish. What a freaking letdown. Not to be forgotten is what critics consider his worst film,
The Happening. I personally enjoyed it, but I also watched this film as a comedy rather than a horror film. Regardless, the story is about an overwhelming amount of people who seem to be killing themselves in insane fashions. No one can figure out just why so many people are offing themselves, but it's happening at rapid numbers and people everywhere are harboring into their homes with gas masks on in order to protect themselves. Pretty crazy stuff, no? Well, don't worry...IT'S THE FUCKING TREES. NATURE IS SO PISSED AT US THAT IT'S RELEASING TOXINS AND CAUSING US TO KILL OURSELVES SO WE STOP DESTROYING THE RAINFOREST AND PARKS TO MAKE MORE STARBUCKS. Yep...trees. The big twist ending was a public service announcement from Al Gore. You're welcome, I just saved you two hours.
BJ-C, you must be mistaken, clearly the scariest clown in all of horror movie history cannot be on a list of disappointing movies?! Oh, but it is. I am one of the most vocal members of the "
Stephen King's "IT" is only successful because of Tim Curry" movement. The mini-series is way too long and filled with way too much reminiscing. I don't care what you've been doing now, I just want 2 hours of crap-your-pants from the clown from when you were a child, thankyouverymuch. Pennywise the Clown is the antithesis of evil. he manifests himself into whatever seems to frighten those around him. While his usual form is this menacing clown, at the end of the movie he animates himself as a giant spider. This would be fine and dandy IF THE SPIDER WASN'T THE MOST POORLY ANIMATED USE OF STOP MOTION EVER AND WASN'T DESTROYED BY A FREAKING ASTHMA INHALER. I'm sorry, but season 1 of South Park had better stop-motion than "IT". Any sense of fear that was established from the clown was immediately shot away the second that embarrassing display of a spider showed up. I really don't understand how anyone behind this mini-series could have watched the spider scene and thought that it was good enough work to play alongside Tim Curry's genius. There's supposedly a movie in the works, which I'm actually okay with if they cast Tim Curry as the clown. Come on, we saw what happened when they re-cast Freddy Krueger...
If you've yet to experience the film that put Alexandre Aje on the map, make sure you turn it off about 10 minutes before it ends. Haute Tension/High Tension is easily one of the bloodiest, craziest, most screwed up movies I've seen in the past 10 years. Unfortunately, the ending is so mind-numbingly terrible, it almost kills everything built up to it. Two girls go home to stay a weekend with one of the girl's family and have some gratuitous lesbian masturbation, only to be awaken in the middle of the night by a huge trucker with a penchant for using dressers and decapitation weaponry. The film is a crazy cat and mouse chase game and we're built up to believe there's going to be some intense, gory boss-fight at the end. That would be the logical thing to do IF THE TRUCKER WASN'T THE MANIFESTATION OF ONE OF THE GIRL'S SPLIT PERSONALITIES. Yep. She did it. The whole time. The bigger problem with this is that it doesn't line up. There's a scene where the trucker is giving himself road head with a decapitated head of a woman. If the french lesbian was really the killer...how did she do that?! I don't know, I don't care, this movie was ruined for me by a horrible ending.
I'm about to catch some slack for this, but the ending of
The Last Exorcism was pretty awful. The saving grace for this movie was that it's a solid film, very unsettling, and well executed. The story followed a man trying to destroy the existence of demonic possessions and the working power of exorcisms. The reason it's called the "last" exorcism, is because it was to be his last. Believing this poor girl is simply ill or just plain bat-shit, he is remarkably unprepared for what awaits him. The film really picks up and gets good towards the end of the film, when it takes a very Blair Witch inspired ending and cuts off sooner than we'd hope. Basically, THE POSSESSED GIRL'S CRAYON DRAWINGS FORESHADOWED THEIR DEATHS AT THE LAST FIVE SECONDS. Cool. I knew the ending all along, and I just wasted my life on something I figured out two hours ago. Thanks.
Are horror movies cursed or are we as viewers just too damn picky?
I guess it'll go back to that nature vs. nurture debate.
Regardless, we need to start focusing on the endings of our movies more than our stupid intros and false advertising trailers.
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