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Scary House
May. 18th, 2010 01:59 pmMade the mistake of watching Paranormal Activity late last night, and now my house is haunted. I am stupid sometimes.
The good news is, this movie was genuinely creepy,* which is really nice. It’s one of those great movies that grabs you by the irrational fears, those hindbrain leftovers that tormented you through the long, dark nights of childhood. This movie is not talking to the part of your brain that is thinking, “Well, obviously those shadows are trees outside my window, and that bump was the water heater or ol’ Thundercat running down the stairs.” This movie is talking to the part of your brain that is thinking “GAME OVER MAN WE’RE FUCKED THEY’RE IN THE WALLS.”
Any movie that creeps you the hell out with lights and doors and rustling plants and shadows is good in my book.
That said, I have about 1.5 real problems with this movie. The .5 problem is that these morons never turned on any lights or closed the door to their bedroom or even got themselves the Standard Issue Boogeyman Kit of flashlight and large coverlet. This seems to go against everything my lizard brain can tell you about demons.
The whole-number problem is the one you always have with this kind of movie—the question of why don’t these idiots leave the haunted house. They try to preempt that by attaching the demon not to the house, but to a person—but it doesn’t work very well. Here is why:
( My reasoning is spoilery )
Of course, plot frustrations like that exist because if characters were smart, the movies would be shorter. And frankly, we can’t have that. This movie was too much fun.
*As opposed to some of the thrillers I’ve seen, such as The Mothman Prophecies, which seemed to consist entirely of Mothman calling up Richard Gere to inquire whether his refrigerator was running or asking for Seymour Buttz or Amanda Huggenkis.
**I will have to look back now and see how many other horror movies have the Why Men Won’t Stop For Directions dynamic.
The good news is, this movie was genuinely creepy,* which is really nice. It’s one of those great movies that grabs you by the irrational fears, those hindbrain leftovers that tormented you through the long, dark nights of childhood. This movie is not talking to the part of your brain that is thinking, “Well, obviously those shadows are trees outside my window, and that bump was the water heater or ol’ Thundercat running down the stairs.” This movie is talking to the part of your brain that is thinking “GAME OVER MAN WE’RE FUCKED THEY’RE IN THE WALLS.”
Any movie that creeps you the hell out with lights and doors and rustling plants and shadows is good in my book.
That said, I have about 1.5 real problems with this movie. The .5 problem is that these morons never turned on any lights or closed the door to their bedroom or even got themselves the Standard Issue Boogeyman Kit of flashlight and large coverlet. This seems to go against everything my lizard brain can tell you about demons.
The whole-number problem is the one you always have with this kind of movie—the question of why don’t these idiots leave the haunted house. They try to preempt that by attaching the demon not to the house, but to a person—but it doesn’t work very well. Here is why:
( My reasoning is spoilery )
Of course, plot frustrations like that exist because if characters were smart, the movies would be shorter. And frankly, we can’t have that. This movie was too much fun.
*As opposed to some of the thrillers I’ve seen, such as The Mothman Prophecies, which seemed to consist entirely of Mothman calling up Richard Gere to inquire whether his refrigerator was running or asking for Seymour Buttz or Amanda Huggenkis.
**I will have to look back now and see how many other horror movies have the Why Men Won’t Stop For Directions dynamic.
