Death of Common Sense

Over the years I have found that the things in life that just piss me off have grown. I used to get cranky about rainy days..a crappy day at work..a paper cut. Now I hate rainy and days with too much sun..i hate work..crappy or not... and under cooked (and overcooked) food...light, dark, being too happy.....you get my drift. I do have to say that my biggest pet peeve is socieiy's basic lack of common sense.

I mean really people, think for just a second before you act. The next time someone gets drunk the night before work, stumbles in and proceeds to get fired and then blames the company..or a woman dates the exact same kinda man for the 9 billionth time and it goes horribly awry like the other 9 billion times..or oh my god pretty much anything anyone does in the town I live. I may just become a hermit.

What's this have to do with horror? Ahhhhhh... this has everything to do with horror. In fact, the reason I like Scream is because it realizes that everyone that dies in horror films dies because they're dumb. No common sense whatsoever.

Take Hostel for instance...you take 3 guys already getting mass quantities of babes and booze and you tell them "Hey in this other place quite a ways away you can get slightly hotter babes and probably wont have to work for it" and what do they do? wooooo boobs...then die horribly. Now if they would have had a modicum of common sense they woulda been like "nah I have gotten laid quite a bit, little skeezy euro trash guy. I'm gonna pass. Thanks though.." they woulda just got a venereal disease and been fine. I just have a hard time even feeling sorry for them.

The one though that drives me absolutely nuts is "lets split up", why? why?....whyyyyy? Why would anyone in their right mind knowing there is a killer loose want to leave the relative safety of a group. Hey don't get me wrong I realize why writers do it..its easier and believe you me, writers like easier. Buuuut it drives me crazy. Why would anyone wanna go into a dark basement? I don't do it for the fact that well...its dark...and i cant see anything and i don't wanna trip and rip my shirt. So I'm not going down there if there might be a killer down there that will most likely disembowel me, which if your keeping score trumps shirt ripping.

I'm not saying I hate these movies..I can't they are a staple of horror and i like horror. I do however enjoy slightly more cerebral horror or just completely supernatural horror wheres logic no longer applies. I just think that if you build a movie up as reality based then make it so. On the other hand, if you never let it get serious then do whatever your little blood soaked soul desires.

In the end maybe i'm thinking too much. Maybe these directors and writers do think hard about this stuff and realize in the end exploding heads usually trumps a legitimate spine chill. Maybe i'm the asshole here. Just maybe I should just watch the film and enjoy it again like a child...nah screw that I am waaay to old and cranky to change my ways. In fact i'm going to watch and review a nice cerebral horror movie right now...come here Offspring..lets get cozy.

originally posted by contributor David Winterborne

My View on Schlock

Soooooo cuba gooding jr...he won an oscar right? Just making sure...because now he is doing direct to dvd cinematic gems like the Devils Tomb. Not to say hes isn't joined by a rather well versed and fairly big named cast... I mean Ron Perlman, Jason London, Ray Winstone, Bill Moseley, Taryn Manning and my personal favorite Henry Rollins. So im not really sure what to think of this film. It isnt bad but it isn't that great either. It has a very good cast and the effects arent bad at all, but the acting, especially on the oscar winners part, is subpar at best.
That being said the plot goes a little something like this: (stop me if you have heard this one) a military unit and their cia handler walk into an abandoned research facility in the mid east to "retrieve" a man(perlman). As far as they know this is theyre only mission BUT as things do tend to go they are very, very wrong. As they search the abandoned facility they soon realize it is far from abandoned and they are greeted by mutilated seemingly religious nigh indistructable zealots. I mean like Tick nigh indestructable; lots o' bullets and nothing doin. The movie does pick up quite a bit though round this point with the team doing the obligatory "let's split up" manuever.
As each mini team searches the find out that physical peril isn't their only problem. They all experience different things with some satisfyingly gruesome results. Those who make it then get to meet my favorite B movie/stand up/ spoken word/ musical artist Henry Rollins (as a side note ive met Henry and he is a gem..just a gem of a man. anywho)..Mr Rollins plays a priest who tells a story of woe to the crew about what is really down there with them. This is of course the twist..so i wont ruin it..but suffic to say it isnt maybe possibly what u think it might be..vague enough for ya? Good. Lets move on. Oh and did i mention the whole time good old cuba is having oscar esque dramatic flashbacks to an old battle that does more to derail the film than to push the story along? By the end of the film i was so unenthused by who lived and who died and why they did or didn't that i just didnt care about the semi twist at the end.
This movie has its ups downs and ebs and flows. it seems that maybe it tries to be a buncha descent premises but doesnt quite hit any of them. i mean if they woulda just picked a hole and boned it i woulda been alot happier. that being said this film had good effects, some descent scares. The bad part to me is everyone in this film has enough cred to do a much better job. I mean its just kinda bland. The dialogue and delivery is just cardboardish. I know its straight to dvd but with this cast it shoulda been better.
so whats this all add u too? well not ed wood movie bad but not major release good. So i guess its right where its supposed to be in the straight to dvd realm. Im sure theyre are better movies that address these same things and use this kinda religious iconography, but do they have Hellboy and Radio in them? Hmmm? Well? I didnt think so.