Top Five Most Overrated Horror Movies
That's right, folks, I've spent enough time talking about my favorite horror movies. I've poked fun at their endless sequels and remakes. Now's my chance to get even with all the people who've overhyped a movie that was in no way deserving. Yes, there are movie that will always remain undisputed classics. And there are some that are universally despised. But there are some that, for one reason or another, catch on with a number of people, despite the fact that they have no original ideas to offer.
I want to make it clear, though, that is is just my opinion. I'm not stating fact here, I'm not telling you you're wrong to like any of these movies. One of them I actually like myself. I'm just saying that I don't agree when someone proclaims any of them to be the best movie ever.
Onto the list.
5. 28 Days Later
5. 28 Days Later
Okay, I want to start by saying I actually do like this movie. I like the energy of it, and I really dig the performances. I also like that the zombies are actually insane people, and not real zombies. Danny Boyle did something a little different with the premise, and I can appreciate that. What I get annoyed with, however, is when people say this movie is smart. Not that it isn't, except that people who refer to this movie's intelligence are often denigrating a film like Dawn of the Dead. For no other reason than to be pretentious. That goofy, low budget movie where people seek shelter in a shopping mall? How could there ever be any meaning to that? How could it at all be about America's obsession with consumerism? It's not gritty and self serious, so it just can't be smart!
Another point I often feel I have to make about 28 Days Later concerns its originality. Or, rather, lack thereof. As I stated before, the movie makes one bold decision of changing the zombies from lumbering corpses to energetic insane people. That's a nice switch, but it only serves to cover the fact that the story is lifted directly from George Romero's first three Dead films. The first third of 28 Days Later is Night of the Living Dead, with our heroes learning about the zombie plague and figuring out how to survive. The second third is Dawn of the Dead, where the heroes are on the run, but stop to have fun. Shopping, and picnic, enjoying creature comforts and forgetting the zombies. And the final third is Day of the Dead, with our heroes forced to deal with evil soldiers. The entire series in one film, only lacking the depth of the Romero movies.
It's a good movie. It's just not as good as the movies it swiped from.
4. Scream
Another movie that relies on pretension. Scream is a paint by numbers slasher movie, only it points out the numbers as they go by. I never understood how the movie was smart by having characters point out the rules of horror movies only to follow them to the letter. Wouldn't it have been smarter to, say, do something entirely different? Maybe overrated scribe Kevin Williamson should have read his rules to a horror movie, then said to himself "how can I avoid these overdone cliches?" Or maybe he should have given up writing, realizing that when all you have to offer the world are some lame slasher movies and Dawson's Creek, you're really just wasting everybody's time.
Are there any saving points to this movie? Not really. It lacks any good scares, there's no gore, and no nudity. It has all the worst cliches of a slasher movie, and leaves out the ones that make the bad ones at least amusing. Scream 2 is a slight improvement, mainly because it's not telegraphed so early who the killer is, and there are actually some more inventive dialogue exchanges than the first movie.
I honestly don't remember the third movie at all. I would assume it's not that good.
(Note: Combine what I've said about 28 Days Later and Scream, and you'll know what I think of Zombieland)
3. Saw
The premise of this movie is fantastic. Two men are trapped in a room, and the only way out is to saw their own legs off. Or was it arm? Either way, Hitchcock would have made a tight, suspenseful thriller out of this movie. Instead, we got a cliched, unrealistic borefest. This movie has a list of a few things I never want to see again.
- Obsessed cops who will do anything to get their man. For that matter, any police officer or detective who says "we don't need a search warrant." Because, you know, getting fired for the sake of nabbing the bad guy is always a good decision.
- Villain fake outs. Oh, hey, it was that guy who had one line of dialogue earlier in the movie. Or the guy we thought was in a coma. Not the guy who's been built up for the entire movie. Ooh, creative. That's never been done.
- Serial killers with elaborate motifs. David Berkowitz shot women of a certain type. John Wayne Gacy picked up young men at the bus station. They didn't have costumes, or a message, or a little goofy puppet on a tricycle.
Hey, go lie down in one spot for two hours without moving. At all. Not a single shift, not a muscle twitch, nothing at all. If you can actually pull that off, then get up like its nothing at all, then my hat's off to you.
2. Carrie
This is supposedly a classic. If so, why did I laugh through the whole thing? Oh, right. Because it's silly. When the soundtrack isn't ripping off Bernard Hermann's iconic score for Psycho, it sounds like music you'd hear in a high school comedy. There are awkward moments that probably should have been left on the cutting room floor. There's an abundant use of split screen in what could have been a truly terrifying, violent massacre. And there's John Travolta. Need I say more?
I honestly just don't get it with this movie. I think it's hilariously bad, and know several people who feel the same way. Yet when anyone talks about it in print or television, it's always with high praise. Why? Is there something I'm missing? Is it not as ridiculously comedic as I've always thought? Please, someone, anyone, help me out here, 'cause I really don't get it.
1. The Blair Witch Project
The build up to this movie was incredible. I was in high school when it came out, and when my friends and I saw the first previews, we bought it. We honestly thought it was real. It was an amazing marketing campaign. Too bad the actual movie didn't live up to it.
Instead of a compelling and scary story, we're given a mediocre mockumentary about a group of whiny losers who get lost in the woods. Oh, and then sticks and rocks show up outside their tents. Spooky, I'm sure. There are some genuinely creepy moments, though. Mainly when we hear Josh screaming in the distance. It's unsettling. But there's only about five minutes of that, and an hour and a half of morons talking to the camera and getting upset over things that are way out of focus.
I can appreciate what this movie was trying to do. It has all the right ideas about what's scary and creepy and weird. Noises in the night, monsters you never see. The mystery is what scares you, what's left to your imagination. But it fails by spending too little time on actually building the suspense and creating atmosphere , and spending too much time with lame, and often irritating characters. It never found the balance that would have made it a memorable horror classic, instead of a marketing strategy that paid off.
I remember when this movie came out, I was venting my frustration over its popularity to someone who liked it. When I started pointing out all of the obvious inconsistencies and narrative flaws, he told me I needed to stop thinking and just enjoy the movie. That statement alone should tell you why I don't like this movie.
I'm sure I'm going to get raked over the coals for a few of my picks here. May your comments be derivative.
That's right, folks, I've spent enough time talking about my favorite horror movies. I've poked fun at their endless sequels and remakes. Now's my chance to get even with all the people who've overhyped a movie that was in no way deserving. Yes, there are movie that will always remain undisputed classics. And there are some that are universally despised. But there are some that, for one reason or another, catch on with a number of people, despite the fact that they have no original ideas to offer.
I want to make it clear, though, that is is just my opinion. I'm not stating fact here, I'm not telling you you're wrong to like any of these movies. One of them I actually like myself. I'm just saying that I don't agree when someone proclaims any of them to be the best movie ever.
Onto the list.
5. 28 Days Later
5. 28 Days Later
Okay, I want to start by saying I actually do like this movie. I like the energy of it, and I really dig the performances. I also like that the zombies are actually insane people, and not real zombies. Danny Boyle did something a little different with the premise, and I can appreciate that. What I get annoyed with, however, is when people say this movie is smart. Not that it isn't, except that people who refer to this movie's intelligence are often denigrating a film like Dawn of the Dead. For no other reason than to be pretentious. That goofy, low budget movie where people seek shelter in a shopping mall? How could there ever be any meaning to that? How could it at all be about America's obsession with consumerism? It's not gritty and self serious, so it just can't be smart!
Another point I often feel I have to make about 28 Days Later concerns its originality. Or, rather, lack thereof. As I stated before, the movie makes one bold decision of changing the zombies from lumbering corpses to energetic insane people. That's a nice switch, but it only serves to cover the fact that the story is lifted directly from George Romero's first three Dead films. The first third of 28 Days Later is Night of the Living Dead, with our heroes learning about the zombie plague and figuring out how to survive. The second third is Dawn of the Dead, where the heroes are on the run, but stop to have fun. Shopping, and picnic, enjoying creature comforts and forgetting the zombies. And the final third is Day of the Dead, with our heroes forced to deal with evil soldiers. The entire series in one film, only lacking the depth of the Romero movies.
It's a good movie. It's just not as good as the movies it swiped from.
4. Scream
Another movie that relies on pretension. Scream is a paint by numbers slasher movie, only it points out the numbers as they go by. I never understood how the movie was smart by having characters point out the rules of horror movies only to follow them to the letter. Wouldn't it have been smarter to, say, do something entirely different? Maybe overrated scribe Kevin Williamson should have read his rules to a horror movie, then said to himself "how can I avoid these overdone cliches?" Or maybe he should have given up writing, realizing that when all you have to offer the world are some lame slasher movies and Dawson's Creek, you're really just wasting everybody's time.
Are there any saving points to this movie? Not really. It lacks any good scares, there's no gore, and no nudity. It has all the worst cliches of a slasher movie, and leaves out the ones that make the bad ones at least amusing. Scream 2 is a slight improvement, mainly because it's not telegraphed so early who the killer is, and there are actually some more inventive dialogue exchanges than the first movie.
I honestly don't remember the third movie at all. I would assume it's not that good.
(Note: Combine what I've said about 28 Days Later and Scream, and you'll know what I think of Zombieland)
3. Saw
The premise of this movie is fantastic. Two men are trapped in a room, and the only way out is to saw their own legs off. Or was it arm? Either way, Hitchcock would have made a tight, suspenseful thriller out of this movie. Instead, we got a cliched, unrealistic borefest. This movie has a list of a few things I never want to see again.
- Obsessed cops who will do anything to get their man. For that matter, any police officer or detective who says "we don't need a search warrant." Because, you know, getting fired for the sake of nabbing the bad guy is always a good decision.
- Villain fake outs. Oh, hey, it was that guy who had one line of dialogue earlier in the movie. Or the guy we thought was in a coma. Not the guy who's been built up for the entire movie. Ooh, creative. That's never been done.
- Serial killers with elaborate motifs. David Berkowitz shot women of a certain type. John Wayne Gacy picked up young men at the bus station. They didn't have costumes, or a message, or a little goofy puppet on a tricycle.
Hey, go lie down in one spot for two hours without moving. At all. Not a single shift, not a muscle twitch, nothing at all. If you can actually pull that off, then get up like its nothing at all, then my hat's off to you.
2. Carrie
This is supposedly a classic. If so, why did I laugh through the whole thing? Oh, right. Because it's silly. When the soundtrack isn't ripping off Bernard Hermann's iconic score for Psycho, it sounds like music you'd hear in a high school comedy. There are awkward moments that probably should have been left on the cutting room floor. There's an abundant use of split screen in what could have been a truly terrifying, violent massacre. And there's John Travolta. Need I say more?
I honestly just don't get it with this movie. I think it's hilariously bad, and know several people who feel the same way. Yet when anyone talks about it in print or television, it's always with high praise. Why? Is there something I'm missing? Is it not as ridiculously comedic as I've always thought? Please, someone, anyone, help me out here, 'cause I really don't get it.
1. The Blair Witch Project
The build up to this movie was incredible. I was in high school when it came out, and when my friends and I saw the first previews, we bought it. We honestly thought it was real. It was an amazing marketing campaign. Too bad the actual movie didn't live up to it.
Instead of a compelling and scary story, we're given a mediocre mockumentary about a group of whiny losers who get lost in the woods. Oh, and then sticks and rocks show up outside their tents. Spooky, I'm sure. There are some genuinely creepy moments, though. Mainly when we hear Josh screaming in the distance. It's unsettling. But there's only about five minutes of that, and an hour and a half of morons talking to the camera and getting upset over things that are way out of focus.
I can appreciate what this movie was trying to do. It has all the right ideas about what's scary and creepy and weird. Noises in the night, monsters you never see. The mystery is what scares you, what's left to your imagination. But it fails by spending too little time on actually building the suspense and creating atmosphere , and spending too much time with lame, and often irritating characters. It never found the balance that would have made it a memorable horror classic, instead of a marketing strategy that paid off.
I remember when this movie came out, I was venting my frustration over its popularity to someone who liked it. When I started pointing out all of the obvious inconsistencies and narrative flaws, he told me I needed to stop thinking and just enjoy the movie. That statement alone should tell you why I don't like this movie.
I'm sure I'm going to get raked over the coals for a few of my picks here. May your comments be derivative.
comixbookgurl:
you have great lists!
nerdmachine:
Thanks! I've got one more horror list I'm working on, a special edition Top Ten of my absolute favorite sub-genre. Stay tuned!