No More!

Over at the Little Terrors blog (a great blog that was one of the things that got me motivated to do this one) a Moratorium on 'horror about horror' was proposed. Now, while I disagree with this particular moratorium (I like horror about horror) it inspired me to place moratoriums on a number of elements that are all too prevalent in today's horror movies. I do believe I have the authority to do so, so Hollywood directors and writers beware, if any of these now forbidden subjects appear in your movies, prepare to face severe consequences.

I am putting the prohibited elements in a less to prevent any confusion. Take note, every scene and idea listed here can be found in the shitfest film Hide and Seek that I unfortunately attended last night. I wish I had walked out of theater, but then this list would be shorter and I would not have been reminded of some of contemporary horror's lamest clichés.

1. No more children who know creepy things! If the horror movies of the mid and late 90's were all Scream-inspired, than the horror movies of the past few years are all Sixth Sense-inspired.

2. No more creepy children's drawings!

3. No more big twists! Twist endings and horror movies have always gone hand in hand, however, in the M. Night Shyamalan era, the twists are massive. Everything the viewer thought to true, is false. Well we are no longer in awe of these clever writers. You see, a twist is expected, the viewers don't take anything at face value anymore and... we can guess the ending! No, no, it's true, we really can. It's gotten very easy. That's why everyone hated The Village.

4. No more cat-jumping scares. This annoyance has been around a bit longer, in fact, it's one of the oldest tricks in the book, characteristic of the derivative slashers I watch so often. Yet there was a cat scare in this supposedly clever movie, Hide and Seek. I wonder, are we supposed to laugh because it's a cliché? Or is it post-ironic? Half of the dimwits in the theater had heart attacks anyway. "Wow this shit works on two levels!" No, it sucked.

5. No more music boxes!

6. No more childrens' songs or nursery rhymes. Double-foul if played by a music box.

7. No more families moving from the city to the country! Can't the city be creepy? I was reminded of Cold Creek Manor which also began with a move from NYC to a big house upstate. I did not want to be reminded of that one... ever.

8. No more bloody writing scrawled on the walls!

9. No more old fashioned dolls! They were good in the Maria Bava movies, but do kids even play with these anymore? I'd think their rooms would now be filled with soccer balls, Playstations, and Clay Aiken posters.

No need for a moratorium on this one, but at one point Hide and Seek actually used the Friday the 13th echoing whisper sound at one 'suspenseful' moment. Anyway, my list is longer than I expected. My intention is not to prevent films from being existing. Since the writers obviously can't think for themselves, I'm providing a list of acceptable substitutions so horror movies can be released on a regular basis.

1. decapitations (on screen)

2. self-mutilation (on screen)

3. castrations (on screen)

4. sodomy (on screen)

5. regurgitated guts (on screen)

6. drilling for brains (on screen)

There, now there can be no confusion as to what the fans want. No on to some other discoveries.

I found on-line the interview with The Locust by Jessica Hopper from 'Hit it or Quit it'. I talked about it in the previous post. Here is a quote form the interview: "Or a friend of ours saying that he thinks The Locust now makes it impossible for fat people to succeed in hardcore."

Also form 'Hit it or Quit it', an article in defense of watching wrestling.

The magazine Chunklet has a website. When I first picked this up I thought it was the most brilliant thing.

more to come... and let's hope that The Amityville Horror remake is free of all that generic crap listed above. The preview looked fairly decent.