Are supernatural movies that super any more?
After reading Craig’s post on “Grave Encounters” I began to think a bit. Are the supernatural thrillers any good or are they a cut-out copy of the latest fad.
For those that do not know the story, Craig’s comment about being banned from picking a movie are correct. In 2006, we traveled to Scotland with a group of high school students. One night, when figuring out what to do, Craig mentioned going see a movie. He said that “An American Haunting” looked good so it was agreed that we would spend roughly 20 dollars per ticket to view the movie. End result? It sucked big time. While I tease Craig about this a lot, it wasn’t his fault. Movies concerning the paranormal are so hit and miss. The scares throughout the film are important but it is the final chapters that explain the film. If the hidden theme is lame, the movie becomes lame.
The latest “strike-out” movie is “The Last Exorcism”. It started out so well and I honestly thought the concept was good. A priest who has lost his faith sets up fake exorcisms in order to help families. He does not believe in them and refuses to accept the fact that God and the Devil exist. Unfortunately, things are turned upside down when the girl is “seemingly” possessed. The first hour and seventeen minutes rock out with your….well you know what I mean. If you decide to watch it, turn it off at that point. Accept the fact that you won’t know if the girl is really possessed or not. Because if you watch on, and I am expecting you will, it will turn crappy fast. The ending makes no sense and the director clearly wanted to make an ending which left the viewer thinking. And he got me thinking that his movie turned in to a steaming pile of crap.
The “Paranormal Activity” series were decent in the way they clearly drag you in to viewing the camera scenes as they happen. The stories make no sense and my worry is one day they will attempt to describe why the house is haunted. When they do, we will all think it sucks and another series is down the drain.
The “Blair Witch Project” was very good in its individualism, using the view of the main character as he/she goes through the motions. It allows the viewer to be scared along with the protagonist. But this is played…so played.
Craig is right to think I want to see this newest survival paranormal movie. It looks very good but random girls in white robes has been done before. Once I find out more about my Daddy and Baby Monster Hunters series, I plan on writing a story dealing with the paranormal. The reason I think it will be different is the stories are real. Whether you believe in spirits or not, my brother and I lived in a haunted house in the early 2000′s. While the backstory will be fictional, the events and hauntings will be real.
UPDATE: Saturday April 30th
One thing I was pondering as I was watching “A Haunting in Connecticut” was the fact that if a person has been a part of a haunting, he/she doesn’t experience what we see on the movies. Creaks, voices, shadows, footsteps: those are all part and parcel of living in a haunted house. But some of the movies seems to build off of unnecessary scares without realizing that a real person who might not believe in the paranormal might be afraid of small things.
Date: April 29, 2011
Categories: family, Film and Television, Horror, Stories, Supernatural
Most Recent Comments: