- The pre-teen in peril, the anguished parent.
- The spooky pre-teen, the frightened but loving parent.
- Flickery things -- usually heads -- that shake around in an unnaturally fast way (thanks, Jacob's Ladder).
- Montages of disturbing images and sounds with transitional cuts that look rusty, accidental, and degraded (thanks, The Ring).
- Heavily desaturated visuals, usually blue-grey or slightly yellowish (Jacob's Ladder again?)
- Death by ubiquitous technology (The Ring, ringing).
- Impending death which can only be averted by unravelling mysterious backstory (The Ring, The Ring, The Ring).
- Nonsensical, poorly-written script which exists solely to display a handful of visually-striking set-pieces (thanks, Dario Argento).
- Nonsensical, poorly-written script which exists solely to display people getting tortured (thanks, Saw).
- The collection of strangers who must kill each other in order to escape (Saw again).
- Sudden shocks accompanied by audio sting (since movies began, probably).
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Horror Movie Cliches That I Simply Will Not Take Anymore
Next time you're watching a horror movie -- particularly one from the last ten years -- consider this a "cliche checklist" that will spoil your fun.
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3 comments:
Want spooky and subtitled? Go for 'The Orphange', directed by Del Toro. And spooky-ish, AND coming of age - 'Let the Right One In' - this one requires you to be judicious, the non-dumbed down subtitles are the 'theatrical release' subtitles. The other ones, evidently, rob the movie of a great deal.
The Orphanage was great! And almost bereft of those cliches as well. Like, the pre-teens WERE in trouble, but there were no adults around to get in a lather about it.
As for "Let the Right One In," I admit that I dislike the "romantic vampire" genre. But maybe with a Swedish twist...
I will give you a dollar if you don't like it. I promise.
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