Last week I rented a horror movie, or what I was told was a horror movie, called Silent House. It stars Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen's younger sister, Elizabeth. I've seen a movie with her in it called Martha Marcy May Marlene and thought she was a good actress. I still do. The problem with this movie was that I loved 85% of it. Up until the last 10 minutes. It was so good. The movie is told from her perspective. The whole movie is in real time and it's made to look like it was all shot in one take. Quick plot summary, she's at her summer house helping fix it up with her dad and her uncle. Suddenly, her dad is attacked by an unknown entity. We're not sure if there is an intruder, or a ghost, or what. But she's freaked out and so am I. The uncle gets back to the house and then shit starts happening to him too. These people, whoever they are, are coming after her. She can't escape the house. Who knows what's going on, but I've taken up permanent residence on the edge of my seat. I even had to change my driver's license to say I now live there.
So I'm all in to it, and just as you start to find out what's really going on, they pull out the biggest horror movie cliche going. Right before it happened, I even thought to myself, "I really hope this 'person' that is attacking them isn't really her the whole time and she's gone crazy and doesn't realize she's the one doing it." Big reveal, it's her. I let out a big groan and slumped back in to my seat. Really? This is what you're going to give us as the ending? I liked the idea of thinking some random people were in the house attacking them! What's wrong with that? It's simple! It's effective! We don't need some lame, outlandish reason for why this is happening. So after the big reveal, we find out that her dad used to molest her as a child and now she's getting revenge, per se, on him and the uncle because the uncle covered it up. My eyes are still sore from all the rolling they did.
This kind of ending isn't surprising to us audiences anymore. We've seen it done too many times where the main character ends up being the killer and they chalk it up as them being crazy and hallucinating. Anyone remember Hide And Seek starring Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning? No? That's because it was terrible. So why are we using the same ending/big reveal!? Frailty? Remember that, starring Matthew McConaughey? Nope. Same thing. We can thank The Sixth Sense for these shitty movies because ever since that broke new ground with the twist ending, everyone was trying to do it after that and they failed miserably. The Others. High Tension. Identity. Just to name a few. They're all basically the same, with some minor differences.
Good horror movies are supposed to scare you. That doesn't mean the endings need to wrap everything up nice and neat and send us on our way. One of the most recent films I've seen that actually scared me and made me worried to sleep alone was The Strangers with the beautiful Liv Tyler. Oh man, even looking at the movie poster freaks me the hell out! The premise is simple: A couple staying in an isolated vacation home are terrorized by three unknown assailants. That's what it says on the IMDb page. That's all! And that's all I need. Why are these people attacking them? Who are they? Even after watching it, I don't know. And I don't need to know. That's what makes it so freaking scary! At one point Liv's character asks them why they're doing this. The one attacker simply says, "Because you were home." And I'm done! Clocking out! I can't! Just the randomness of it and them having no reason for doing it, is so scary in itself. Just random attackers coming in to your home where you feel the most safe and just coming after you for no goddam reason. It didn't need far out explanations, or have people going through hallucinations or psycho revelations. Nobody needed to be molested as a child, and certainly no one were ghosts or figments of anyone's imagination.
Growing up, the scariest person to me was Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street. As a kid, thinking there was a burned up scary man with knives as fingers coming in to your dreams and killing you? And your parents sitting there telling you that you have to go to bed? No thanks! That guy haunted me asleep and awake. But then when I was older, I went back and rewatched the movie again, coming to find out the back story was that he was a child molester and the parents of those children burned him alive and his revenge was to haunt their kids in their dreams. Really? You totally ruined it! Why can't we just have a scary monster haunting our dreams for no reason!? Another one that scared me growing up was Chucky from Child's Play. As a kid, I was terrified to think that my My Buddy doll was going to come alive and try to kill me. Watched the movie when I was older, come to realize that a serial killer transferred his soul with voodoo magic or whatever in to this doll and then continues on his killing streak. Thanks for ruining it again! Why can't my doll just come alive for no reason and kill people? That shit is way more scarier than just a random serial killer coming to get me in doll form. We'd sit there and ask, "Why is that doll killing everyone?" And then we'd say, "I dunno. But it's f***ing scary."
Some other good examples of some scary movies are The Exorcist. A demon possesses an innocent girl. Why? Who knows and who cares. It's scary as shit, dude. The Omen. So you're saying Satan had a kid? Awesome sauce. The Amityville Horror. A family has some bad luck picking houses. Shit goes down. Fire your realtor. Jaws. A shark eats people. Signs. Aliens are here and they're coming in your house. Texas Chainsaw Massacre. People being chased around by a guy wanting to cut them up with a chainsaw and wear their skin. Are you noticing a pattern? The best horror movies have the shortest plot summaries. The more you have to explain your horror movie, the worse it is. Keep it simple!
Needless to say, Silent House isn't going to keep me from continuing to watch these movies. It'll just continue to disappoint me. The best ones are the originals that come up with something new and then we'll all go see it and then watch the 35 movies after it that try and copy it, but fail miserably. Enjoy.
Growing up, the scariest person to me was Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street. As a kid, thinking there was a burned up scary man with knives as fingers coming in to your dreams and killing you? And your parents sitting there telling you that you have to go to bed? No thanks! That guy haunted me asleep and awake. But then when I was older, I went back and rewatched the movie again, coming to find out the back story was that he was a child molester and the parents of those children burned him alive and his revenge was to haunt their kids in their dreams. Really? You totally ruined it! Why can't we just have a scary monster haunting our dreams for no reason!? Another one that scared me growing up was Chucky from Child's Play. As a kid, I was terrified to think that my My Buddy doll was going to come alive and try to kill me. Watched the movie when I was older, come to realize that a serial killer transferred his soul with voodoo magic or whatever in to this doll and then continues on his killing streak. Thanks for ruining it again! Why can't my doll just come alive for no reason and kill people? That shit is way more scarier than just a random serial killer coming to get me in doll form. We'd sit there and ask, "Why is that doll killing everyone?" And then we'd say, "I dunno. But it's f***ing scary."
Some other good examples of some scary movies are The Exorcist. A demon possesses an innocent girl. Why? Who knows and who cares. It's scary as shit, dude. The Omen. So you're saying Satan had a kid? Awesome sauce. The Amityville Horror. A family has some bad luck picking houses. Shit goes down. Fire your realtor. Jaws. A shark eats people. Signs. Aliens are here and they're coming in your house. Texas Chainsaw Massacre. People being chased around by a guy wanting to cut them up with a chainsaw and wear their skin. Are you noticing a pattern? The best horror movies have the shortest plot summaries. The more you have to explain your horror movie, the worse it is. Keep it simple!
Needless to say, Silent House isn't going to keep me from continuing to watch these movies. It'll just continue to disappoint me. The best ones are the originals that come up with something new and then we'll all go see it and then watch the 35 movies after it that try and copy it, but fail miserably. Enjoy.
