Congratulations to all associated with, what will be, the biggest surprise moneymaking movie of 2016. Jaume Collet-Serra’s (Non-Stop, Run All Night) The Shallows will have used a highly successful marketing campaign (which included showing its terrifying trailers during sporting events and popular primetime television shows) along with positive scores from the critics (75% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) on its way to making, my guess, more than $300 million worldwide by the time everything is said and done. This will make The Shallows the biggest non-superhero, non-G-rated movie to be released in the first half of 2016. Of course, it’s exactly everything you would expect it to be, and, for a majority of its audience, that will be perfectly fine. If you want an escape from reality fare, this could be the movie for you. If you want to take your thinking cap off for an hour and a half, this could be the movie for you. If you want a movie that builds upon every single scene in its quest to terrify you, this could be the movie for you. Even if you are looking for a movie with beautiful cinematography, this could be the movie for you. But if you are looking for something that is even the slightest bit believable or you care about any top-of-quality acting in your lead or sub-characters, The Shallows most certainly is not your movie.
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Category Archives: Horror
It Follows (2015)
Total creep-fest. 2015 was looking for a legitimate horror. While this movie has completely flown under the radar for the general public, word of mouth has allowed the independent It Follows to become a cult classic quickly. Not only is this the best horror movie of 2015, but it is also the best horror movie in years. Honestly, the feeling that I got while watching this movie was what I expected to feel in, perhaps, the most over-hyped horror movie of all time, 1999’s The Blair Witch Project. When I saw The Blair Witch Project in the theater, I was expecting to be scared in ways that I had been before. I know that a few of the friends I went with were completely freaked out, and I wondered if we had just watched the same movie. The Blair Witch Project is a different type of horror than A Nightmare on Elm Street. I think that perhaps as a 23-year-old, I hadn’t yet adapted to the idea that what you might imagine could be even more terrifying than what you actually see. I’ve mentioned on this blog a couple of times that I need to go back and watch The Blair Witch Project just to see if I view it the same way that I did 16 years ago. By looking at its 87% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, I’m willing to admit that I am probably missing something when I give it a grade of a D-. But this is neither here nor there. It Follows is much more like The Blair Witch Project than A Nightmare on Elm Street. Its 96% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes is very much on par with my view of the movie. It Follows is an instant horror classic.
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Crimson Peak (2015)
Guillermo del Toro. Some people love the movies he has directed. Some people don’t love them. I think I am starting to land in the second group. I know he found his early cult following with movies like Hellboy and Hellboy II while also receiving critical accolades for films like The Orphanage and Pan’s Labyrinth. For me, his movies aren’t must-see (I’ve had Pan’s Labyrinth on my list of movies to watch for years, but each time I think I might want to watch it, I put something else on instead). Hellboy and The Orphanage were both okay, but del Toro is no early M Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs). While Crimson Peak has had mostly positive reviews (69% on Rotten Tomatoes), it hasn’t hit home with audiences. Its marketing campaign has hurt its inability to categorize it as humor, mystery, suspense, romance, or drama. This movie attracted del Toro’s best-ever cast ensemble (Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Charlie Hunnam, Tom Hiddleston). Still, with an estimated budget of $50 million and only half of that amount accumulated in revenue from the first two weekends, Crimson Peak might barely break even. This movie is by no means great. It was an okay watch, but my life certainly would not have been altered if I had not seen it. I absolutely will never watch this movie again. It certainly is not a horror film, so even though the previews look scary and categorized as horror, you’re not going to be scared. If you like del Toro’s other movies, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by this one. If you’ve never seen one of his movies before (other than maybe Pacific Rim), I’d suggest watching either The Orphanage or Pan’s Labyrinth at home and base your decision on your fondness of either of those movies.
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The Visit (2015)
M. Night Shyamalan (Signs, The Sixth Sense) is no longer the master of terror. He seems to get progressively worse with each film. There are exceptions for some people, I think. For example, I liked The Village more than I did Unbreakable, and while other people panned The Happening, I thought it was okay. However, there is no denying that the man is a fraction of his former self. While he no longer deems it necessary to have a twist in every movie, his last few movies, especially Lady in the Water, The Last Airbender, and After Earth, have been dreadful. With The Visit, a film he both wrote and directed, he tries something new. It fails. Miserably. At least for me, it did. There is an audience for it, evidenced by its $25 million in its opening weekend alone and a 59% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But those who remember the masterful Shyamalan from 1999-2002 are not the same people who will enjoy this. The Visit seems to be a mixture between The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, Funny Games, The Strangers, and Goosebumps. I’ll admit that this was the second movie of a Bryan Buser double and that it was the only movie that matched up when my first movie ended. I saw the film by default, and I was prepared to walk out at any point. I anticipated it. However, there was something about it early on that kept me interested. And then, when I looked at my watch, and I was already 30 minutes into a 90-minute movie, I knew I would stick it out.
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The Harvest (2015)
It’s never really a good thing when your movie is released on Video on Demand the same day it opens in the theater. This is slowly changing and becoming a more accepted practice because it helps some of these independent movies earn more money. However, it still means that regardless of how good a movie is (in any category), it is not eligible for Academy Awards nomination consideration. So if it is a movie that you think will be great, you wouldn’t allow it to be available on OnDemand until after he exits the theaters. With that said, I believe that all those involved with this movie (regardless if you loved it or hated it) knew that it would never be in contention for an Oscar award. This is a movie I would not have seen in the theater, and had it not been on OnDemand at the same time as its theater release date, it would have been a movie that I would have missed altogether. Their release plan was a good one. The film, on the other hand, was meh.
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