Congratulations to all those 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 that will be perfectly fine for most of its audience. If you want an escape from reality fare, this could be the movie for you. This could be the movie if you want to take your thinking cap off for an hour and a half. If you want a movie that builds upon every scene in its quest to terrify you, this could be the movie for you. Even if you want a film with beautiful cinematography, this could be the movie for you. But if you are looking for something the slightest bit believable or care about the quality of acting in your lead or sub-characters, The Shallows is not your movie.
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 I got while watching this movie was what I expected from what’s arguably 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 terrified by it. I wondered if we had just watched the same movie. The Blair Witch Project is a different type of horror from 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 see. I’ve mentioned on this blog a couple of times that I need to go back and watch The Blair Witch Project to see if I view it the same way that I did 16 years ago. Given its 87% “fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes, I’m willing to admit that I am probably missing something when I give it 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. The movie’s 96% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes aligns with my view of the film. It Follows is an instant horror classic.
Crimson Peak (2015)
Guillermo del Toro. Some people love the movies he has directed. Some people don’t love them. 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 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 received mostly positive reviews (69% on Rotten Tomatoes), it hasn’t resonated with audiences. Its marketing campaign has hindered its genre identifier, such as humor, mystery, suspense, romance, or drama. This movie attracted del Toro’s best-ever cast ensemble (Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Charlie Hunnam, and 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 are categorized as such, you won’t 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 Pacific Rim), I suggest watching either The Orphanage or Pan’s Labyrinth at home and base your decision on your fondness for either of those movies.
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. 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, as evidenced by its $25 million in box office revenue alone and a 59% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, those who recall the masterful Shyamalan of 1999-2002 are not the same people who will enjoy this.
Continue reading The Visit (2015)
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 more widely accepted because it helps some 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 an Academy Award nomination. So if it is a movie you think will be great, you wouldn’t make it available on OnDemand until after it leaves theaters. With that said, all those involved with this movie (regardless of whether you loved it or hated it) knew that it would never be in contention for an Oscar award. The Harvest is a movie I would not have seen in theaters, and had it not been on OnDemand at the same time as its theatrical release, I would have missed it altogether. Their release plan was good. The film, on the other hand, was meh.