Frightening movies. I don't think so.

I'm using the movie series, Saw as an example here because it should still be fairly recent in everyone's minds and because the fourth part is about to hit the theaters. Bear in mind, I don't have a whole lot of problem with gore in movies. It's easy for me to remember it ain't real and it just rolls right over me. Really, it does. (Gore in real life is a different story, however but that's a topic for another time.)

The real terror of a movie is in the building of suspense and the threat of something freaky or evil or dangerous being about to happen. Look at The Ring or Ju On (or The Grudge). At least, as long as the potential victim of same is not being so utterly stupid as to make you laugh instead of jump in your chair and toss your popcorn on your date. Hollywood film makers forget what normal people are apt to do, even aside from the armchair directors in the theaters. Bottom line is, a scary movie needs to make you think pretty hard for a while after you walk out into the lobby.

I've digressed overly much. Back to the Saw series. And yes, there are a couple of spoilers so if you've not seen it, don't blame me for not warning you. Or maybe you'll read this because you're not going to go see it! In that case, you'll still be disappointed because I'm not really going to disclose so much.

The first Saw was a very nice Hitchcockian suspense flick. There was gore and such but it was incidental; not the focus of the movie. I mean, even though there was a dead guy in the middle of the room in a pool of his own blood, how could you possibly forget that the only way those two captives could get loose was if they were willing to saw off their own foot? Very easy to put yourself in that position, wondering what you would do if you were in that situation and feel a cold chill go up and down your spine.

Add to that the suspense built by the possibility that the two guys may have had a connection which could have caused one to kill the other even though they should be working together to escape, a time limit to figure out how to escape and a half dozen other sub plots equally horrifying and really, the gore is of little consequence, even when the one guy actually does cut his foot off in order to escape. (Just a thought here, the music at this point was absolutely PERFECT!)

The second movie added a bunch of gore but still had a degree of the suspense that the first one had. You could easily go, "good grief," at some of the excessive gore but after all was said and done, it was still pretty decent. The rats-trapped-in-a-maze theme was a little overdone in my opinion but the puzzles were creative enough to take the, "hokey malokey," out of it.

The third installment made the gore the primary focus of the flick and while the story still sort of carried pretty well, it was splattered upon overly much by blood and guts. In short, it was crap. It might have been the kind of thing that would make people look away but it didn't add to my enjoyment of the movie and sure didn't scare anyone.

To be fair, they created and then answered some questions linked to the first movie so that was pretty decent of them. Still, by the end of the movie, I was done with gore-centric flicks. No more desire to see Texas Chainsaw Massacre which was released right about then, no desire to see The Hills Have Eyes 2 (yes, I saw the first one), no urge to get out to rent Hostel and then watch Hostel 2. Now, in place of the urge to see good scary movies, I prefer instead to avoid the gore-focused movies and be more selective with my scary movie selections. The have to be truly scary now. It's just hard to tell, really until you're sitting in the theater.

The fourth one? Jury's still out on it but if they continue the trend, it's going to be a loser just like the third one. I doubt I'll watch it. I may go see it just because I saw the first three but essentially, I'm done with movie makers who can't stay focused on the story, the plot, or just don't really have the skills it takes to make a great frightener.

The new Halloween movie, now, there is a GREAT horror flick! Kudos to Rob Zombie for that one. Well done even if you didn't really care for it.

--Wag--