Phrases I Never Want To Hear Or See Again In Horror Reviews:

I hate reading horror movie reviews because the majority of folks reviewing them are, um, functionally retarded. Or may never have seen another horror movie in their entire lives!

Here's my list of terminology that I want to see banned from reviewing:

1. "Scary as Hell."
Obvious first complaint - it's just never true. If some idiot reviewer could think of nothing better to say than, "scary as hell", you know the movie sucked and they only watched the trailer for it.

My secondary complaint here - I'm not so convinced that Hell is actually a scary place.
(More on this another time.)

2. "Ratcheting up the Tension."
If you need to tell me on the box, or in the first 140 characters of your review that the movie is filled with tension, it's not.

And if it were, well, you just relieved it for me.
Thanks.

3. "The Most Shocking Movie Ending of All Time."
All time? Really? Do me a favor, okay, go watch some more movies. Particularly some made in another country because really, if it was made here in the good ole US of A, it's bullshit and predictable.

If you didn't see that ending coming, you haven't watched enough movies and have no business reviewing them.

Also, lay off the absolute(s), okay?

Comments

The Witch (2015)

You know the drill - there's ALWAYS spoilers. Don't want the movie ruined for you, come back after you've seen it. Also - I'm still without an editor - typos and bad grammar await you! I keep hoping that the cultural obsession with zombies will end; literally every other damn movie that comes 'round seems to feature some sort of shambling, undead being bent on devouring the weak flesh of regular humans. Once upon a time, zombies have have been used as a metaphor for the blind consumerism created by our capitalist society, or the perceived depletion of resources by immigrants, or even the ravages of time and disease on our frail bodies. Now it seems that the deeper social commentary has been lost as audiences mindlessly consume "zombie fiction" in an attempt to keep up with trends. ( How very meta - a film buddy of mine commented on this assessment! ) All of this is just a sideways rant, leading up to my actual point: it seems that zombie may actually...

Mother!

Alright friends and readers–this one is probably doubly filled with typos and grammar errors because I wrote it while angry. Good luck and happy reading. There are unpopular opinions in every realm. As a film student, you can truly strike a nerve when you say things like, "I fucking hate the self-indulgence of independent films and the way people idolize them." Or, you know, "Low lighting and slow pacing does not a good movie make." Or whatever. You can of course, objectively, understand how this happens. When you are creating art–when you are outside the system so to speak–you are free to explore things (subjects, techniques, etc.) that may need to be addressed and that freedom can become intoxicating and go to one's head. While it may seem only right or only fair to respect and accept each creative endeavor that every artist undertakes, it is unreasonable to believe that the world will remain forever patient with the self-obsession artists have. Th...

The Ones Below (2015)

Standard disclosure: there's ALWAYS spoilers. Don't want the movie ruined for you? Come back after you've seen it. And - I'm still without an editor - typos and bad grammar await you! Enjoy! When I was like 12 years old, my young (impressionable) friends and I watched The Hand That Rocks the Cradle ; Rebecca De Mornay is so gloriously evil in that movie that we ended up watching it all the damn time — much to the chagrin of my mother, I assume, who got real tired (real fast) of having to see this movie about a million damn times. What can I say? She was kind of a saint that way. Looking back, unsurprisingly, it's pretty easy to see that The Hand That Rocks the Cradle isn't really a terrific movie — although it's still pretty solid for a 90's thriller. Certainly it boasted some fairly well-known cast ( Ernie Hudson and Julianne Moore — whom my regular readers know that I absolutely hate, in particular.) but, the plot is actually pretty convolut...

i'm kael's ghost

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