The Crazies: horror's public relations

I will admit, I don't do a good job of supporting horror in the theaters.  Not that I don't want to.  Every time I see a good horror film come out I wish to see it on the big screen.  With my popcorn and my Cherry Coke.  Maybe I am a victim of the laundry list of things that keep me out of the theatre: the fact they are now over ten bucks to go during the day...even more at night when horror is meant to be scene, the fact I have a blue ray player, the fact that a blue ray or DVD costs about the same as a theatre visit, the fact that my kids are five and still a few years away from joining me in wanting to see Freddy slice and dice.  All of these reasons seem valid.   I still feel like I do a good job supporting horror with the amount of money I spend buying films on DVD and blue ray.  That is how I watched Breck Eisner's (2010) remake The Crazies.  In glorious blue ray.  With my 59 cent fountain pop from Circle K and my bag of Orvil Redenbocker all to myself.

This is not so much a review of the Crazies- as much as it is a questioning of horror marketing.  The Crazies was a great film.  One I will probably purchase to add to my collection.   A film worthy of multiple viewings and one in which I feel will stand the test of time.  In the remake category, I would rank it right up the with the Aja's Hills Have Eyes remake.  It's that good.

But, like I said, this is not so much of a review.  How this movie was marketed confuses me a bit. My wife, mind you, is admittedly not a huge horror fan, when she likes a horror film I see her as more of the conscious of America.  How the typical moviegoer might view a film.  I might be a little biased and find even a Saturday afternoon syfy channel movie good.  But if the wife likes it...

She pointed out how awful the movie was marketed as it was in theaters.  The Crazies did not fare that well in theaters.  I realize many movies have a great life on DVD and blue ray and can be good without doing well at the box office.  But, the Crazies is an example of poor marketing.  if you saw previews for the films...it comes across as being yet another zombie flick.  Not a whole lot of brains to it besides the ones the ghouls are feasting on.  But, there is much more to the Crazies.  It is a well rounded, spooky, well made, well acted film.  The marketing for some horror films, especially horror films in the Winter/ Spring is terrible.  Saw 7 will be marketed out the wazoo this October and more teenie-boppers will see that then probably saw the Crazies.  And, most horror hounds will agree, we would rather the teens give there parents money to a film like the Crazies then to Saw 7.  If not, we will just get Saw 8, 9 and 10.  If we go with the notion that better horror films should do better in the box office, then they needs to be marketed better.  And hypocriteslike me need to actually go to the theater to see them.

Say my name, say my name...

Today I learned who "the man" is. Who the man is at Netflix at least. You see, I am now convinced there is a man (or a lady) (or the little boy from The Shinning) that sits in an office at Netflix somewhere. Their job is to review your que. To see what you have on deck and from time to time hit you up with an oddball combo. You know what I mean...you get Spaceballs and Balls of Fury. Or you get Redneck Zombie Massacre in the same mail delivery as Barbie in Mermadia. The ironic combo. Or, in some cases, the embarrassing combo of films you want but didn't expect to get in the same week.

Now I enjoy Netflix, don't get me wrong. I just think that someone is toying with me, or the horror Gods are in alignment: as today I received both My Name is Bruce and His Name was Jason. both films I have been waiting to see, but was not expecting to get together. Could there really be a small boy, rabid robot dog, or computer program fucking with my que?? That ain't nothing nice. But, I will be enjoying watching these two horror giants. Jason and Bruce. Maybe one day they could battle each other. With the winner taking on "the man" at Netflix.

He would not run...

What would Jason do? What would he do if he found out that Marcus Nispel was remaking him. What would Kane Hodder do if he found out Derek Mears was playing him? What will Michael Bay do when he runs out of major horror properties to remake?

All of these questions will be answered with time. While I wait patiently at the dock of crystal lake like the rest of us for this new re-launch--I wonder--"this is still just theater fluff, right?" This, and the countless remakes before it are what we call theater fodder. Movies for teens and old school horror junkies like myself to maybe catch in the theatre--more likely to catch on DVD. But the real horror is out there. unfortunately, this Winter it is not in the theatre.

I will see the new Jason--for entertainment. More than likely on DVD. Maybe even Cupid will get me the what would Jason do t-shirt I've always wanted. The preview looks neat-- I like the burlap sack look....I like the atmosphere....and I like the director. Marcus Nispel did a yeoman's job with the Texas Chainsaw re-launch.

There is one issue I will take before seeing the film: HE WOULD NOT RUN. There is a rather cool, jaw-drop inducing "Jason running" scene in the preview. I myself at first was even all like "holy shit, that's cool." but....he would not run. Jason was a slug. A meat head. A drowned hydrocephalus head- soggy- bulky- behemoth. He would not run. This is the one scene that looks to be making him into more of a video game killer. Let's hope this is not the case.

What I will do is enjoy the show. But- let us not forget, the real horror films that are out there (just maybe not in theatres). Like MARTYRS. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. In October- THE BOX. OFFSPRING. And many many others. The New Friday the 13th is our theatre horror fair for this month. Most of us will not run, but drive to the video store to see the angry Voorhees boy.

Cuts happen...

Things happen. New presidents are elected, years change, and blog writers loose their interest. I admit- I haven't blogged since....well, last year. Since we still had a crooked white guy as president. Since Mirrors was still in theaters (and now is tanking just as bad on DVD...what let down for Aja fans). I will make no excuses. I will make no promises to "do better" or "make-up" somehow, as the devotees to this blog are few and far between. There aren't many people, even many of my own friends who share my love for horror films and poetry. Sure, maybe some people like one or the other. But few see the corlation between the two. A short tense hour and a half horror film can easily evoke the same thrill as a short tense poem.

So here I will continue. I will continue to comment on the horror film and literary industry. I will juxtapose this commentary with my own poems on the side (quite literally). I will not just log in and check facebook alone. I will not blog once a year. I will not make promises about my blog.

This will remain the place to find out what is happening in the world of poetry and horror. Light and dark. Or, dark and dark.

back in the saddle

Yes, I have not blogged for awhile. No excuses, just haven't found time. Good thing is I have written a bucket full of poems...which i will add to my Urbis site later this evening. But, I do promise to keep up on more horror posts...especially now that we are in the most Hallowed month of the year. The best one of the all. All things good in my life have happened in October...or around Halloween. If I were Napoleon Dynamite, I'd say "It's pretty much my favorite holiday." If one could pick their death date...I'd like to die around Halloween. (but that's not a request for any crazies that read the blog). Anyways...I will start my horror DVD viewing/reviewing this week with Argentos Mother of Tears and Feast 2. I know Feast 2 might be crap...but I want to find out for myself as I really enjoyed the first one. And Argento is Argento...should be great. I will review these, as well as a gore-load of other classics right here on cuts happening in the coming days and weeks. A horror movie a night. And I aint talking about that crap you find on sci fi.

sleep....continued

"I've been guarding my gate for a long time..bitch!"

-Freddy proclaims to Alice Johnson (Lisa Wilcox) in the final scene of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4.

That line just stuck with me. Here we are, another random Tuesday...and I am restless.

Let me explain. Every night, I fall asleep watching a horror film. I go on kicks. Or series you could call them. Right now, for the hundred and fifth time, I am on an Elm Street kick (no, that's not all I watch, I am not obsessed). I start with one....then watch em' all...all the way up the Freddy v. Jason (which I loved) or...whatever else "they" make my "last" film of the week.

That line....I've been guarding my gate a long time....stuck with me. i have been doing this awhile. even before blogging. Before facebook. Even before Bill Gates. I have been in love with horror. I complain, yet, bring on the lack of sleep. I admit, yet relish in the love of horror. I want to hug and appreciate all those that admit...horror is A O K. No, I am not goth. I am a straight-laced father, teacher and I go to church. But horror is undefinable. Thanks to all that are out there, reading this, loving Halloween, enjoying blood, and seeing the truth that this genre presents us with.

Nightmares

Well, the first week of school is over. And I am exhausted. Not due to school. But rather, what I think are self-induced nightmares. While getting back to school and asking for back to school horror films to watch...I found what I forgot is one of my favorites. I appreciate the suggestions, Christine and Ginger Snaps- both wonderful films. But I forgot A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge.

While A Nightmare on Elm Street may be a franchise riddled with comical cheese...nightmare 2 was the one that got me. When I was in the seventh grade and my family lived in a small, two-bedroom apartment...my brother had a friend over. My brother and his friend were four years older than me and my parents were out of town. He was supposed to be watching me. But he and his friend watched A Nightmare on Elm Street 2. And they let me watch.

I was spooked. I was scared to death. But kept watching. And here I am twenty years later blogging about it. So, when I brainstormed back to school horror movies, I remembered Elm Street 2. The bus scene.

This week I watched Elm Street, over two or three nights, in bed....as I always do to fall asleep with a horror movie. Normally I watch a movie, about twenty minutes worth, then drift into sleep. for some reason, the stars aligned this week and when I watched Elm Street 2...i never fell asleep much afterwards. I have probably only slept max, about three hours a night this week. Granted, it may be due to stress...back to school...whatever. But I think it is the film. Nightmare 2 is one sequel that i think....and I know I'm on a limb here...is better than the original. That buss scene creeps me out. The pool scene...where Freddy proclaims "you are all my children now..." are classic.

I didn't have nightmares this week. I just couldn't sleep. I am tired. But like it. Horror films can scare us, spook us, make us think, or just make us restless. that is why they are so powerful. The good ones affect people. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 is a good one.

Monster Slayer Saturday

While there may be debates over vampires and werewolves, zombies and the infected; but when it comes to 80's horror make-ups, nothing was better than the GHOUL. The monster, one-eyed-man, drooling lunatic. The 80's didn't just bring hair metal and Reaganomics- they also gave us some of the best ghouls and monster hunters around.

One great monster movies of the decade is Blood Beach. Hearkens back to the days when an old weathered VHS box could provide real artistic scenes and tag lines. "Just when you thought it was safe to..."
Now, a list of great 80's horror film could take up pages. Some of my favorites were the anthologies, the Creepshows, Tales From the Darkside and Body Bags. But recently, some horror directors that also grew up on this feast of flesh have gone retro. They've gone back with the make-up, the prosthetics, the blood and slime. This is much appreciated by fans who long for the reality spook that non-CGI materials make. The stuff you could SEE falling off the actors faces and living and ghouling with them. I look forward to the nostalgia and campiness of the up coming film Jack Brook's Monster Slayer. While it may not retain the same coziness of the 80's films, it certainly waves a bloody paw at the masters of the genre. Long live make-ups! RIP Stan Winston- an original ghoul maker of the field.

Ga Ga for Aja !

Yes this entry may be a little bit on the "fan boy" side of the aisle. But I cannot express my appreciation for Alex Aja's work. In the words of Tom Cruse, he had me at High Tension. This 2005 film was a ground breaker. Literally HIGH friggin tension throughout. A tense talent he brought into The Hills Have Eyes remake. For those who have seen Hills...content wise-of stealing a baby...it cannot be denied that the "burning father, baby stealing scene" was not one of the most tense twenty minutes of any recent film. That scene quite frankly made the remake good and so good that every other horror film that can be remade is being remade.

But Aja remakes it right. He honors the original, but injects his own....tension. His latest jaw-dropper is Mirrors...out Friday. Another remake. But another one that looks separate enough from the original to release the tension. There is something to be said about how bad a remake is...but there is also something to be said about a director that gets a remake right. For as much as horror fans (myself included) don't want to see our heroes Freddy and Jason and Leatherface and Ash remade. There is just as much appreciation when it comes to Aja's work. The best thing about him is that his remakes a good, better than the originals...AND his original work is so solid no one would ever touch remaking them.

On an Island in the Sun

Sorry for anyone out there that reads diligently- I have obviously been out for awhile. Literally on an island in the sun. I spent some time on Island 10 in Northern Ontario, fishing, writing, relaxing with my brother and father. I am home now and promise to get back to blogging. I will be uploading some poems this evening to Urbis...check them out. i will also perhaps watch a horror film or two (after the girls go to bed) and review. Only a few more weeks till school returns and I'm back to slangin the poetic knowledge to high school brains. I'm out like Freddy and Jason... until the sequel.

Retro Wednesday!

Believe it our not kiddies...today is retro Wednesday. Our creature feature for today is the 80's scare-fest "The Gate." This film was a nice departure from the slasher fair of the 80's and provided many a nightmare for kids of the same age of the lead character Glen (played by a young Stephen Dorff). The plot is simple enough...three kids accidentally unleash a horde of beasts from a hole in their backyard. Simple enough, but the film creeps you out with this little tiny creatures that come out of nowhere and terrorize the characters. It has a great metal sound track. Levitation. Kids in peril. Parents away. Family dog dies...all wrapped up in nice 80's horror artistry. This has to be my favorite time in horror. Maybe cause its my youth...when I saw the films....but the 80's were great. And....to prove even more that this film is a classic....it is being remade. Yes kids, remade. While some chambers and corners of the current horror world are doing fine coming up with original ideas...Hollywood horror still can't keep its grubby little hands off of 80's classics. Do yourself a favor- rent this tonight...VHS...BETA...or DVD (for sale at Best Buy...only 5 bucks!)...and wait for the little ghouls to bite your ankles! Happy Horroring!

A good Independent never dies...

The horror genre like the music genre is defined by independent work. When a indie rock bands starts a movement- sooner or later the mainstream catches up and copies. When a good, independent horror film comes out the genre tends to follow in the box office. Carpenter's Halloween, Sean S. Cunnigham's Friday the 13th, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, at their time, were independent films. They went on to spawn decades worth of Hollywood horror nightmares. Even more recently, many of these groundbreaking films are being re-made; yet another attempt at Hollywood's cinematic plagiary.



So it's safe to say, a good independent horror film never dies. Recently, the Horror Society put on an independent film fest here in Cincinnati. While mostly consisting of shorts, the fest showcased a few feature length indie fright fares. Director Lou Vockel's http://www.onemanfilmindustry.com/The Stalking Hand and Vagrant played to crowd applause and intrigue. Vagrant's cast displayed a Reservoir Dogs like pacing throughout. They played off each other and against each other in a grindhouse style heist film. With a back-drop of a vagrant, homeless killer in the house- this scenrio proved the best of the fest and most likely to transcend the indie film world. Halloween, Friday the 13th or Night of the Living Dead it may not be- but the independent world seems to be alive and screaming in Cincinnati, OH.

Happy Friday the 13th !

What a splendid day it shall be! Friday the 13th!
Things you could do today to celebrate: 1. go see The Happening 2. Watch Friday the 13th movies (probably will be some on AMC or Sci-Fi tonight). 3. Go to the Cincinnati Horror Film Fest in Fairfield tomarrow. 4. Play a trick on someone. 5. Step on a crack. 6. Dress up as a camp counselor and and see what happens when you mix sex drugs and alcohol. 7. Play with a quiji board tonight. 8. Say bloody Mary or Candyman into a mirror. 9. Don't listen to the old crazy guy that warns you of what in them der woods. 10. Or, just sit at home and do whatever your wife tells you.
Whatever you do, enjoy the 13th.... chi chi chi ha ha ha...

It's all in a name

Nancy: [about Freddy] What'd he look like? You get a look at him?
Rod: No.
Nancy: Well then how can you say somebody else was there?
Rod: Because somebody cut her. While I watched.
Nancy: Somebody cut her while you watched and you don't know what he looked like?
Rod: I couldn't see the fucker. You could just see the cuts happening, all at once. I probably could've saved her if I'd moved sooner. But I thought it was just another nightmare, like the one I had the night before. There was this guy who had knives for fingers.

That's right guys and ghouls...you're favorite horror blog received it's name from Nightmare On Elm Street. How can you see somebody when they're not there? you can if there's cuts happening. How can you keep getting the latest in horror film, literature and original stories? Tune in daily to cutshappening.blogspot.com. Or else...I'll pin all of the murders on Rod Lane!

U.S. v. Them

One of the recent trends in horror seems to be the U.S. remaking/reduxing/or just plain borrowing from foreign nightmares. This is most prevalent with Japanese horror films. I honestly stopped counting Asian horror remakes shortly after The Ring. But, there is some comment to be made on if/why someone would rather see the U.S. version of The Grudge...rather than seeing Takashi Shimizu's Ju-On. I personally enjoyed both, but for real, dark, horror- Shimizu's original cannot be challenged. It's creepier, darker, more dank. Granted maybe the U.S. version is more accessible because of the language- but often for me at least, subtitles make a film even more spooky. I could spend hours comparing original foreign films to their U.S. remake counterparts- but won't. I appreciate most good horror films, U.S. or otherwise. I especially appreciate when foreign directors make blow your mind apart "U.S." horror movies. I do not care for all the borrowing though. Case in point....which came first? This weekends 'The Strangers," or "Them?" Now, I will be a hypocrite and probably at least rent The Strangers when it rockets to DVD after getting pummeled by the super-hero-Jones onslaught that is in the theaters now. Due in some part because it looks somewhat spooky and I'm a sucker for masks. BUT...the movie does at least appear to borrow somewhat from David Moreau and Xavier Palud's "Them." Now that movie was a horror movie. An absolute creep-fest. "Them" was a quiet, tension building spook of a film that indeed scared me at times (that's what it's all about, right). "The Strangers" may do well. But most likely will get dissolved into the pea soup that is the U.S. taking others ideas and not playing nice.

Links

As advertised...the new and improved cuts happening blog will be more devoted to horror than ever before. This includes links. Not sausage links my dear readers...or Zelda Links my dear gamers...but link links. I have begun to list links to my favorite horror filmmakers and horror writers. You should peruse them there to your right. This is by NO MEANS a comprehensive list. I will add to it at will. I give my cuts happening seal of approval to all of the filmmakers and writers listed. You should not go wrong with any of these masters work. Furthermore, I will not share the taste of every horror fan...so as Brian Keene would say "Don't look for your town here."

cuts are happening again!

The world's favorite Horror Blog is back. Cuts Happening has fought off the zombie hordes that overtook the company headquarters about a month ago- and have emerged hungry as ever to report on the world of horror films. This renewed interest in discussing horror has come in some part to this weekends "Cincinnati Horror Film Fest" brought to you by www.HorrorSociety.com. My father in law brought it to my attention that this was happening here in Fairfield this weekend. I checked into it- and it is for real. Eleven hours of independent horror films. I cannot wait. I am so happy to see horror films coming to my area. So ecstatic in fact, that I am officially bringing back cuts happening. This time, it will be bloodier, cover more horror and review more film than ever before and I will proclaim the wonder of horror film to anyone special enough to fall upon this blog. So keep checking back. And remember what Rod Lane says "There were just like....cuts happening man."