Horror Roundtable - Week Twenty-Four
Describe your least favourite horror-related experience of 2006.
My least favorite horror experience was my recent trip to the video store where there was a GLUT of crappy product on the shelves. You have to admire the marketing power behind these shot-on-crappy-video flicks, but there has to be more originality and verve and craft in the market than this.
This is the same thing that drove a stake through the Urban market several years ago and it barely recovered (if it ever did). To the distributors I say, “Don’t buy up everything to corner the market.” To the filmmakers I say, “Stop. Relax. Breathe. Ask yourself if this is a movie you want to see. If it isn’t, flush it and go make the movie you would pay money to see at the theater. Also, pick up a film book or twenty and learn your job.”
Paul Corupe - Canuxploitation
I know it has its fans, but my least favourite horror experience of the year was Silent Hill. Despite an admittedly spooky atmosphere and occasionally interesting CGI work, Silent Hill is the perfect example of the disturbing trend (to me at least) of horror audiences far more concerned with the richness of visuals than the basic concepts of cohesive storytelling or character development. Suffering through pain-inducing dialogue, uncharismatic performances, and a frequently nonsensical plot that felt like the video game’s FAQ (take item A, proceed to room B, fight monster C), I spent the last half hour trying to poke my eyes out with an empty Glosette peanut box.
The Descent.
I feel bad for saying it, I really do! I just had problems following it and the hype I heard about it before seeing it must have really raised my expectations. There was certainly some cool scenes and I even had the pleasure of watching the original crazy ending, I dunno, it just didn’t do it for me. I went in expecting to finally watch a movie that could legitimately make my cold, black heart jump a few beats, but left wanting..more I guess. The inter-character stuff was a lot more fleshed out than most though, so props for that! Not to say this is a horrible movie or anything, but the expectation must have bunged it up for me. And I felt the same thing about Hostel too! Go figure. More gore!!!
Oh, and Saw III was just awful, but that`s a given. Needs dinosaurs or something.
T. Van - Tolerated Vandalism
My least favourite horror experience of 2006 would have to go to When A Stranger Calls. Why did I even bother with this piece of trash? I’m still asking myself that question. This is easily one of the lamest entries into the genre I’ve seen in a long time. I really wasn’t expecting much and this movie didn’t deliver. “Have you checked the children?” the killer asked. I was kind of hoping that when she finally did the kids would be did and the movie would be over. Instead we were subjected to hearing the goddamn phone ring every 30 seconds while the dumb chick who played the babysitter looked perplexed. As if watching the movie itself wasn’t bad enough, I tortured myself by viewing the Bonus Features on the DVD.
My least favorite experience was watching AN AMERICAN HAUNTING, the film had a great beginning, but such huge let down of a ending. If I had known that the director behind it was the same from the film version of DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS, I would have never watched it.
Rod Lott - Bookgasm
That’s too easy: A little something called STAY ALIVE. A movie so bad I never want to play a post-Pong video game or watch MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE ever again. Even if you had told me Sophia Bush would get naked in the final frames, I still wouldn’t have been able to finish it.
Runner-up: A werewolf novel called WOLF’S TRAP by W.D. Gagliani, which spends too much time devoting paragraphs describing the author’s favorite prog-rock solos instead of developing a story.
I’m sorry to say the Evil Dead musical is all that’s springing to mind. I feel guilty in retrospect for harshing on it so in my review - it just wants to make you smile! - but man it pained me, like, physically so.
Mark - Exclamation Mark’s SciFi/Horror Review
I found myself sadly disappointed when I rushed to the theater to watch An American Haunting. With such a strong cast and fascinating history, I allowed my hopes to soar far too high. So the let down I felt at the film’s conclusion ranks as my least favorite horror-related experience of 2006.
Sean T. Collins - Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat
After all the hype, the lone Masters of Horror installment I managed to watch, John Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns, was a massive letdown. And that’s supposed to be one of the better ones!
Louis Fowler
Least favorite…geez, where do I start? When a Stranger Calls, The Return, The Omen, Underworld: Evolution, The Grudge 2, Stay Alive, The Covenant, Pulse, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector…and that’s not even counting the straight-to-video junk.
Thank God I get paid to watch this shit, or else I would have not only killed others, but myself for wasting so much of my life.
Red Hawk - Happy Horror
It’s a little hard to think of something horror-related that disappointed me this past year. I enjoy just about everything that I’ve seen, so I have an unusual barometer in these things. However, if hard-pressed for an answer, there’s one thing that actually stands out in my mind, now that I think about it: the original sequel to the original Ringu movie, Rasen. While Ringu was rather slow and methodical, as alot of Japanese horror tends to be, Rasen made it seem like it was moving at high speeds. I was expecting more from it when I picked up the Ringu Anthology of Terror. Luckily, the other three movies in the set more than made up for it.
Casey Criswell - Cinema Fromage
My biggest disappointment of 2006 would have to be Pulse.
With promises of a dark and gritty apocalypse, the lovely Kristen Bell and decent looking trailers, I really had high hopes for this one. What I got was a boring, jumbled mess, with a plot that jumped around so fast it was hard to keep up.
David Z. - Tomb It May Concern
Not having enough hours to see everything I own. My “too be (watched, read, played, written) piles” are HUGE!!
Thanks to all the vicious hate-mongers who contributed to this week’s Roundtable. Visit their respective sites for even more venomous bile. And while we’ve got you, please feel free to rant about your own awful experiences in the comments below.
December 9th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
My worst was the first few minutes on Night of The Living Dead 3D as it was instantly obvious that the movie was gonna suck and I figured things would go down hill from the intro - which already would be hard to top for suckyness. Sure enough, the movie got worse (even people who like it will admit the middle is boring) but the pain went a way a bit as I could see that my date was not having an awful time - I was - but at least I would not have to shoulder the burden of bringing a girl out on a date that bored her to death.
December 11th, 2006 at 1:06 am
Man, what were you thinking?
And way to rub it in, Louis. Most of us subject ourselves to garbage for no pay at all.