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October 29 2001 |
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October 29 2001
Welcome to Silver Screen Snob. By now, you've probably guessed that this is going to be a movie review strip. I will take my favorite scene from a movie and do a short parody of it. This may be difficult for most movies because I find that I dislike most of the stuff that Hollywood produces these days. My general rule of thumb is that unless it's anime, kung fu, or Chow Yun Fat, I'll probably hate it. I would have included Sci-Fi in there, but after Lost In Space, I'm soured on the whole Sci-Fi movie genre.
I was going to do a movie review site with James where we'd do a point counter point thing with me bashing the films while he would search for something worthwhile to say. But I never got around to setting it up. So I'm going to force myself to start this movie review thing on this site and maybe we'll actually do our original idea sometime later.
Let me explain the scale above. The SH!T-O-Meter represents how much I think a particular film stinks. The left side of the scale represents fresh movies that don't stink. These are usually films that I would buy the special edition DVD and watch over and over and over again. The right side of the scale represents movies that stink much like steamy monkey crap. These are usually films that I would use as target practice or toilet paper if I ran out actual paper. The "I'd rather..." SCALE represents something I'd rather do than watch the movie. Since I usually speak in hyperbole, this scale may be more funny than the SH!T-O-METER.
The first movie on my chopping block is Thir13en Ghosts (notice the 1337 speak in the title to mirror the opening credits). It's Halloween time and I wanted to watch something that had the potential to scare the yellow out of me. Besides Thirteen Ghosts, the only other horror movie out now is Bones starring Snoop Dogg. Ummm...no. Snoop Dogg is no longer scarey. I suppose he was a bit scarey when he was rolling with Suge Knight. Suge is scarey. Damn scarey. Just ask Vanilla Ice. But I'm getting ahead of myself. So off to the theater I went.
The movie Scream attempted to parody horror films by playing with the so-called "rules" of horror films. But I have found that these rules only apply to horror movies made before the 90's. Horror films in the 90's attempted to do new things with the genre with some degree of success. In my opinion, there is only one rule that is universal to absolutely all horror films ever made. THERE WILL BE STUPID WHITE PEOPLE! Every damn horror movie I have ever had the misfortune of watching has stupid white people. Stupid white people running upstairs when the front door is in front of them. Stupid white people trying to unlock the arcane secrets of the universe while releasing an uncontrolable demon. Stupid white people having sex while the killer watches. Stupid white people going to summer camp in the home of a psychopath. Stupid white people not getting out of a house that speaks and bleeds at them. Stupid white people hunting after vampires at night. The list goes on and on. There will be stupid people in horror films from here until the genre passes on (which will never happen because Hollywood doesn't recognize a dead genre when they see it).
This movie is no exception. Stupid white people running all over the place getting killed by pissed off ghosts.
The movie also includes a long standing tradition of nudity in horror films. Though if you're looking to see Shannon Elizabeth naked, you better go rent American Pie again. She does not take off her clothes. The nudity in this film takes the form of a pissed off lady ghost who is slashed to hell and has pasty gray skin. This is about as non sexual as you can get. Only Marilyn Manson could get off to this chick.
Onto the plot. I'll try not to give too much away. Basically, a rich crazy white dude contracts the guy from Scream to go hunt ghosts. We open with the hunt and capture of ghost number 12. But in the proccess, the crazy white dude gets killed.
Flash to some random family. We find out later that the father is the nephew of the crazy white dude. Apparently, the mother of the family has perished in a fire leaving a daughter, played by Shannon Elizabeth, and a son, played by some kid. They now have a house keeper played by Rah Digga of Flip Mode Squad fame. She is the token minority (unless you count the big black pissed off ghost. There are a lot of pissed off ghosts in this film). She is also the comic relief of the film, hence the comic above.
So some really white layer shows up and tells the family that they've inherited the crazy white dude's house as the soul beneficiaries of his estate. Cheers ensue, road trip ensue, and we're at the big scarey house.
This may bejust me, but if I inherited a house that was made of glass walls, I would not go see it in the middle of the night. I'd wait for day break and go nice and early so I have a bunch of hours of day light. But noooooooooooo. These people are so excited they go in the middle of the night. Well, it is a horror film so I guess it's supposed to be dark and all. But that's just stupid. I'll stop here cause it gets interesting after they get to the house.
All in all, it's not such a bad film. But it's really not that scarey either. Every horro film has its own rules and this one follows them pretty faithfully. You can only see the ghosts if you wear a special pair of shades and ghosts must obey their own set of laws. The effects are well done and the set is absolutely amazing. The house set has such intricate detail that it almost becomes an actor itself. Make up is as nasty as you expect a moderm horro flick to be and the effects are pretty nice. But the film fails to really scare. Gross you out maybe, but no scares here. A horror film should disturb you for seeing it. It should leave you with a feeling of unease. This one just grosses you out. Nothing too new in the plot, it's a variation on a theme.
Best performance goes to Rah Digga and the naked chick. Rah Digga really brings some character to the film. Though she is a token, she does have some of the best lines in the film. And her reactions are pretty believable. The naked chick gets respect cause she's naked throughout the entire film. I don't see many guys doing that in films. It takes a confident person to run around naked all day. Or maybe just a horney one.
Overall, I wouldn't recomend Thirteen Ghosts to anyone I liked. Sure it's entertaining, but it's not worthy of the horror movie genre. You leave the theater laughing your ass off because of the stupidity of the white people and the one liners from Rah Digga. Wait for it to come out on video or DVD, but save your money for something else like a #5 meal at Mickey SH!TS.
Next week, Jet Li in The One. I'm looking forward to this one cause Jet Li fights....Jet Li. I'm interested to see how they pull this one off and if they Matrix the effects to death. Thanks for watching and see ya in the theater!
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