Saturday, July 05, 2008

Stephen King thinks indie horror flicks like THE STRANGERS beat the tar out of studio releases like X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE and THE HAPPENING:

Horror is an intimate experience, something that occurs mostly within oneself, and when it works, the screams of a sold-out house are almost intrusive. In that sense, a movie such as Blair Witch is more like poetry than like the ''event films'' that pack the plexes in summer. Those flicks tend to be like sandwiches overstuffed with weirdly tasteless meat and cheese, meals that glut the belly but do nothing for the soul. Studio execs, who not only live behind the curve but seem to have built mansions there, don't seem to understand that most moviegoers recognize all the bluescreens and computer graphics of big-budget films and flick them aside. Those movies blast our emotions and imaginations, instead of caressing them with a knife edge.

Labels: watching movies

4:27 PM

2 Comments:

Ehhh, not so much. IF you're going to talk about how those darned Hollywood Executives are so out of touch with actual viewers, you should be careful not to add an insult that disproves your assertion.

"Studio execs, who not only live behind the curve but seem to have built mansions there, don't seem to understand that..."

Whatever they don't seem to understand is probably less useful the understanding how to afford a mansion.

And what's the point of his entire argument? "I don't like The X-Files (based on the trailer), but I liked The Strangers." Well then why isn't he talking about how glad he is that they made and released and marketed The Strangers? How about we celebrate the fact that both movies got made/released/marketed.

Instead of wanting better movies (which is basically a meaningless term), we should want more movies. Then we can have good and bad movies, and argue over which is which.

Is The X-Files even the same genre as The Strangers? Why is he comparing these two movies?
Maybe instead of The X-Files, Stephen King should complain about "The Mist".

By  Tom, at 5:46 PM  

I liked THE MIST, and that end of that damn thing (which differed from the story it was based on) freaked me the fuck out . . .

By  Joshua James, at 10:51 PM  

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