Monster of the Day #1504

I remember discussing the trailer for this a few months ago, I hope I didn’t use the monster here that day. The film is quite possibly as dire as the trailer made it look, since they clearly didn’t screen it for reviewers. Hence the lack of a Rotten Tomatoes score on it’s opening day, which is today. One thing I do know is that while it’s possible to make a good scary two hour horror movie, its a harder task than making a 90 minute one.

There was a lot of discussion yesterday on my mixed feelings about horror action. I should have been more precise in my remarks. I meant the modern sort of action, which is so huge and blockbustery. There are lots of good horror action films, like Dog Soldiers. That was still a fairly intimate story, however, which used the classic Cabin in the Woods template. An entire army fighting an army of werewolves and it’s not really a horror movie anymore.

Horror just doesn’t scale well. I think that’s one reason zombies have become so popular. On the one hand, they are very cheap monsters, allowing for low budget horror. Conversely, the whole ‘zombie apocalypse’ thing allows for huge movies, which mainstream Hollywood is much more comfortable producing these days.

Rings seems to go for that apocalypse thing (which Pulse and its remake already covered), which i think really misses the essential personality of the original story. Meh, whatever.

  • Gamera977

    I have the original Japanese films on DVD but still haven’t seen any of the Hollywood remakes. Come to think of it yeah, all of these are small movies centering around Sadako and her current victims.

  • Gamera977

    Well to me, ‘Aliens’ with one alien whacking a bunch of civilians is a horror movie. ‘Aliens’ with a pack of aliens fighting it out with space marines loaded for bear is an action film.

  • The Rev.

    I saw the remake before the original, mostly because, as I recall, the original wasn’t available on DVD at the time, or had just come out and I hadn’t found it yet. (Then it turned out a friend had gotten it, so I at least got to see it mere days afterward.) I was honestly glad I saw the remake first, because it plays up the mystery of what’s going on for the entire movie, whereas the original has them figure it out halfway through and then struggle to escape their fate the rest of the movie. I could be misremembering, as I’ve not seen either in some time, but that was my impression. I liked both of them quite a bit, although I know some will disagree re: the remake.

  • sandra

    What exactly is ‘the monster’ ? All I see is what looks like a bundle of clothes.

  • Eric Hinkle

    The murderous ghost of a young girl.

  • Eric Hinkle

    I do wonder how they’ll handle the one bit I’ve seen on TV where apparently the heroine is on a plane and Sadako starts crawling out of those little headrest TVs planes have these days. How I hate those things. Especially when you can’t shut them off and have some mindless TV show blaring in your face at a distance of six inches for six hours or so.

  • bgbear_rnh

    I hate when that happens.

  • sandra

    I should have said “What is the monster in this photo?” because I can’t see one.

  • kgb_san_diego

    Look at the bundle of clothes, and you will see a hand in the bottom left portion. Just above and to the right of the hand is where the head should be. But, the iconic pose for this ghost is to have her long black hair falling in front of her face. In this picture, that makes her face and head practically invisible. Only because I know what she looks like can I see it.

    Oh, and she is crawling out of a flat screen tv that is on the floor put propped up by her at a 45 degree angle. The TV is showing a black and white picture.

    Hope that helps!