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The Dude Continues his pointless Dark Water Rant!
Posted by:A couple of weeks ago I ripped into the marketing campaign of Dark Water, and explained, in a nutshell, the myriad of reasons why I would not be seeing the film in it's theatrical run. Among them was the reason for running the "Academy Award winner" bit before Jennifer Connolly' name.
A friend of mine called me out on this and said "Dude, like you wouldn't brag if you won an Academy Award." This is, first off, very true. If I won an Academy Award, I would be bragging like hell. i would probably have a photo of me holding the award and flipping the bird. Or a series of photos, like me running along a beach with the trophy, at a romantic candlelit dinner, waking up in bed with it half concealed by the sheets, etc. But his second point I hold even dearer, where he says I'd rather prefer "AVN Award winner" before my name. I would much rather have that run over a preview of my period motion picture featuring Russell Crowe as a blacksmith at the world's first renaissance fair.
(For those who don't know what an AVN award is, I suggest you Google it. Especially if you're at work).
Anyway, my gripe was with the marketing of the film. And I have to say, I might be willing to retract it. Now that I've seen the television marketing campaign for The Skeleton Key (8/12/05).
Have you seen these ads? It shows a lot of quickly cut spooky footage of Kate Hudson (who I loved in Almost Famous, and couldn't really tolerate in much else) in the bayou and at a creepy little house, looking scared at a weird looking John Hurt. This is all well and good, and to be expected. But it's the voiceover that gets me.
It begins with the deep voice guy (not the regular "In a world..." guy, this is another guy. I know he did the White noise trailer, explaining what EVP was. He must be on the Universal payroll). Anyway, he says "Universal pictures is proud to announce the return of the classic psychological thriller." Ok, they're touting their horn a little bit here, but I'm willing to forgive that for now. Who knows, the film could be a taut, gripping psychological thriller the likes of which I have never seen.
He goes on to say "In the tradition of such classics as Rosemary's Baby, The Others, and The Sixth Sense." Here's where I begin to get a little suspicious. Rosemary's Baby, ok. That movie still manages to give me the jibblies. (Thanks for the word, Strong Bad). And yes, The Others and The Sixth Sense were creepy little movies. But are they classics? You could argue yes, especially in the case of Sixth Sense, but these movies are barely five years old! And once you get past the horrifying twist (He's dead the whole time, alright? If you don't know that already, then you have no business reading this or any other movie site. for god's sake, it's been a punchline so many times....) is the movie really all that frightening? It's a one trick pony. Not exactly "classic".
So at this point, I'm already getting a bit miffed. The deep voice continues with " With an ending so shocking, it's bound to leave you talking for ages." Or something along these lines. I never make it to the second part of what he says, because I'm amazed at how high an opinion this film has of itself. What's the shocking end? It can't be she's dead. Or can it?!?!? What glorious twist is there going to be that we most likely haven't seen coming since fifteen minutes in?
I understand, in a way, what the ad is trying to do. It's trying to invoke those old trailers for horror movies from the 70s. Watch the trailers of these flicks on DVD if you're lucky enough to find them. They almost give away the entire movie. The only thing that's missing are the words thrown over the images, usually with blood dripping down from the lettering. The problem is you have that old time spookiness in the voice over, but you have the modern cut everything and give all the scares away imagery in the background. If you're going to emulate the Rosemary's Baby or Exorcist trailers, then go balls out and do it all the way. It might almost work. Probably not though.
Again, I will fully admit that I could be wrong. This movie could actually prove to be frightening as hell. I'm guessing that it isn't, though. It's the guy who made K-Pax (which I have to admit to liking, believe it or not), not Hitchcock behind the camera. And again, it comes with that wonderfully corporate PG-13 rating, that is something of a contradiction of a horror movie. Horror is supposed to be R rated, not held back because more teenagers can afford to waste their money going to a theater and talking on a cell phone behind me on the opening weekend. Horror is supposed to evacuate my bowels repeatedly, not be another theme park ride. I feel that most of the best horror is being made independently nowadays, away from studio constraints. Or in other countries. Cronos? Ringu? The Eye? Far superior to most that comes out these days from studios, and they all have subtitles.
I'd like to be proven wrong, believe me. Time will tell on this one. My gripe is with the marketing of these products (Product, not even movie. How sad is that?) and how I feel it's a bit insulting to the general horror lover. But hey, at least they stopped claiming Skeleton Key as being from "The writer of The Ring."
A friend of mine called me out on this and said "Dude, like you wouldn't brag if you won an Academy Award." This is, first off, very true. If I won an Academy Award, I would be bragging like hell. i would probably have a photo of me holding the award and flipping the bird. Or a series of photos, like me running along a beach with the trophy, at a romantic candlelit dinner, waking up in bed with it half concealed by the sheets, etc. But his second point I hold even dearer, where he says I'd rather prefer "AVN Award winner" before my name. I would much rather have that run over a preview of my period motion picture featuring Russell Crowe as a blacksmith at the world's first renaissance fair.
(For those who don't know what an AVN award is, I suggest you Google it. Especially if you're at work).
Anyway, my gripe was with the marketing of the film. And I have to say, I might be willing to retract it. Now that I've seen the television marketing campaign for The Skeleton Key (8/12/05).
Have you seen these ads? It shows a lot of quickly cut spooky footage of Kate Hudson (who I loved in Almost Famous, and couldn't really tolerate in much else) in the bayou and at a creepy little house, looking scared at a weird looking John Hurt. This is all well and good, and to be expected. But it's the voiceover that gets me.
It begins with the deep voice guy (not the regular "In a world..." guy, this is another guy. I know he did the White noise trailer, explaining what EVP was. He must be on the Universal payroll). Anyway, he says "Universal pictures is proud to announce the return of the classic psychological thriller." Ok, they're touting their horn a little bit here, but I'm willing to forgive that for now. Who knows, the film could be a taut, gripping psychological thriller the likes of which I have never seen.
He goes on to say "In the tradition of such classics as Rosemary's Baby, The Others, and The Sixth Sense." Here's where I begin to get a little suspicious. Rosemary's Baby, ok. That movie still manages to give me the jibblies. (Thanks for the word, Strong Bad). And yes, The Others and The Sixth Sense were creepy little movies. But are they classics? You could argue yes, especially in the case of Sixth Sense, but these movies are barely five years old! And once you get past the horrifying twist (He's dead the whole time, alright? If you don't know that already, then you have no business reading this or any other movie site. for god's sake, it's been a punchline so many times....) is the movie really all that frightening? It's a one trick pony. Not exactly "classic".
So at this point, I'm already getting a bit miffed. The deep voice continues with " With an ending so shocking, it's bound to leave you talking for ages." Or something along these lines. I never make it to the second part of what he says, because I'm amazed at how high an opinion this film has of itself. What's the shocking end? It can't be she's dead. Or can it?!?!? What glorious twist is there going to be that we most likely haven't seen coming since fifteen minutes in?
I understand, in a way, what the ad is trying to do. It's trying to invoke those old trailers for horror movies from the 70s. Watch the trailers of these flicks on DVD if you're lucky enough to find them. They almost give away the entire movie. The only thing that's missing are the words thrown over the images, usually with blood dripping down from the lettering. The problem is you have that old time spookiness in the voice over, but you have the modern cut everything and give all the scares away imagery in the background. If you're going to emulate the Rosemary's Baby or Exorcist trailers, then go balls out and do it all the way. It might almost work. Probably not though.
Again, I will fully admit that I could be wrong. This movie could actually prove to be frightening as hell. I'm guessing that it isn't, though. It's the guy who made K-Pax (which I have to admit to liking, believe it or not), not Hitchcock behind the camera. And again, it comes with that wonderfully corporate PG-13 rating, that is something of a contradiction of a horror movie. Horror is supposed to be R rated, not held back because more teenagers can afford to waste their money going to a theater and talking on a cell phone behind me on the opening weekend. Horror is supposed to evacuate my bowels repeatedly, not be another theme park ride. I feel that most of the best horror is being made independently nowadays, away from studio constraints. Or in other countries. Cronos? Ringu? The Eye? Far superior to most that comes out these days from studios, and they all have subtitles.
I'd like to be proven wrong, believe me. Time will tell on this one. My gripe is with the marketing of these products (Product, not even movie. How sad is that?) and how I feel it's a bit insulting to the general horror lover. But hey, at least they stopped claiming Skeleton Key as being from "The writer of The Ring."
- The Dude
