Horror Movie Advocacy - You've Gotta See This Movie Because It Earns My Own Personal Seal Of Approval

Slightly better than a rooftop antenna . . .

     While shopping for a few new Blu-rays to order in anticipation of Pre'Ween, it occurred to me that I rarely ever purchase movies on disc anymore.  I view movies almost exclusively by streaming or media server.  That's not really news, because increasingly, that's how most people view movies at home.  What was interesting to me was how my criteria for what warrants a "buy" rather than a "stream" has changed along with my altered viewing habits.

     Like many movie aficionados, I am by nature a collector.  I'm just old enough to remember a time, though, when even movie fans rarely owned their own copies of their favorites.  The tech wasn't as widely available, and the movies themselves - because they were exorbitantly expensive - weren't as commonly purchased to own.  We rented instead.

     Once upon a time, Mom and Pop video rental stores were almost as ubiquitous as Redbox kiosks are today.  The good news was that the cost of rental was well within most families' budgets provided they could make the initial investment in a VCR.  Even better, all of those video stores (and their customers) were so eager for new content that store shelves overflowed with movies of every stripe.  Of course, such a wealth of choices was a movie fan's dream, but rental did not scratch the itch to collect one's favorites.  If you were really enterprising you could purchase a second VCR and dub copies of your rental tapes, but it was only a matter of time before the movie industry plugged up that hole by widely adopting Macrovision copy protection.

LaserDisc - It's Portable!

     All things must eventually pass, however, and the arrival of new format called DVD eventually drove the last few nails in the VHS coffin.  I'm intentionally glossing over LaserDisc because it was never widely adopted in North America - or anywhere else save Japan and South East Asia, really.  DVD was the giant killer, and the format popularized the idea of sell-through pricing so that many of us were finally able to start our own movie collections in earnest.  Many of us went a little ape-shit on that point, too.

     Throughout the first decade of the new millennium I purchased an absurd number of DVDs.  Curating my own collection even took precedence over actually going to the theater, since for the cost of a movie ticket and some popcorn I could actually own my own copy of each new release just a few months after it was in theaters.  My rule of thumb:  if I entertained the notion of venturing out to the theater to see a new release, I just bought a copy of the DVD a few months later instead.  My DVD collection grew exponentially in a very short period of time based upon this somewhat specious reasoning.

My first Limited Edition DVD purchase

     Of course, new releases were only the tip of the iceberg.  It was the catalog titles that really broke the bank.  Distributors like Synapse, Code Red, Anchor Bay, and Blue Underground were releasing old favorites at a brisk clip, and I was buying most of them.  Not only was I finally able to own my own copy of movies like Lucio Fulci's Zombie (1979) and Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977), but I was awash in a sea of special features that augmented these releases.  Now even the most obscure titles were getting the Collector's Edition treatment.  It was truly a wonderful time to be a movie fan.

    Not surprisingly, though, I soon found myself with a sizable collection that housed far too many disappointing catalog releases and watch-it-once-and-forget-it new releases.  I had to institute some buying parameters to insure more judicious purchases.  I stopped buying new releases sight unseen, and I began to be far more selective about my catalog purchases.  A DVD did not warrant a purchase unless I was certain it was a title I'd watch multiple times.  Catalog titles did not warrant a purchase until after reviews hit the internet to tell me whether or not it was a quality release.

A bigger priority than Jaws

     Perhaps most importantly, obscure titles, long out of print titles, and titles that rarely aired on cable or satellite were always the priority.  For example, to this day I don't own a copy of Jaws (1975) on disc.  Jaws is always on television and will never be out of print in my lifetime.  It's a brilliant movie, but it's not a priority purchase.  I do, however, own a copy of The Manitou (1978).  What the f**k, right? 

     Since my purchases were now required to be titles that were previously difficult to obtain,  or difficult to see elsewhere, or - in my own humble opinion - worthy of multiple viewings, it almost goes without saying that the discs I did purchase were usually titles that I would enthusiastically recommend to others.  One more parameter, perhaps more important than all the rest, began to govern my purchases:  if it's a title that I want to share with others, it's a buy.  It was the birth of my horror movie advocacy.

     At the same time, it was essentially the death of my spend-crazy ways.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, I guess, but it did mean that my purchases became fewer and far less frequent.  Since by that point I already owned copies of most catalog titles worth owning, my buying began to revolve only around newer titles that made the grade.  When I consider now my purchases over the course of the last several years, I find that there have been distressingly few of those.

     I've been vocal here at the Dog Farm with my advocacy of Pontypool (2008), a movie I still frequently loan out to others.  I continue to share Trick 'r Treat (2007) with as many people as I can every Halloween,  because I'm determined to do my part to make it a perennial staple.  I frequently loan out [REC] (2007) because it kills my soul that American audiences are still more familiar with the inferior English language remake.  Attack The Block (2011) is one of my more recent causes.  I just can't understand how this relatively big and wildly entertaining release managed to fly beneath so many radars.  There have been others - Laid To Rest (2009), House Of The Devil (2009), John Dies At The End (2012) - but still too few to warrant more than a trickle of new purchases.  I still see plenty of movies that I enjoy, but I don't see that many that inspire my whole-hearted advocacy.

My Pre'Ween shopping list for 2014

     For what it's worth, every movie I've chosen to purchase for Pre-Ween this year is a catalog title.  The Director's Cut of Nightbreed (1990) is a must have, as is Without Warning (1980).  I'll also be picking up Sleepaway Camp (1983) and Curtains (1983), neither of which have previously enjoyed decent releases.  I'll probably also purchase Blue Underground's bargain priced release The Complete Blind Dead Saga since I never purchased The Blind Dead Collection Limited Edition from 2005.  That's it, though - not a new movie in the bunch.  It looks like this horror movie advocate is stumping exclusively for the oldies this year.

     Which newer movies have you really gone out of your way to recommend to others recently, and what makes them deserving of special attention?  If you consider yourself a horror movie advocate, what qualities are most likely to earn a movie your own personal seal of approval?

Barking at the Vacuum Cleaner - Evil Dead (2013), Age Appropriate Horror, and Orphan Black

Evil Dead (2013)

     I desperately wanted to dislike director Fede Alvarez's Evil Dead (2013) just so I could title a post "Evil Dead Is An Evil Dud".  Alas, my first viewing of it a few days ago won't allow for that.  Since producers Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell have both expressed interest in having Campbell's Ash from the original trilogy be involved in future iterations of Alvarez's vision, I'm not really sure if the new Evil Dead should be considered a traditional remake.  For the purposes of this discussion, though, I'm going to say it is a remake, and it's one of a very small handful of remakes that isn't an abject failure.

     I actually appreciated the less overtly comedic tone, the practical make-up FX, and the different - but not too different - take on the original movie's narrative.  If I had one minor quibble, it's only that I would've like to have seen a few more truly suspenseful and horrific moments scattered throughout the movie's run time.  Alvarez delivered the gorey goods, but actual scares were few and far between.  Still, Evil Dead was a pleasant surprise.  Recommended.

     On a related note, fans should check out Raimi's remake of his own Army Of Darkness (1992).  It's called Oz The Great And Powerful (2013).  Seriously, Sam, the cribbing from your own work was pretty blatant.  It's one of the better implementations of 3D that I've seen, though, so you get a pass.  If you really want to remake or sequelize Army Of Darkness, just do it.

________________________________________________________________


     I've posted recently about both my earliest exposure to genre movies as well as my uncertainty about what is and is not appropriate viewing for youngsters, and the topic came up again recently when I was asked to recommend some good scary movies for a couple of nascent horror fans, ages 10 and 14.  The only stipulations were that the recommendations not be exceedingly gorey and that they steer clear of any overt sexual content. Thinking children of this age probably wouldn't take well to the slower pace of older horror movies, I recommended Attack The Block (2011).  I've not recommended anything else thus far because I don't trust my own "appropriate for children" filter, and even here, it occurred to me after the fact that although there's no sex and not that much gore, there is a good bit of recreational drug use.  Hear me out, though.

The at risk youths of Attack The Block (2011)

     One of the things I most enjoyed about Attack The Block was the fact that the teenage hoodlums at the center of the movie's action - particularly gang leader Moses - actually had honest to God character arcs.  These kids start the movie mugging someone, and by the end of the movie they're acting in commendably heroic fashion.  They look out for one another, they become more altruistic in their actions, and I actually cared about them before the shit stopped hitting the fan.  That kind of depth in characterization is a rare commodity these days.  In addition to being a highly entertaining monster movie, Attack The Block shows some seriously at risk youths rising above their circumstance.  I'll even cop to misting up a bit at the movie's conclusion, which I'll refrain from spoiling here.  So how about it?  Is this a good movie to recommend to a youngster developing an interest in genre movies, or did I screw the cinematic pooch?  Does anyone else have some likely candidates - new or old - that they'd make a case for?

     One final note concerning Attack The Block:  see it if you haven't already.  I've been surprised by how many radars it's flown under.  In addition to well delineated characters, it boasts one of my favorite creature designs of the last decade or so.  I purposely refrained from showing a pic, but suffice to say, it's a highly effective design that's absolutely brilliant in its simplicity.

________________________________________________________________

Tatiana Maslany as the lead(s) in the BBC series Orphan Black

     Finally, I've been completely sucked in by the first season of the BBC series Orphan Black.  It's a Canadian science fiction television series that aired on BBC America starring Tatiana Maslany - who played Ghost in Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (2004) - who discovers she's one of several clones, all of whom seem to be marked for death.  Maslany plays all of the clones herself, and she does a fine job of convincingly pulling off all of the different characters.  She's often playing scenes with two or three versions of herself at a time, and she does so well enough that you won't feel as though you're watching The Patty Duke Show.  Pour yourself an Ovaltine if you got that reference. . .