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poliphilo ([personal profile] poliphilo) wrote2006-04-20 11:22 am
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The Brothers Grimm

Werewolves are fun, but they're not frightening. Is anyone out there frightened of werewolves? I mean, really frightened?

Didn't they shoot the last "real" werewolf in sixteen hundred and something? In rural France?

So if you're not living in rural France and the date isn't sixteen hundred and something, why should you be scared?

I know, I know, it's an archetype. The Beast within. Yaddayaddayadda.

So I just watched the Brothers Grimm. It has a werewolf in it. And I've been asking myself ever since, "now what was the point of that?"

Why make gothic movies when the gothic isn't scary any more?

The Japanese have a handle on what's really scary these days. What's really scary these days in girls with hair all over their faces climbing out of TV sets. But werewolves? Nah.

The only way to handle the gothic these days is to make it funny. The model is Ghostbusters. Don't you just love Ghostbusters?

I think The Brothers Grimm was trying to be funny. Leastways Heath Ledger fell over a lot.

But a script would have been nice.

And I could have done without the services of Matt Damon. (I had a revelation yesterday; I realised who Matt Damon reminds me of. He's an absolute dead ringer for Doug McClure who used to be in Bonanza or High Chaparal or something- only Doug McClure had more charisma.)

But, all in all, I think the comedy gothic horror has had its day. We want to be really frightened, not pretend-frightened.

Irony will only stretch so far.

Before it snaps *ping* like knicker elastic.

[identity profile] queen-in-autumn.livejournal.com 2006-04-20 06:12 am (UTC)(link)
I haven't seen The Brothers Grimm, but I agree 100% with this statement: What's really scary these days in girls with hair all over their faces climbing out of TV sets.

That movie had me sleeping with the lights on for weeks afterward.

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2006-04-20 06:58 am (UTC)(link)
I think the secret is that that particular horror is located- not in some far-off haunted forest- but in the corner of everybody's living room.

Now someone needs to contrive a horror scenario involving home computing. Perhaps they already have.