Suspense

I am the wrong type of person for suspense/slasher movies. At least, I think I am. I don't know what the intended audience is, but I am fairly certain I am not in that audience. I came to realize this when I watched Disturbia. Or maybe it was when I watched The Wicker Man. Well, let me tell you the stories, anyway. My "friends" and I theater-hopped a fair amount. I wasn't too fond of it, but whatever. They were my own age and I played VS with them and my parents wanted me to hang out with people my own age. So, we'd get a bunch of us and using two tickets, get into a movie theater, then go from movie to movie. I was somewhat opposed, but whatever. We had seen some movie, Eragon maybe, and we decided to see some more. So we went to The Wicker Man. Let me tell you, that was a horrible movie. Just absolutely horrible. While it is bad from the beginning, the end is where it really stands out in my mind. See, Nic Cage plays this cop who has a daughter on this island populated only by women, and he goes to find her there or something. Eventually it is revealed that this is all a trap for Nic, as they actually want to sacrifice him. See, they had a bad harvest and when they have a bad harvest, their religion/cult demands they sacrifice a man to their god or whatever. So, it's some trap to get Nic to the island where eventually they surround him as he realizes this was a trap. He takes out his gun (he's a cop), which they took the bullets out, then as it doesn't fire, starts punching and kicking the women. Yes, Nic Cage starts beating up ladies. Through sheer numbers they overpower him and put him in a sack. As they carry him away, he rants at them as he says they are murderers and that "killing [him] won't bring back their goddamn honey." Then, as they break his legs, he yells about how they just broke his legs. My thoughts are that as they neared the end of production, they realize how bad it was and decided that it didn't matter anymore so any effort they had put into it vanished. Ah, but it is supposed to be scary or something, and instead I was laughing like crazy.

Later that night, we saw Saw II and Silent Hill at one of the kid's houses. I wasn't fully paying attention as I was also playing VS, but, well, it just seemed silly. Both just seemed silly. Again, I was just laughing at the movies rather than being scared.

I watched Disturbia with a group of friends (that are actually friends), and well... Basically, it is Rear Window with Shia LeBeouf. He sees murders through his window and then tries to warn people kind of. It tries to make it seem like he isn't a murderer, but eventually, the movie reveals he is in fact a guy who is just killing people. When Shia finally goes in his house, bodies literally just start falling everywhere, and while my friends were slighty freaked out by it, it was so ridiculously over the top that I couldn't take it seriously at all. As we walked out, I was laughing at how silly it was and they just looked at me as if I were crazy.

Recently, I watched two movies on Hulu, My Little Eye and Bad Reputation. Both are suspense/horror movies and both were horrible. I watched both and was just amazed. Still, keeping on track with who I am, I laughed a lot at both. My Little Eye is about this "reality show" where 5 people live in a house for 6 months and if they succeed, they get a million dollars at the end. Eventually, they realize it is a snuff site, and not a reality show, and everybody dies. Oh, wait. I spoiled it. Well, you could guess that easily anyway, just from the description given. It was trying to be serious, I think, but it was just stupid. Bad Reputation was just as bad, but a lot funnier. I don't know how serious the creators of Bad Reputation were trying to be, but they ended up making what is pretty much a parody of hte genre. There are so many cliches everywhere. Basically, it is Carrie, except that she was raped instead of having blood dropped on her, and she doesn't develop telekinetic abilities, instead relying on other methods. The main antagonist is some football star and he has his friends and they all have girlfriends and are the "cool people" where the protagonist is nerdy, but obviously hot. Without giving too much away (why would you care anyway), the death scenes are hilarious. One aspect that is great is the sounds. It sounds like 20 tomatoes are being squished when she stabs someone. Yes, apparently, stabbing makes a squishy noise. A really corny one. Speaking of corn, red corn syrup looked horrendously fake in the second murder. Really bad. Oh, and don't get me started on obliviousness. A word of advice: When you are at a party, and somebody is dropping little while pills in everybody's drink, don't drink. I still don't know, though, whether or not it was supposed to be a parody of the genre or just ended up being one.

Anyway, my point is that I think that horror/suspense movies are meant for people who want to be scared or shocked, not people who laugh out loud (LOL) every time somebody dies. Am I wrong, though? I honestly don't know many people who like the suspense genre, so I can't say what the target audience is. Is it for people who genuinely like the movies or is it actually for people like me who think the movies are silly and laugh at them?