"The Horror... The Horror..."
Robert Eggers' excellent The Witch must hold the record for the quickest rerelease ever on US cinema screens. Originally released two months ago it didn't do as well as expected at the box office with a misleading ad campaign being blamed for its lack of success. The trailer gave the impression that The Witch is a straightforward horror movie but, disturbing as it is, the film has more in common with Arthur Miller's The Crucible than it does with your typical Hollywood horror fare.
Despite excellent reviews some viewers were disappointed with its lack of traditional horror tropes even though the daemonic goat is one of the creepiest critters seen on screen recently. Interestingly the distributor's new trailer seems to emphasise the horror element even more than the original did whilst upping the expletive count. So expect further audiences leaving the cinema disgruntled.
Despite excellent reviews some viewers were disappointed with its lack of traditional horror tropes even though the daemonic goat is one of the creepiest critters seen on screen recently. Interestingly the distributor's new trailer seems to emphasise the horror element even more than the original did whilst upping the expletive count. So expect further audiences leaving the cinema disgruntled.
It could be argued that, even more than comedy, horror is a subjective thing. What scares one person could equally produce giggles in another. Over the last couple of years most critics' best of... lists have included horror movies, The Babadook in 2014 and last years It Follows are both excellent examples of the more upmarket end of the genre.
The biggest influences on the more interesting horror movies these days seem to be the two Davids, Lynch and Cronenberg although, with the exception of Cronenberg's Rabid, none of these directors has actually made a traditional horror movie. Cronenberg's The Fly, one of his biggest box office successes, was unsettling, dripping with grue, but at no point did it attempt to scare or make the viewer jump out their seat. Lynch's Lost Highway manages to be supremely creepy without using any of the staple techniques of the horror filmmakers arsenal: crashing music stings, shock cuts etc. Both Davids have transcended the ghettoising that often happens to directors who embrace the horror genre achieving mainstream acceptance, which could be why they have so much influence on the younger generations of film makers.
Overall in the past horror has often been looked down upon unless it was made by a Hitchcock, Polanski or Kubrick. Fortunately this isn't the case any more. Whether it be Apocalypse Now edging close to Italian cannibal movie territory in its final act or more recently Bone Tomahawk taking inspiration in equal parts from The Searchers and The Hills Have Eyes, the cross pollination of horror with other genres has given it respectability. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's Spring was one of last year's underrated gems: Before Sunrise collides with Cronenbergian transformative body horror, icky and romantic in equal measures and well worth seeking out.
It's great that the distributors of The Witch are confident enough in the film that they are giving it a second chance in cinemas but will this increase its box office? The problem with The Witch isn't its marketing but the fact that it falls between two stools when it comes to easy pigeonholing: it's too ambiguous for the horror crowd and too horrific for a more mainstream audience. Depressingly The Boy, a generic, predictable 'scary dummy' movie which does use all the usual horror film cliches, has taken twice as much in two weeks as The Witch has in two months.
Maybe author Brian Keene has a point when he says "The Witch is a gorgeous, thoughtful, scary horror film that 90% of the people in the theatre with you will be too stupid to understand."
The new The Witch trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSBzSlBIY_s
Spring trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhNY1SVHLD0
The Boy trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPxybc_aJWU
The biggest influences on the more interesting horror movies these days seem to be the two Davids, Lynch and Cronenberg although, with the exception of Cronenberg's Rabid, none of these directors has actually made a traditional horror movie. Cronenberg's The Fly, one of his biggest box office successes, was unsettling, dripping with grue, but at no point did it attempt to scare or make the viewer jump out their seat. Lynch's Lost Highway manages to be supremely creepy without using any of the staple techniques of the horror filmmakers arsenal: crashing music stings, shock cuts etc. Both Davids have transcended the ghettoising that often happens to directors who embrace the horror genre achieving mainstream acceptance, which could be why they have so much influence on the younger generations of film makers.
Overall in the past horror has often been looked down upon unless it was made by a Hitchcock, Polanski or Kubrick. Fortunately this isn't the case any more. Whether it be Apocalypse Now edging close to Italian cannibal movie territory in its final act or more recently Bone Tomahawk taking inspiration in equal parts from The Searchers and The Hills Have Eyes, the cross pollination of horror with other genres has given it respectability. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's Spring was one of last year's underrated gems: Before Sunrise collides with Cronenbergian transformative body horror, icky and romantic in equal measures and well worth seeking out.
It's great that the distributors of The Witch are confident enough in the film that they are giving it a second chance in cinemas but will this increase its box office? The problem with The Witch isn't its marketing but the fact that it falls between two stools when it comes to easy pigeonholing: it's too ambiguous for the horror crowd and too horrific for a more mainstream audience. Depressingly The Boy, a generic, predictable 'scary dummy' movie which does use all the usual horror film cliches, has taken twice as much in two weeks as The Witch has in two months.
Maybe author Brian Keene has a point when he says "The Witch is a gorgeous, thoughtful, scary horror film that 90% of the people in the theatre with you will be too stupid to understand."
The new The Witch trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSBzSlBIY_s
Spring trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhNY1SVHLD0
The Boy trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPxybc_aJWU
No comments:
Post a Comment