Now when it comes to Friday The 13th i personally thing that it's not the best horror movie out there and everyone says that it's a "classic" because it's old and the main killer in the movie (Jason) is somehow as "scary" as Freddy or Michael Myers. I don't think i'm the only one who thinks that this movie is sucky, a review written by somebody who's name i couldn't find on commonsensemedia.org basically says that the film only got points for the creativity and the special effects. He also says "Friday The 13th is a sick film with virtually no redeeming qualities" and he also says that Jason and the movie are very well know, too bad its not a good movie. Although the nameless reviewer and i don't believe this film is any good, Joe from metacritic.com says "its a great and scary film, it has good acting, good death scenes and unlike most horror movies and games it has good jump scares". And Missdrae from the same website says "it's actually quite enjoyable".
Halloween, another movie that i don't find scary or entertaining, but others including my cousins highly enjoy. Roger Ebert from rogerebert.com gave the movie 4 stars and he says that "Halloween is an absolute merciless thriller, a movie so violent and scary that yes, i would compare to Psycho". THR Staff from hollywoodreporter.com "The horror formula doesn’t get much simpler than a masked killer stalking teenagers, but that is all writer-director John Carpenter needed to create a masterpiece with the original Halloween. The film defined many of the tropes we now take for granted, and not even decades of mediocre sequels (or Rob Zombie remakes) can dull its terrifyingly sharp edge." In all honesty I don't really find any of these masked killer scary movies don't scare me, maybe if they were in front of my face i'd be scared, but I just get so bored with them. When i was younger i found the movie The Ring really scary, when i saw it i couldn't sleep for weeks and my sisters thought it was so funny. I used to think i was seeing things in the dark and had to sleep with the lights on.
Katia,
ReplyDeleteYou chose a VERY cool genre here, and I really like how specific/narrow it is. There are different types of horror movies, and who knows, maybe writers write reviews about the old-school classics in different ways than they do with newer films. (Perhaps they bring in more nostalgia? Maybe even give the producers/directors a “pass” on what we might think of as cheesey special effects because visual technology wasn’t as sophisticated then as it is now?)
I like how you looked up specific reviews from Metacritic, Ebert, etc. And I also like how you’re bringing in specific language from the reviews (i.e., the sentences you copied from the various examples). What I’m wondering, though, is why are you showing me these passages? What, exactly, do they show about this unique genre? They bring up the quality of the movie—OK, based on what? # of stars? Is the writer giving these stars, or is it more of a viewer-driven score? (RottenTomatoes asks viewers to rate movies.)
I noticed that one of the reviews said something about re-makes (the one made by Rob Zombie). Do the other examples of this genre mention re-makes at all? If so, how? And why do they do that? And what kind of impression doest that leave YOU with as a reader? (Does that establish more credibility for the writer/reviewer?)
Ask yourself: what are the ingredients of classic horror movie reviews? Where do you see that, specifically, in the writing on the screen/page? Then ask yourself: what seem to be the BEST or most effective ingredients, and why?
In ENG 101-108, I’m trying to train you to become super-observant so that you can get down to the nittiest of details and adhere (if that’s what you want to do) to the audience’s expectations for all the different genres that you’ll write here on out. By gaining a deeper and more critical reading awareness, you’ll be able to adopt/adapt writer’s choices (their writing) into your own writing.
Z
PS: I love the images you included!