A Rock and Roll History

I recently watched Cabin Fever 2, mainly because it was shot here in Wilmington and not because I expected it to be a good film (it wasn’t). Watching it only reinforced something that I have believed for a while: most 80s horror films are shit.

Now, it may seem strange that a film shot two or three years ago would help me prove a point about movies made almost three decades ago, but allow me to explain.

There are certain horror directors working today (of which Ti West is one) who fucking love 70s and 80s horror films. Unlike a lot of people who love these films, of which I am one, they display their love in very obvious homages.

Cabin Fever 2 is shot in the muted, grainy tones of a video that’s been watched a million times and even has circle and diamond wipes between scenes. Modern technology (like cell phones, which all high school kids have) is not even mentioned and the majority of the cars in the film were made around the time I was born.

The problem here is that 80s horror films suck. That’s why they’re fun. They are full of gratuitous nudity and cheesy ultra violence. The modern movies made by these directors are the same way. The difference is: in those old movies, the cheesiness was the byproduct of a low budget (I’m sure the directors on those movies would have loved to have more money) and not intentional, like the new ones. It’s a lot more fun when the director isn’t winking at you every few minutes.

Cabin Fever 2 has everything you would expect from an 80s film: over the top sex, gross out violence, and bad acting. It’s no fun, though, and it’s certainly not scary. I don’t see the point in setting out to make a movie that’s crappy on purpose. I get that the filmmakers are trying to make a movie that kids today can enjoy in the same way that they enjoyed movies like Silent Night, Deadly Night, but they’re going about it the wrong way.

NOTE: I should note that West has had a fairly vocal conflict with Lion’s Gate over the editing of this movie and wanted to have an Alan Smithee credit put on the finished product. However, as he shot everything but the ending and wrote the script, he is certainly partially to blame.

But, to be fair to West, I have also seen two of his other films: the Roost and House of the Devil (which West attended a screening of at the Cucalorus Film Festival here in Wilmington.) and they both illustrate West’s love of horror. This time of the slow burning 70s and 80s kind. While some have praised West’s movies as a return to those of a pre-torture porn era, the praise has more of a nostalgic tint than a basis in terror. In reality, both of those films contain a lot of filler, bad scripts, a low budget look, and little actual horror. Just because you love the movies you grew up on doesn’t mean that you need to painstakingly remake them. A little change is never a bad thing.

Final Destination 5

One of the perks about working on a lot in LA is that you get to see a bunch of free movies. Last night, I saw this one (in 3D. As Jesus intended). I don’t want to bury the lede, so let me start by saying: this movie is awesome.

I can’t say if it’s better than Final Destination 2 (far and away the best in the series up to this point), but it’s certainly close. It’s a very well paced movie (around 90 minutes) and nothing feels extraneous. Unlike all of the other FDs, this one doesn’t have that boring segment toward the end of the 2nd act in which all of the remaining characters spend 15-20 minutes trying to figure out how to cheat death again and I start to zone out and try to think up semi-clever tweets about brunch or rap music. In this one, that chunk is cut down to a single scene and the revelation about what has to happen is brutal, interesting, and suggests a whole new direction for any other sequels in the series.

As always, the elaborate deaths are the focus of the film, and the ones in this movie are pretty spectacular. At this point, it’s more about misdirection than simply killing off the characters. A number of harmful objects are introduced into a scene and the tension is ratcheted up as the, lets be honest, lamb to be slaughtered blithely makes their way through the killing floor. Several of the scenes in this are so drawn out that you can almost feel the air being sucked out of the theater.

There isn’t much more to say. This movie is fun, never bogs down in unnecessary “plot”, and delivers exactly what one would want. First Fast Five and now this, does it really take 5 movies to perfect a formula? In the 80s it only took 4 (Rocky IV. I rest my case), but this 2011. The world is a different place and maybe we need just a little more time to get things right. I don’t know. All I do know is that I’m starting to get excited for the Smurfs 5 (or Smurf5 on the poster). That shit is going to be the Watch the Throne of Smurf movies.