Earlier today, it was revealed that Wes Craven, the legendary writer and director of A Nightmare on Elm Street, passed away after a long battle with brain cancer. This man has been an extraordinary force in horror movies for over 30 years. His first real effort was the controversial Last House on the Left in 1972. The film followed two girls who were kidnapped, brutalized and murdered by a small gang of criminals. He followed that up with the terrific The Hills Have Eyes, released in 1977. But the film that truly made Wes Craven a master of horror, was A Nightmare on Elm Street. Released by New Line Cinema in 1984, Nightmare unleashed a new and terrifying villain on the world: Freddy Krueger, played to perfection by legendary thespian Robert Englund. While Friday The 13th kept the slasher movie alive, Nightmare on Elm Street took it to whole new level. Featuring an unstoppable villain who gets very creative with his kills, Wes Craven created one of the most memorable villains in cinema.
Often crediting his nightmares as his inspiration for his films, Craven created a number of movies that thrilled and terrified audiences around the world. He was right up there with John Carpenter as one of the most influential film-makers in the industry. Regularly burdened with small budgets for his films, Craven would resort to both old-fashioned and new film-making techniques that would become his signature. This is going to be a short post, but I’m going to list a number of films that he directed and/or produced that I really enjoyed.
Writer/Director: Last House on the Left(1972) A Nightmare On Elm Street(1984) The Hills Have Eyes(1977) Swamp Thing(1982) Shocker(1989) Vampire In Brooklyn(1995) Scream(1996) Producer: Wishmaster(1997) Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors(1987) Dracula 2000(2000) The Hills Have Eyes(2006) Feast(2007)
The Last House on the Left(2009)
I didn’t list everything he did, because he did so much. He’s left quite the legacy of horror. Wes Craven was a master of his art, and inspired many film-makers to try their hand in the genre of horror. I will always be grateful for his ability to keep me entranced and on the edge of my seat during his movies, even some of his not-so-great movies. Wes Craven leaves behind a wife, three children, and three grandchildren. My thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family. Thank you, Mr. Craven for giving us the nightmares that we’ll never forget.
Making a movie is no small feat. It’s expensive, time-consuming, and there’s no way of telling if your film is going to be successful or not. It’s a gamble. Every movie that has been released has been a bit of a gamble. A sizable chunk of them have been very successful, but some of them have not. A film is expensive, because not only do you have to hire the cast, but also the casting director, producer, director, composer, visual effects artists if that applies, screenplay writers and marketing people. It’s time-consuming because not only do you have to write the script, sometimes with re-writes, you also have to shoot the picture, then there’s the post-production which is the editing, visual effects, music and marketing. All these are extremely important in the art of film-making. But the one aspect that can actually make or break a movie is how it’s marketed. By proper marketing, I mean posters, internet campaigns and the old tried-and-true movie trailer. The purpose of a film trailer is to show the potential audience a small glimpse into your film, giving people a small taste of what’s coming. The best trailers don’t give away major plot points or twists, and give you just enough information to get curious. That’s how good marketing works. Sometimes, however, the people behind the marketing of films end up giving too much information away in the trailer, therefore robbing the film of some of its potential power. The reason I bring this up is because there has been some controversy surrounding the final trailer for the new Terminator: Genisys film which releases tomorrow, on July 1st. I’m going to post both the latest trailer for Terminator: Genisys and Terminator: Salvation because there are major issues in terms of how much they put into the trailer. Too much.
As you can see, both trailers end up giving away what seem to be very major plot points/twists for a major character. I don’t know why the marketing folks screwed up so royally when it came to advertising for these Terminator films, but these aren’t the only movies that have been sabotaged by their own marketing campaigns. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still planning on seeing Genisys when it comes out, so I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve seen the final product. But I definitely understand people who get pissed off when a film trailer inadvertently gives away a potentially universe-changing plot point. For me, bad marketing rarely keeps me from enjoying a movie, but it’s always in the back of my mind. See, you want to keep your audience in the dark long enough so when that plot point hits, BAM!!! It’s like it came out of nowhere. With the trailers like what I have just shown, audiences are going to be looking for it. You don’t want that to happen. You want audiences to be surprised. For action films, I would say this kind of marketing, while an issue, is not necessarily fatal to a movie. Certain genres of film require a certain amount of discretion when marketing those films. Horror movies are one genre where you HAVE to be absolutely careful, because the twist is vital to how the film turns out, and if you get anywhere NEAR solving that twist, the whole film will fail.
So, yeah, marketing is an invaluable tool for film-makers, but it is also a double-edged sword. As I said before, a movie can live or die by how it’s marketed. So, let’s take a look at some other trailers that have essentially ruined the movies that they were trying to promote.
Cast Away
While this is a pretty intense trailer, it does give a lot away, particularly towards the end when Tom Hanks’ character is trying to escape the island. I don’t know about you, but I find that to be a major spoiler. Now, the film came out years ago, so the impact of what I’m showing you is little to none, but I’m using it as an illustration. You definitely want to show the character in some kind of jeopardy, that’s a great tool for getting people excited, but you really don’t want to show him actually getting off the island. The audience is smart enough to know that’s the direction the film will go, so they don’t need a trailer to hold their hand.
The Island
I’ll be the first to admit that I absolutely enjoy Michael Bay’s movies. They have a certain kind of kinetic energy that’s hard to ignore. Say what you will about his movies, few people know action the way he does. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for his ability to market a movie. While most of his movie trailers are mostly spoiler-free, they end up leaving little for the imagination. The Island is probably one of the more egregious examples of how not to do a movie trailer. About a minute in, you hear Ewan McGregor’s character yell, “There is no island!” Then you show Steve Buscemi basically telling them that they are clones to be harvested. That really takes the suspense out of the whole damn thing. The film ended up being one of Michael Bay’s worst-performing movies ever at the time, and the trailer may have had something to do with it. I enjoyed the movie for what it was: A modern-day Logan’s Run.
Those are some of the trailers that generally don’t do the film any favors and spoil the final product. I’ve already done a list of trailers that were fantastic, so I’m going to post a link to that particular article here. Proper marketing for a film is absolutely a must if you want your movie to succeed. Audiences aren’t particularly stupid, so you can’t get away with showing a major twist without consequences. Film-makers: If you want to put people in movie theater seats, get your marketing right, otherwise it will bite you in the ass.
Okay, fellow space cadets, I’ve got something for you that’s both really funny and really sad. This one’s about misogynists and Mad Max. According to the Huffington Post, a group of “Men’s Rights Activists”, or misogynists as most people of intelligence would call them, are calling for a boycott of Mad Max: Fury Road. Aaron Clarey of the Return of Kings blog says that men should not only refuse to see the movie, but spread the word to other men as quickly as possible. I’m not going quote verbatim, but Aaron Clarey goes on to say that real men would never be able to go see a real action movie that doesn’t contain some “damn political lecture or moray about feminism.” These bozos are upset because Charlize Theron, who stars in Fury Road, plays a female warrior character that is apparently a partner to Mad Max, played by Tom Hardy. I have to wonder where these guys were when the original Star Wars trilogy came out. Leia was a very strong female character that more than held her own against her male counterparts. Also, Sigourney Weaver became a sensation overnight for her portray of Ellen Ripley in Ridley Scott’s Alien. Over the past decade, we’ve seen many, MANY action movies where women were kicking ass and taking names. These guys are so deluded that they see anything where a woman will assert herself as a direct threat to their manhood. It’s kind of like religious dingbats that see Jesus Christ in piece of toast and think its a sign. You know, I understand that women are different. They’re built differently and are generally not as physically capable in certain things the way that men are, that’s just a fact of life. Here’s the thing though: Women give birth to children, men don’t. Women have real power, and it needs to be respected.
It’s really, really sad that this kind of mentality exists in this day and age. We’ve seen women’s rights explode and increase over the past century, and yet we have politicians in Congress that are trying to legislate women’s rights….again. The ladies have fought for decades upon decades for equal footing with men, and they’re still not there. They’re closer than they were a hundred years ago, but the religious and backwater mentality that women should concede certain fields to men is taking hold again. Personally, I love it when a woman can actually hold an action film on her shoulders. It shows that a woman can be just as capable as a man of blowing things up. Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Fisher, and Charlize Theron have all helped push this genre to new heights. I don’t know how deluded you have to be to see female action heroes infringing upon your rights as a “man,” but what that kind of things says is, “Pay attention to me!” Men, you don’t have to be so macho anymore. It’s okay for a woman to step up every once in a while. Give them a chance, they will surprise you. If you’re worried about how women are cast as leads in action movies, you might want to analyze your insecurities. Telling men to not go see Mad Max because a woman is on equal footing with Max is going to have the exact opposite effect of what you are going for. The film is already getting rave reviews, so it’s doing something right. I just find it hilarious that these ding dongs choose this particular film to speak out on. I’m all for free speech, but you “men’s rights activists” are total idiots. REAL men don’t disrespect women. To Aaron Clarey, a “man” with a very unmanly name, please pull your head out of your posterior and actually use the brain that the gods gave you. For anybody who is brave enough or just wants a laugh, I’m going to leave a link to the original blog post below, so be warned. Return of Kings is a troll website to the extreme. You don’t have to be a feminist to find that website offensive. It’s a magnet for morons. It’s hilarious that something like that exists, but it’s also sad because these people honestly believe the crap that they are spewing. To sum up: Women are awesome, misogynists are not. Oh, Mad Max Fury Road hits theaters on May 15. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m urging all men to go see it anyway.
This is going to be a bit of an opinion piece/observation so bear with me. After watching Avengers: Age of Ultron, I began to wonder why I wasn’t so enamored with the movie. Aside from the issues I mentioned in my review of the film, I guess the whole big superhero mash-up stuff is beginning to wear on me. I may be beginning to get burned out on the superhero genre. This is coming from an avowed fan of the genre. I don’t necessarily blame Marvel for this, but they have a pretty big stake in how I’m feeling about big blockbuster action movies. Over the past 15 years, we’ve seen a huge number of blockbuster-type movies like Transformers, X-Men, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Star Trek. Don’t get wrong, I’m a huge fan of those franchises, but I’ve been noticed how much bigger this kinds of movies have been getting in the past decade. They’re enormous, literally costing hundreds of millions of dollars to make. Sometimes, that amount of money doesn’t pay off and the film flops. I think with the size of these budgets, the film-makers are putting a lot of it into visual effects, explosions and action, but not enough into the actual writing and story-lines. Take Transformers: Age of Extinction for example: That movie is enormous in scale, but all the money the Michael Bay was allowed to handle was put into the visual effects and action sequences. It wasn’t boring, but it was exhausting. I’m starting to see a trend with these big movies, where there is so much action and so much activity on the screen, I’m starting to wonder if people will get literally get tired of seeing all that. I’m certainly at that point, and I blame Joss Whedon and Marvel for hammering home that point with Age of Ultron. The movie is so packed with action, that it leaves little room for almost anything else. That does not make a good movie. I think seeing a new Marvel film every year is getting really old. Look at the amount of superhero movies that have been released since 2000: 45. Let me repeat that: 45. That includes both Marvel and DC Comics. Marvel has DC beat, claiming 35 of those movies. Marvel has seen the release of THREE movies per year with the exception of a year or two. THREE per YEAR. I’ve seen them all. DC Comics and Warner Bros. have a LOT of catching up to do.
Age of Ultron has seen a lot of mixed reviews since its release, and it’s not surprising. The issues that movie had when it was in production are nuts. Joss Whedon and Marvel were butting heads over what was going to in and what wasn’t. Ultimately, Marvel won out, but I think both sides are to blame for how the movie turned out in the end. I loved the first movie, it was amazing. Nobody had done anything like that before, with some of the biggest superheroes together on the big screen at the same time. Now while the title of the post says Superhero Fatigue, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the other blockbusters. This new century has already seen some of the biggest movies in history. See, the comic book movie genre is just one many genres that have seen big movies. The ones that make the most money and are the most popular happen to be action movies. Directors like Michael Bay, James Cameron, Joss Whedon, Sam Raimi and several others have seen various amounts of success from their movies. The problem is that their movies are generally close to two and a half to three hours long. That’s a long time to be sitting in a theater. To be honest, I don’t mind doing that as long as the movie has more to offer than a flash in a pan. Look, I love a mindless action film as much as the next guy, but it has to about an hour and a half. Two or three hours of mindless action? It gets tedious if it doesn’t leave room for you to breathe between set-pieces. I understand that Marvel and DC want to put people in theaters to watch their movies and have a successful showing. However, some of the best movies I’ve seen this decade are much, much smaller in terms of budget and scale. Movies like 12 Years a Slave, Django Unchained, The Raid, Lincoln and even the likes of Ong-Bak are light-years beyond anything that Marvel can throw at me, and some of those aren’t even action movies. I guess I’ve reached a point where I prefer things NOT blowing up every two minutes. I’m not going to abandon those kinds of movies, but I am going to seriously cut back on them. I don’t see a lot of movies in theaters these days, and I would prefer to see something that’s actually worth the money and time I’m throwing at it. If it seems like I’m whining, I might be. But it’s just something I needed to get off my chest. Who knows, by this time next week I might feel differently. It’s just something I’ve noticed in myself and several other people that I’ve talked to. I think I just need to step away from superhero movies for a while so I can catch my breath. So, is it superhero film fatigue that I’m suffering from? I guess it’s a possibility. I define superhero film fatigue as getting excessively tired of superhero movies. I think that should be an official medical diagnosis. The cure? Watch. Something. Else. Now, I’m going to try and take my own advice. I may fail miserably, so wish me luck. My fingers are crossed.
