Zombified college kids stagger and drag their way towards a small faction of survivors consisting of a couple, a pregnant woman, a jaded cop and a comedian who always gets it first. Oh yeah, and donOt forget the chick with a machine gun leg, or maybe a guy with a chainsaw arm.
The timeline is easy enough to follow, one by one the survivors are picked off. DonOt turn around a corner, because BAM! ThereOs your mortality staring you in the face... or eating you in the face, as the case often seems to be. If you leave the theatre before the credits roll, thereOs a happy ending. Each new film seems to show the director waxing upon the Biblical end of the world.
If you want money, make a horror movie. OJawsO is lauded as the highest grossing horror film of all time, with an estimated $765,369,426 in profit, and the cult classic OThe Rocky Horror Picture ShowO raked in an estimated $341,981,100. Not too bad for a film that didnOt really show their OmonsterO and another whose protagonist was a campy, singing transvestite.
It obviously doesnOt matter how bad it is, because there will always be a studio willing to fund your horrific foray into the film industry. The reason is plain: because people go to horror movies. For some reason, be it escapism or the desire to get some action from a frightened date, Americans love their gory films.
Since the silent film era, writers and directors have come up with new and stolen ideas. For example, F. W. MurnauOs ONosferatuO was stolen from Bram StokerOs ODracula,O a fact that got the crew sued. In other words, you donOt have to be brilliant or even creative to make a quick buck.
The horror film as a genre really hasnOt become any more substantial over the years. However, the digital effects are significantly better. They just plain look cool, and who knows how successful a film like OPlan 9 From Outer SpaceO would have been had Ed Wood been privy to extensive funding and technology.
What America really needs, more than a new president, the troops coming home or a release from OAmerican IdolOsO stranglehold on the television industry, is more horribly written and outlandishly funded horror movies, and their even more idiotic sequels.
WeOve gone beyond the realm of B-Movies, which should have remained locked away in a small section of a local video store. It is laughable how so many OA-ListO horror films are actually worse than the campy B-Movies, which intend to be cheese-ridden. Quentin Tarantino and Robert RodriquezOs double feature nod to the B-Movie with OGrindhouseO is a perfect example of this irony.
While the directors were obviously over-doing their films and copying the stylistic format of the B-Movie, OGrindhouseO can still be taken more seriously than the legitimately made films like the atrocious OHouse of Wax,O or any of the recent O(Blank) Of the DeadO films.
WhatOs great about horror movies is that anyone can do it, (though the jury is still out on if anyone really should do it). All it takes is a camera, a few cast members, hopefully a big studio payroll, makeup and fake blood. Take OThe Blair Witch Project,O which became a sensation in 1999. It took a simple format, one that viewers had seen again and again, in films like OFriday the 13thO: camping kids are terrified by some unnamable something out in the woods.
They disappear and we see how horrific their apparent demise was, oddly echoing the horrifying camerawork (tripods were invented for a reason). This terrible little film, which anyone could make, I repeat, anyone could have made this film, went on to gross $248 million in the United States, making one of the largest profits in the history of cinema.
So get out there and write a cheesy, campy and undeniably horrible horror film. If Sam Raimi can transform into the director of the OSpidermanO series after giving birth to OEvil DeadO and OArmy of Darkness,O anything is possible.
