Night 25 of 31 Nights of Horror

My wife watched the first thirty minutes of the film with me, then she stood up and declared “This is a bad movie” and went to bed. I’m not going to go that far. People have different likes and dislikes and it’s unfair to make statements like that based on your own personal tastes. I’m not going to disagree with her though, simply because of who made the film and that I have seen much, much better from Wes Craven.

I’ve gotta check IMDB, but this may have been his first stab at a horror/comedy and the comedy side of it is kind of weak, I didn’t laugh much and the villains were more cartoonish than menacing. The dog was the scariest antagonist and the biggest threat the hero faces. You know what the movie is like? It’s like Home Alone, but they make the kid the burglar and then they mashed it with the X-Files episode “Home”. I’m also not a fan of stories where the villains only motivation is ‘They’re crazy because they’re inbred’. That’s lazy writing in my opinion.

So far this month I have watched 25 horror movies, and without even realizing it, 99.9% of the cast in these movies have been white people. The only people of colour I can remember are the Native Americans in Prophecy and a single black man in The Ninth Gate, who had I think had only one line. When people talk about unconscious biases, this is an example, so it’s awesome that Brandon Quintin Adams was cast as the hero in the movie, but less awesome that the script leans so strong into bad stereotypes. His sister is a prostitute, Ving Rhames’ character is a burgler, they are so poor that this brilliant child sees no way of helping his family except to turn to crime… like seriously, none of the other movies I’ve watched this month have the hero start out by committing crimes and THIS is the one with the black star?

It’s ranked well on Rotten Tomatoes, and I’ve seen many comments about it being an underrated classic. I’m not one of them. I had never watched it before last night and will most likely never watch it again, unless my memory fails as I get older and forget I watched it, but hopefully I remember my blog entry exists and I can re-read this. If I’m in the mood for a Wes Craven film, I’ll stick with Nightmare, or New Nightmare or Scream. I have never watched The Hills Have Eyes, so maybe…