The Trouble with Horror Movie Reviews

Written by Scott Edwards

'The Shallows' - One of the toughest reviews I've ever had to write!

It may seem like I review every movie that I watch, but that is far from the case. The current ratio of horror movies that actually make it to the page is one in four and for numerous reasons. While I was raised to believe that if you do not have anything nice to say, to not say anything at all, I have come to find out that it is easier to bash an under-budget movie than to give it praise for what it is. So, to not go after any of these movies, I will go down the list of things that will make me turn them off or not give them a review when all is said and done.
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First thing is first, my biggest peeve is not being able to hear the dialogue during the movie. While so many people are willing to put their best foot forward and give us some great stories, if I cannot hear what the characters are saying, well, that will make me skip the movie altogether. When you are storytelling, you need to make sure that the story is being told, even if there is not the budget for a sound person, you need to make sure that the audience is able to hear what is being said. This falls in line with something else that I have been noticing with some newer films, the background music is equal to or louder than the characters, this will also make me turn off the movie before anything starts to get going.

Second, with the number of movies that I end up reviewing, they have fifteen minutes to have something important happen before I turn it off. This has become the window for me, as I have found out that if nothing happens in this allotted time frame, nothing will happen in the movie. I am all for slow burns to help build up the suspense in movies, but there needs to be something to keep me intrigued. This can be accomplished by having a character I really seem to relate to, or having something strange happen in a haunted house, but there needs to be something that matters to the story that happens or once again, off goes the movie. 

Repetitive dialogue is a huge pet peeve of mine, as it is just lazy writing and it gets very boring. I remember watching a movie that had the main character repeating every line three times with different inflection and while it could have been good, it added nothing to the story and just got very old very quick. This falls into one of the main movie-making rules to not make the movie longer than it is written, because that is where many of the big budget movies go so wrong. If the script is only seventy pages, then you have a movie that will be an hour and ten minutes and filmmakers need to keep it at that and stop with silly types of filler, because audiences are not dumb and should be given some sort of credit since they paid to see the movie. 

I have never been afraid to say that I HATE FLASHBACKS, so this is something else that will keep me from writing about a movie. While the flashback is a great storytelling device that has been used through the ages, if it is not important to the story, or could be replaced by something called dialogue, it should not be used. Even though this has not always been the case for me, some recent movies and television shows have used flashbacks too often, showing that the writers have become too lazy or are looking for fifteen minutes of filler for their shows since they cannot come up with anything better to do. Once again, audiences are not stupid and should be given some sort of respect since they are the ones that the stories are being written for. 

Finally, there is nothing more important than the ending to a movie, and this is something that could make or break the story altogether. While I am not a huge fan of it all being a dream, since it has been done many times before, it still seems to be popping up all over the place and it is just a copout that makes the audience wish they had their thirteen dollars back. Too many times, past and present movies seem to lose their path when it comes to ending the movie and that is very sad, because it could be great up until the credits roll. I do find myself throwing anything handy I have at the screen if the ending of a movie makes no sense to the plot. I don’t like the feeling of being cheated out of the story, much less my time.

Well, there are some reasons why I do not review every movie that I come across. While there might be some great stories in the movies that I have not reviewed, you now know why they have not made it to the site. In reality, I just like to be entertained and I keep my standards pretty mild when watching indie horror flicks, because I know that they are grossly underfunded movies and are just trying to tell their story. I really do look forward to seeing what the next year has in store for the genre, especially since the horror industry seems to be picking up a little bit of steam at the box office, I just hope they don’t go too Hollywood on us however, because sometimes hidden agendas can take over the film and make something that was prefect to begin with into a piece of drab that nobody wants to watch. Stay Scared.

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