March 2, 2010

On Open Letters and Cans of Worms

March 2, 2010 / Magazine Morgue / 6 Comments

Mar 2 2010

Chuck Norris Ate My Baby wrote about the tiff over Let’s Get Dangerous’ Open Letter to Gorezone, which appears to not have been received all that well. I’m surprised, however, that an offensive position has been returned, instead of addressing the points of Jamie’s critical opinion expressed in his open letter. To call its contents defamatory and slanderous is stretching things a tad silly. Here’s the open letter so you can make up your own mind. Let me know what you think with your comments.

Not to kick Jamie any more, but his grammar needed a bit of proofing, too (you Brits are weird with grammar). I’d like to see Gorezone (and readers of Gorezone) respond to his critical assessment regarding this one issue. If any of you have read the issue, can you corroborate or disagree with Jamie’s critique? Civilly.

Here’s Jamie’s Open Letter To Gorezone (with some additional commas, typos corrected, and my personal observations in bolded italics sprinkled here and there. One last note: it is rather ironic that a blog called Let’s Get Dangerous actually lives up to its name.

Congrats on that Jamie.

“Dear GoreZone Magazine,

“Firstly, well done for having a glossy and fairly nice looking magazine that has managed to stay afloat during a climate almost designed to make just that very difficult. It is definitely an achievement that a niche magazine has kept on keeping on, and I salute that.

“I first bought GoreZone about a year, maybe a year and a half, ago when the mag was still in its relative infancy and I was thoroughly disappointed (I did the same thing and felt a little disappointment: just not my cup of tea really). So I decided I would stick to Fango. But then yesterday, I saw the mag in a shop in Manchester and spotted a review of Enzo Castellari’s Bronx Warriors movies. So I figured I would give it another whirl.

“Now, I am not one of these guys who gets all heated about grammar and spelling but come on, this is just ridiculous (okay, I thought you said you weren’t the type to get all heated about grammar?). I’m assuming that none of your articles get proofread at all as the level of grammar and spelling really is atrocious. Which is something that needs to be rectified if you are going to continue calling yourself “The world’s most upmarket horror entertainment magazine” (bit of a jump here, but I’ll stay mum: still just expressing concern, not slander). Basic spelling and grammar are an absolute must for any professional-looking publication, and when you skip on it it makes you look like a bunch of amateurs. And if some Mary Whitehouse type were to pick up the magazine as fodder for her latest crusade against people having bloody fun then she would probably think the horror community is a bunch of uneducated degenerates fixated on big boobs (yet people still read the Weekly World News: go figure*).

“And so in lies my main problem with GoreZone: I don’t like that you assume that all horror fans want to see bikinied-up girls flaunting it around (dear Gorezone: Jamie’s on his own with this one). I’m a red-blooded male gorehound who loves the ladies, but when I pick up a horror magazine I want to read about what gory flicks are coming soon and about classic genre flicks that get our jugulars pumping. If I am honest the reviews are well written for the most part, and the features go into some level of depth which is good. Now just sort out the content.

“Females are maligned in this genre we love as pure eye-candy, or examples of pure evil (I agree, but it sells movies and issues because enough males want to see it). This is the most progressive genre in the world (have you seen the DVD shelves, lately?), the genre that showed women can be heroes with films like the Night Of The Living Dead remake, but even though people are striving to make something more of the genre, other people (such as yourselves) are dragging it back down (an argumentative stretch here: which people are striving for what? Get your notes ready). For example, in your Christa Campbell VS Joe Bloggs piece, the question “Are big breasts accessory or necessity?” is thoroughly unnecessary, and Christa’s answer pretty much set the women’s movement back god knows how far “The bigger the better no? You have to get their attention somehow…” (sadly, she’s right, whatever we dislike about it: my question is, was this intended as a satirical article?)

“It just really seems like “the world’s most upmarket horror entertainment magazine” is Nuts for horror fans (or even the celebrity obsessed Heat), as opposed to “Vogue for horror fans” as you have printed on your cover.

“Now I’m no prude, I love the movies of Fred Olen Ray, Jess Franco, Russ Meyer and Jean Rollin but with Women In Horror Recognition Month on the horizon, lets just try and remember that there is more to women than lumps of fat on their chests (damnit, okay, but it won’t be easy: I’ll second the notion. Oh, wait, the month’s over!). Be as progressive as the genre (still not seeing that progressive genre yet) allows, and focus more on the horror that all your readers love (you can’t presume to know what all of Gorezone’s readers would like) as opposed to the scantily-clad ladies (which I assume appeals to at least a percentage of your readers). Imagine what could be accomplished by a truly “upmarket” horror publication from the UK, that focused on movies and the genre rather than the interchangeable commodity that are actors (I don’t think actors would like that sentiment: they work hard at horror, too.) that would truly be an achievement!

“So GoreZone please: more horror, less half-naked girls (again, dear Gorezone, this is Jamie’s personal request only, and he did say less, not none)
Regards,
Dangerous Jamie”

*Just so we’re clear, I find Weekly World News a hoot, though I try not to read it in public.

The House of the Devil (2009)
The Devil’s In The Details

Instead of another homage (like Cabin Fever) or glossy remake (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), he [Ti West] has come up with a period pastiche that mimics the low-res vibe and look of early-1980s horror, along with the same bad hair and clothes. And he’s done so with more shiver than splat (Manohla Dargis, New York Times review).

There are times all too often these days, sadly, when I wonder which movie I’m watching; whether it’s the one those other critics have seen or a cinema-changeling version of the movie swapped in just to bedevil me. After reading the New York Times‘ Manohla Dargis’s review for The House of the Devil, I can only assume it was the cinema-changeling movie I watched and not the more entertaining, more sinister, and scarier movie she saw. In fact, it was her review blurb on the DVD cover that egged me on to buy it: I admit I fell for that one. I try not to be so gullible, but it does get harder and harder. She said it was “a horror movie with real shivers.” I wish I had watched the movie she saw. I didn’t shiver a bit. And adding insult to injury, USA Today‘s “unbearably suspenseful” blurb helped cinch the deal for me, although I would say it’s more bearably unsuspensful.

Boy, have I learned my lesson about hypeful blurbs on DVD covers. In this case I would have preferred an energetic homage or glossy slick remake.

To be fair to Dargis, her review is thoughtfully written and argued, and she does point out her disappointment with the ending. After so much “sweet time” director Ti West takes to set up his Rosemary’s Baby-lite, the climax flickers instead of bursts. West’s attention to 1980s horror movie elements is virtuosic; but I wanted more attention paid—beyond recreating a decade’s movie style—to the story itself; that would have been more rewarding for all my anticipation leading up to those flickers.

I will say Tom Noonan as Mr. Ulman is marvelously creepy. He can act creepy by just staring at you, but he does more than that here. (I dream of seeing Noonan play the Tall Man’s brother in a Phantasm movie.) Even the dark old house is creepy, and Ulman’s wife (Mary Woronov) is creepy. She’s the kind of woman you recoil from when she touches you. I’ll also bow to Jocelin Donahue’s Samantha, who uncannily channel’s that effervescent 1980s unsuspecting victim charm in her looks and acting. When she dances around the old dark house, to the tune of the Fixx’s One Thing Leads to Another, I felt the urge to dance with her.

But all these impeccable acting and creepiness things do not lead to another frightening excursion into Satanic mischief. West’s exacting attention to recreating an earlier decade’s shadows, textures, and pacing renders a faithful replication with its truthful-camera technique, but at the expense of its malevolent events, which are few and far between, and its overall suspense, which is lessened by familiarity. Frankly, many movies from the 1980s—not just the horror ones—are tedious to watch now. Times change. As a project to capture the look and feel of another decade, Ti West has succeeded admirably; as a horror movie, The House of the Devil fails to elicit scares or tension because he has succeeded admirably at recapturing that look and feel without playing with our expectations.

Samantha, a college student, is moving into a new apartment and badly needs money. Dee Wallace has a brief cameo as the landlady. Worrying about how she will pay the rent, Samantha notices a flyer seeking babysitter help, next to the campus pay phone (Wow, remember pay phones? I mean the ones that hung on the wall?) She leaves a message, waits for the return call while listening to her portable cassette player (Ditto wow on cassette recorders. How many of you mixed your own?), and waits some more. I had forgotten how big those portable cassette players were back then.

She finally reaches Mr. Ulman, whose voice is also very creepy. She agrees to babysit and convinces her friend to drive her to the old and secluded house, past the cemetery. When they arrive, Mr. Ulman greets them with enough weirdness to make Samantha uncertain about staying. Money eventually persuades her, so her friend leaves, and much of the movie is spent watching Samantha grow uneasy about the situation, the empty house with photographs showing a different family in them, and the locked doors hiding dark secrets. A lunar eclipse and a skulking, sinister “handyman” (AJ Bowen) help make us uneasy, too.

This being a re-enactment of a 1980s horror movie about devil-worshiping fiends, Samantha does what you normally expect a ripening female victim to do: she pokes all around, upstairs and downstairs, orders pizza, and tunes to a horror movie on the television; gets bored, dances all around again, upstairs and downstairs, with her headphones and portable cassette player, and eventually eats the pizza, which tastes funny.

Hint, hint.

I will admit I was horrified when she held the pizza box the way she did, but that was the only tense moment for me. Defying the gravity effects on cheese and tomato sauce like that is really asking for it.

Revelations of the person she’s babysitting, of the Ulmans’ evil goal, and the significance of a lunar eclipse provide the climax that flickers instead of bursts.

Ti West also wrote and directed The Roost (also aided by a very creepy Tom Noonan playing a very creepy horror host). You may find that movie more rewarding.

I did.