Valentine's Day is the time each year when we drink alone and listen to Evanescence while fondling a razor blade in the tub.
I was actually a bit worried that I wouldn't get around to doing the marathon this year. It's not that I'm busy or anything. I just don't move a lot. But here we are: another year, another four movies that are possibly scary but probably not. Does anyone really watch horror movies to be scared anyway? Sometimes I wonder if I have one of those autism disorders where I don't feel emotions like the rest of the meat sacks who walk around smelling bad, but then I remember that I can't do math.
Hey look, a segway!
Aliens
Way back when I began this tradition of ironically watching scary movies on a romantic holiday (I'm so original), I aimed to work through the Alien movies one by one each year but got sidetracked by Stephen King and other Things. So, since this year's list is lacking any unified theme I may as well throw Aliens in there.
Honestly, this is my least favourite movie in the series. Yes, Resurrection's ending with the fleshy baby monster is terrible, but I still love the rest of it. As a friend of mine put it, Alien Resurrection is basically The 1990s: The Movie and I agree with him. He meant it in a bad way, but I don't. I love the thick layer of grunge over everything, including the characters' personalities. It's basically a two-hour Tool music video.
I think I was supposed to be talking about Aliens, though. It's like Platoon in space, which is cool but not as appealing to me as the other films. I never said that I dislike Aliens—just that it's my least favourite of the quadrilogy. That's like saying pancakes are my least favourite breakfast food to slather syrup all over. I still love pancakes, but syrup also goes well on Corn Flakes.
Cabin in the Woods
I kind-of-sort-of reviewed this movie a couple of years ago when I was fed up with talking about Sinister. Back then I gave it ten Ethan Hawkes looking like Gordon Freeman out of ten, which I realize was a controversial review score at the time but I stand by that judgement.
Cabin in the Woods is probably one of the greatest horror movies of all time because it's not really a horror movie. It's a commentary on horror movies and we—the audience—are the villains. We enjoy seeing young people get tortured for being too hot or promiscuous or whatever, and we dictate so strongly what we want to the people who make our torture porn that the entire genre has become formulaic. We have strict expectations and freak out if they're not met, just like every time a sequel or a remake to a classic horror film comes out (I'll get to that later). These poor people are tasked with entertaining us and they don't even stand a chance, but they do their jobs anyway and hope that we won't tear apart the whole fucking world with our disappointment.
Evil Dead
Speaking of cabins in woods, Evil Dead is the quintessential film in the doomed-teens-go-camping genre. The original did for horror movies at the time what Cabin in the Woods did today.
I don't have the original film on DVD, though, so I'm watching the remake. Some people will call that heresy, but those people are fart-smelling ass droolers. Even if a remake is terrible, it doesn't hurt the original just by existing. In this particular case, though, the remake is pretty damn good. It's awkward and the actors' performances are barely believable until they start getting hacked to pieces, but isn't that what matters? Anyone who criticizes the new Evil Dead on those grounds hasn't watched an '80s horror movie in the last decade without wearing their nostaliga goggles.
Kids, if someone tells you that a modern horror movie or remake isn't worth watching, or that it should never have been made, just remember that you can't be a horror film critic without also having erectile dysfunction.
Resident Evil
If you think back to my glowing review of Milla Jovovich vs. the Zombies 5 you may recall that these movies are tits. Am I using that expression right? I don't really understand what calling something "tits" means, but based on the context I've heard it in I assume it means that something is really good. Just like tits. Which is ironic because Milla Jovovich doesn't have any.
The director of the Resident Evil movies, Paul "West Side" Anderson, must be the world's greatest husband. He has single-handedly ensured that Milla Jovovich will always have a career in looking like a badass because they will never stop making these movies and I will never stop watching them. There is nothing to not like about the series—except for the second movie, which I'm not sure even exists anymore since the maths prove that enough positives will cancel out any negative.
If you can't get excited about Milla Jovovich fighting ever-increasing numbers of monsters and CEOs in an ever-increasingly shitty apocalypse caused by corporate America, you must be some sort of hyper-pansy who's too afraid of offending any New Agers who self-identify as zombies to have any fun. You may as well kill yourself because you aren't living anyway. Then come back as a zombie and let Milla Jovovich fight you. It'll be the one thing of value your existence adds to this world.
So, what did you think of this year's choices? Did you watch them all or were you too scared of dying alone because it's been four years since you've been on a date? No, I'm not projecting. I'm just crying, okay!?
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