Page 16
Practice Makes Perfect
tamps Digest News Service
Movie trends are usually caused by one
movie of such popularity that producers rush
to copy the ingredients. "Airport" was releas
ed in 1970, and no more than two years later,
the disaster picture was upon us. "Star Wars"
was released in 1975 and one year later,
science fiction movies were reborn. In other
words, a popular movie of a new genre will be
copied with far less competence and exploited
for every penny that can be made.
That has been a rule of the motion picture
industry for years. From "Earthquake",
"Tidalwave," and "Hurricane," to "Battle
Beyond the Stars," and "Battlestar
Galactica," there seems an endless supply of
these formula rip-offs. The idea is this: Movie
A makes a lot of money. Therefore, if movies
B-Z include the very same ingredients, they
should make money too.
Unfortunately, what is usually left out of
these unoriginal products is the imaginative ar
tistry that made the first movie so special. The
result is a barrage of forgettable pictures that
quickly grow tedious.
As unfortunate as all of this is, there has
never been a more disturbing movie trend than
the one that we presently have. In 1978,
"Halloween" was released and successfully
managed to scare every audience who saw it.
Not only did it catch fire at the box-office but
soon became a mold for more than two dozen
assembly-line horror movies.
"Halloween" was about a missing lunatic
who stalked a group of girls with a long, silver
knife trying to dice and slice them to death. It
was competently made by John Carpenter who
generally had one thing in mind, to provide a
scare like never before. How he accomplished
this goal was through slick camera work,
credible pacing, and an exuberant telling of
plot. "Halloween" is full of scares but it
doesn't have as much gore as we think it does.
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Carpenter knows the key to making good,
scary movies. It isn't what you show, it's what
you conceal.
The barrage of "Halloween" carbon copies
stole three basic elements that show up in all
of their plots: 1) they include a mentally
disturbed killer on the loose in some secluded
setting, 2) that killer is usually after far more
women than men and 3) the "bad girls" are
the ones to die while the "good girls"
miraculously survive the nightmare.
"Prom Night," Friday the 13th," "Silent
Scream," "The Boogey Man," "Schizoid,"
and "Terror Train" are only a few of the
movies inspired by "Halloween". In each
film, a terrible killer is on the loose in some
unusual setting. In "Silent Scream," the
background is a college apartment, in "Prom
Night," the horrifying violence takes place at
a prom dance (this movie was also a "Carrie"
rip-off) and in "Friday the 13th," the setting
is a summer camp.
All this means is that we have a new movie
trend of the very same structure as the trends
of the past. That is hardly worth a mention
but where this trend slips beyond tastefulness
is in its repeatedly degrading use of women.
Returning to "Halloween" for a moment
we can see exactly where this all started. A
group of girls are terrorized by one killer who
roams the neighborhood on a lonely, hallo
ween night. In the end, only the virgin sur
vives. The girls who fool around don't live
long enough to feel guilty the next morning.
"Halloween" appears to be making a moral
judgement it has no business making.
Although some critics found the movie to be
the best in horror since "Psycho," it is a little
more than a good scare, with some ques
tionable values.
Fortunately, those questionable values are
well enough disguised by John Carpenter's
clever direction. The joy of the movie is not in
libursday, February 5, 1981
the girl's suffering but in the killer and when
he will or won't pop out next.
It is precisely this element where the clones
of "Halloween" differ. They lack any artistic
integrity and seem to exist solely for their
brutal attacks on defenseless, "naughty,"
women. Their camera is filled with slow
motion slashings, brutal stabbings, and horri
fying rapes. Unlike "Halloween," there ap
pears to be no fun in even making these
movies. We could almost visualize Carpenter
smiling and having a good time as he tried to
shock and scare, but here, there exists a
depressing attitude toward the subject
material.
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"I Spit on Your Grave," was one movie
that two famous Chicago critics, Roger Ebert
and Gene Siskel, called the worst they had
ever seen. Both of the reviewers worked to
have the film taken out of the sleazy theatres
at which it was playing.
"1 Spit on Your Grave" could very well be
the worst and most offensive movie ever seen
and yet, the basis for its lack of integrity can
be found in the more familiar horror movies
as well. It's about a woman who is brutally
raped and beaten three times before she
returns for a hideous revenge.
There is no attempt at character development
or establishing a storyline.
The movie isn't merely bad. It must have
been make by sick people. There is no other
reason or possible explanation for its ex
istence. The movie is nothing more than a col
lection of vulgar images photographed with no
more care than a home movie.
Films like "Prom Night" and "Silent
Scream" may not be quite as bad but they are
missing the same art, the same values. Sadly
enough, people are flocking to their local
theatres to see these shallow, brutally violent
stories. For movies that call themselves horror
movies, that's a sad and scary thought.
11- 11WITWIT
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