2011′s Most Overrated and Overhyped Horror Films
by Marc Patterson
Hopefully you’ve now read my list of the films I loved the most in 2011. If not, you can go and do so now by clicking here. Now the snarky little bitch in me comes out. Throughout the year there are always those films that press outlets can’t quite shut up about. It seems like every other day there’s some sort of bullshit write-up promoting a yet-to-be-seen film. Well, here’s my list of films I feel were grossly overrated and overhyped this year. Not that it makes any of them necessarily bad in their own right (though some were sadly quite poor of quality), but they unquestionably received more press than they deserved.
Now, as a quick disclaimer – I fully realize that creating buzz around one’s film is part of the process of filmmaking. And to be clear – we are every bit a participant in this as others. Exploitation film and guys like Roger Corman were equal amount ringmasters as they were producers. So, it is with a playful sense of awareness to the Hollywood process, and our involvement in that process, that I start to rip a few assholes open.
The Last Circus – This was a great film. No really, it was a spectacular work of visual artistry. It almost even made my best of 2011 list – and I’ll have a long overdue review coming out at some point in January – but for the love of all that’s unholy, this still wasn’t Santa Sangre, so let’s quit acting like it was, okay? At its best moment it was a high quality direct-to-video release about a really pissed off clown who loves a girl he’ll never quite be able to get. Additionally, it features a lot less action and violence than anyone would have you think, which makes you wonder how it got promoted so heavily by horror sites. Nonetheless, totally worth watching, even if while doing so you feel like just popping in Santa Sangre – which, by the way, you should.
Serbian Film’s Blu-ray Release – Serbian Film sits with Paranormal Activity as the most over-hyped film of the past decade. I’d rather not say anything further lest I give this film any more of my attention. But seriously, this wasn’t intelligent filmmaking. This was shock for the sake of shock and made a lot of unnecessary noise with little more purpose than drawing attention to itself. How could it NOT find some form of distribution? Serbian Film was the annoyingly loud person at the party who everyone is too drunk to realize is making a total ass of themself until the Facebook photos emerge the next morning. Thank God for 2012. Finally we can move on.
The Thing - Fans of the original remake decried this remake of a remake as though Sinead O’ Connor was tearing up a picture of the Pope. (Anyone remember that? Or was the reference too dated?) It wasn’t a remake, but was rather a prequel, but then re-hashed/repeated elements from John Carpenter’s flick, so what was it really? The Thing was yammered about to death, got released, proved a flop, and the rest of us have already forgotten it ever existed. Shit, the horror community all but forgot it existed after opening night. Now was all the crying and pandering really worth it? Probably not. Will anyone learn that ridiculous hype isn’t worth it? Probably not.
Hobo With a Shotgun – Once again, I’m not going to kid anyone; I loved this film. I even have an awesome pic of my kid sporting a cap from the film while we were out on a camping trip this past summer. But let’s be real for a minute. This was seriously over-hyped and has been given far too much praise than is due. Was this really God’s gift to neo-grindhouse? No. Not by a long shot. Does this even reek of the grindhouse spirit? Oddly, not much. Hobo With a Shotgun was a tremendous amount of fun and has a title that can’t be beat, but mostly proves that the fanboys with the loudest mouths tend to win in the end.
Chillerama – Okay, c’mon guys. What the fuck? Chillerama was a fun, shlocky bit of juvenile B-horror, but it wasn’t good and was hardly memorable. Except for that fact that it obviously had a budget this looked like something my friends and I might make while drinking too much beer one weekend. So what the hell was all the fuss about? How come I couldn’t take two steps in the horrorsphere without tripping over some sort of self-promoting buzz for this film? I guess that since a bunch of genre fanboys made it the horror blogs couldn’t shut up about it. For the past three months every third post seems to have been about Chillerama. Under much duress I gave into peer pressure and watched it to see what the buzz was about and came up disappointed. No kidding – It was just another forgettable anthology. Fun, but forgettable.
Human Centipede 2 – All The Human Centipede 2 did was to prove that Tom Six really can’t play with the big boys without a good gimmick. Instead of making an inferior by-product of his first film it would have been great to see him roll up his sleeves and produce something really interesting. I get why the first film created a huge amount of noise. The concept was so ridiculously perverse that even my church going co-workers knew about it. But why make another one other than to cash in on the success of the first? And if such a cash grab was so obvious why would anyone get all worked up about it? The Human Centipede 2 would have had its tongue buried deeply into its cheek, except for that it was otherwise occupied in someone else’s asshole. I watched it and subsequently chucked it in the trash bin.
The Woman – If it weren’t for that staged, errr…. shocking and controversial stunt at Sundance we wouldn’t even still be talking about this film. So why are we?
