As a science nerd, I love graphs. So this post is an excuse to share the work of Bo McCready.
The first is a graphic of film genres over time. As you can see, some genres are niche (sci-fi and fantasy), some have become less popular over time (westerns and musicals), while some have become more popular (horror and documentaries). Meanwhile, comedy has been dominating since the 1930s.
It should be noted how the films are classified. Obviously, very few films are purely one genre. Westerns would often be (hugely problematic) action movies as well. Some westerns were also romances, and there are at least a few famous musicals in that genre too. More recently, sci-fi could be more accurately termed comic book/Marvel movies. But they also tend to be comedies, action, and box-office gold.
So what does this data actually tell us?
Well, I think it shows a couple of things. The first is that one one genre ever really dominates, despite what we may think. The second is that most films are rarely able to fit neatly within one genre box, no matter how hard reductionists wish they would. And the third is that a bit of humour is always welcome.
This month’s What’s the Difference? from CineFix is the hilarious Jojo Rabbit based upon Caging Skies.
Video: Jojo Rabbit – What’s the difference?
It shouldn’t come as any surprise that I haven’t decided to read a book about an abusive Nazi protagonist during the Second World War. Obviously, that sort of book would be such a fun read and exactly the sort of rollicking good time I would make space for in my limited reading time.
It will probably come as a major surprise that I haven’t seen Jojo Rabbit as yet. How could I not have seen a movie involving Taika Waititi?
The answer is children. If you ever want to see a movie in cinemas ever again, either don’t have kids or be very happy abandoning them with a teenager who is only pretending to look after them while they mix your 30-year-old single malt with Coke.
… Or take them along to the cinema with you, like the kids we saw watching Deadpool 2. I’m sure those kids will grow up just fine. Especially once their teacher finally tells them what a strap-on is.
So the take-away from this post is that I want to see the movie even more now.
Update: I’m now the proud owner of Jojo Rabbit on DVD. Yes, I know, I’m sure it was streaming somewhere and buying a physical copy of the movie makes me sound ancient. But on the plus side, AppleTV can’t casually delete my purchase like they did with The Walking Dead.
Now that I’ve seen the film, I have to say that despite being marketed as a non-stop laugh fest, this was a dark and emotional movie. I’m not sure I can say I enjoyed the experience and some of the humour was less funny and more distracting – like the saluting scene which felt like a Mel Brooks moment. Which is to say that I’m not sure the tone was able to smoothly transition between the humour and the serious moments (which is also a criticism many have levelled at Waititi’s Thor Love and Thunder).
This month’s What’s the Difference? looks at the comic book Locke and Key and its new Netflix series adaptation.
Okay, so not a movie as such. Get off my back!
I’ve had Locke and Key sitting in my digital TBR pile for ages. When they released the first omnibus, I got a copy and then proceeded to not read it. This was a problem with earlier digital formats of comics, as they had a habit of not working with the reader programs (I’ve discussed this before with Matt Hawkins’ comic series).
So it was only recently that I got motivated to read the first volume. And it was fine.
There is a lot going on with the story, with the world-building, and establishing the characters. It moves pretty quickly as well. And the art-work is on point to support the story (there’s a bit where an antagonist sees one of the supernatural characters in a photo that could only be in a visual medium). But I kinda wanted to read it as a novel rather than as a comic.
Development of a TV series has been in the works since the end of the second run (around late 2009). Fox had a pilot (2010), Hulu had a pilot (2017), and now Netflix has thrown money at something for Stranger Things fans. I mean, how could they not when it is written by Stephen King’s son?
I’m yet to see the series*, but I have an inkling that Locke and Key will work terrifically as a TV series. There is plenty of material to work with, there is depth (part of why I wanted a novel version, to spell it out), and the supernatural elements will be fun to see brought to life.
* This must be a first. I’ve read the book first and not had a chance to see the adaptation. Probably because we cancelled Netflix…
If you like Christmas movies, then CineFix have a book and movie for you in this month’s What’s the Difference?
At the risk of offending Kubrick fans, I must confess that I do not care for his movies.
Now, before you launch into a flurry of keyboard mashing, I’m not saying that Kubrick is a bad filmmaker. It is clear that he was an amazing visual storyteller. But as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve always found Kubrick films to be somewhat bland.
That said, I can appreciate what he is trying to do with his films… Usually, this appreciation comes after some wonks with a film degree walk me through it (see video below). But that doesn’t really increase my enjoyment of his films.
As to the book, I’ve not read this one. It doesn’t sound like the sort of novel I would normally read, but would probably offer a more clear understanding of the themes of the story.
This month’s What’s the Difference? from Cinefix is all about giant killer robots learning to love.
Twenty years on and who’d have thought that two of Vin Diesel’s most memorable and acclaimed roles would have been voicing laconic characters.
This was an interesting instalment of What’s the Difference as I wasn’t aware that The Iron Giant was based upon a book. Apparently, The Iron Man was a story Ted Hughes developed to help his children deal with the death of their mother, Sylvia Plath. And obviously, grieving kids back in the 60s needed to also deal with impending nuclear war. I wonder if there will be any people left to look back in wonder at our generation’s stories and themes?
Obviously, the movie is pretty flawless*. It oozes charm and classic animated movie appeal. The existential concept of you are who you choose to be is a fantastic narrative element. Or as the director, Brad Bird, put it in his pitch, “What if a gun had a soul, and didn’t want to be a gun?”
I think another part of the appeal of this film was that it only became successful after failing at the box office and being mismanaged in all of its marketing. There were no toy and fast-food tie-ins. No big ad campaigns. This is a movie that found success because it was a good movie. As such, it managed to retain its charm because it didn’t need to support a toy-line and limited edition drink containers at Burger-Donalds.
So when Warner Bros inevitably remakes The Iron Giant, I look forward to the mountains of crass action figures that will be available, with flashing lasers and launchable rockets.*
* He says having not watched it in the best part of two decades.
There is a joke that started a month or two ago about how HBO subscriptions were going to cease once Game of Thrones concluded. The implication is that despite a long history of high-quality TV shows – Oz, The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire, True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, Flight of the Concords, Banshee*, and Strikeback** – the station will suddenly have nothing to offer audiences.
This argument reminded me of a PBS Ideas Channel video I shared on how technology is changing TV shows.
It raises an interesting point about how there appear to be more complex narratives in TV shows now. And in light of the conclusion of Game of Thrones, audiences are expecting more from networks that they doubt can be provided.
Of course, there are several problems with this idea. The first is perception. For every Breaking Bad and Justified we have CSI Whatever and the banality of reality TV. So without some hard data on the number of shows and relative audiences, it is really hard to say how real that perception is.
The second problem is that TV shows run a continuum from pure episodic shows, where everything is wrapped up in an episode and the next episode has little to no changes evident to the characters or larger show, through to serials, which have more complex plot lines that often take at least a season to develop and resolve with character arcs building over the course of the entire series. The key word is continuum, as most shows have some aspects of the serial and episodic about them. Again, without breaking down each show on this continuum, and then comparing shows now versus the past, we don’t have any idea of what has changed, if anything has changed.
The third problem is the good old sample or selection bias, especially as it relates to our favourite shows and the shows we remember. E.g. Survivor has been running since 2000 (or 1997 if you are in the UK), yet without looking that up I’d have had no idea when the show started, let alone whether it is still running. I don’t remember it because I’m not a fan. But I will still complain bitterly about the cancellation of Firefly. My frame of reference is biased, so I’m going to remember some shows more than others and think more favourably of some of the ones I remember than others.
The final problem I see is assigning time shift technologies and marathon watching as the driver of a change in our demands for more complex narratives. The idea itself is sound, as I can’t think of thing less interesting than watching the same episode with minor changes in a marathon. That would be like watching 9 hours of hobbits walking. The recording, DVD buying, streaming and subsequent marathon TV show watching would indeed favour shows that have more to them, that more complex narrative that will keep you pressing play on the next episode.
I don’t know that the time shifting, or recording, or DVD buying, or other methods of marathon watching, is driving demand for more complex narratives. As I said above, I think the more complex shows lend themselves more to the marathon than other shows. But if we assume there are more of these shows worth grabbing a blanket and a couch dent, then I still think there are other things at play. I think we’ve seen more avenues for creativity come to the fore, such as Youtube channels, computer games, and the like that didn’t exist a decade ago as they do now. As a result, entertainment such as TV shows has a need to engage the audience on a deeper level. So while episodic shows like CSI Whatever are still huge, they don’t attract the same devotion and fan adoration as a good serialised show. Plus, the advantage of the more complex narratives is that it allows for more interesting characters, plot lines, etc, which in turn allows for better acting, direction, writing, etc, which creates a feedback loop that may one day cause fandom to implode due to awesome achieving gravitational singularity. I’m assuming this will happen when Netflix reboots Firefly.
NB: I hate the term binge-watching and as such haven’t used it in this article. Binge implies that there is something wrong with what you are doing. There is nothing wrong with watching a TV show or movie series you enjoy, so we should stop implying there is something wrong.
* Banshee is criminally underappreciated.
** I stand by including this on the list. Show me another TV show that managed to do more in one episode than most entire action movies with 10x the budget.
This month’s What’s the Difference? from Cinefix looks at the classic children’s story that became a(nother) Disney movie.
My memory of The Little Mermaid story is what you would call hazy. The Hans Christian Andersen tales, from my recollection of them, were a lot darker and nastier than would generally be acceptable for young children these days.
The movie is much easier for me to recall, as my daughter has recently taken a liking to the tale. Except for the bits with Ursula in them, which are far too scary. Fortunately, I’m usually on hand for hugs during those scenes.
The thing that has struck me the most about The Little Mermaid, and Disney kids films in general, is how much they have progressed in the last 30 years as compared to the 30 years prior. Several of the Disney films released in the 70s and 80s (The Little Mermaid, The Fox and the Hound, The Aristocats, Winnie the Pooh) bear a lot of similarities to earlier films (101 Dalmatians, Lady and the Tramp, Bambi*). The leap that was made after Toy Story is profound, such that newer films are just in a whole other league (Tangled, Frozen, Zootopia).
Almost as big of a leap as children’s book have made since Hans Christian Anderson was writing.
The source material behind Disney’s animated classic, Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, is a surprisingly metal fairy tale. Let’s take a look at all the ways the filmmakers changed the source material, talking crabs and all! It’s time to ask What’s the Difference?
* But not Dumbo. That film has aged badly. There is a lot to cringe at in Dumbo and the film itself climaxes with a very short scene, so it feels a little underdone.
This month’s What’s the Difference? from Cinefix covers the amazing Spike Lee film based on the autobiography of the same name: BlacKkKlansman.
I have been reading quite a bit about fascism and racism lately. As someone who got lucky to be living in privileged skin, these are issues I feel we all need to be more aware of and actively standing against.
Instead of my normal comment on the film or book, I suggest watching the Vice coverage of the Charlottesville rally, Philosophy Tube’s videos on racism, Antifa and fascism, and reading the book on how to oppose fascism.
It was inevitable that someone in Hollywood would try to reanimate the corpse of yet another classic film. So with the upcoming release of the remake of Pet Cemetary, what better time for CineFix to discuss the original book and movie in What’s the Difference?
Pet Cemetary is one of the many books lingering on my shelf in the TBR pile. While I have decided that this year will involve a concerted effort to make a dent in said pile*, it is unlikely I’ll get to read this novel anytime soon. If I’m completely honest, I want to read The Stand first.
What about the movie, I hear you ask. Back when I was a young lad – walking the obligatory 10 miles (whatever a mile is in real measurements) to school through 10 feet of snow (why would there be feet in snow?) after working 10 hours at the coal mine – Stephen King novels and movies were all the rage. Whether it was Needful Things, Carrie, Misery, Lawnmower Man, IT, or Children of the Corn, there always seemed to be someone bringing a Stephen King VHS** to watch. And after my hard lesson learnt with IT, I tried to avoid the obviously scary films – hence I have seen Lawnmower Man and most of Needful Things, but not Children of the Corn.
At this point, I probably sound like a wimp. It is odd that I generally don’t find horror novels that bad, and even movies with horror elements are fine. But movies whose goal is to creep you out or gross you out (think Saw franchise or Hostel) just aren’t for me, particularly the latter. It’s a little hard to be entertained by that sort of thing.
Yes, yes, more excuses as to why I haven’t read or watched something. Don’t worry, plenty of horror in my TBR pile. Stay tuned.
*I’ve managed to read one from the pile and added two more to it this month. That counts as progress, right?
Since the annual American lolly festival is almost upon us, Cinefix is covering one of the classics. Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Francis Coppola’s 1992 Dracula.
Time for some straight talk. I don’t know how you discuss this particular adaptation without mentioning just how bad Keanu Reeves is in this film. Embarrassingly bad.
I actually tried to rewatch Dracula a couple of years ago and just couldn’t bring myself to sit through it all. Despite it being a bit of a who’s who of actors in the cast – and people like Tom Waits – it all feels so camp and silly. Even when I first saw it in high school, I remember Dracula being only average – with possibly the best visual explanation of the link between Dracula and Vlad the Impaler ever.
It is harder for me to talk about the book as I read it so long ago. And, let’s be honest here, I’ve since read way too many Anne Rice novels to not get the details confused. I read Dracula and Frankenstein at roughly the same time; because gothic horror novels are what pre-teen kids should be reading. Neither stood out for me as novels, but it is amazing how influential they have both been to genre fiction.
I wonder if there will be any modern equivalent. A novel that establishes an entire genre that is continuously reimagined, refined, and redefined such that we get analogues ranging from True Blood (coming out of the closet analogy) to Buffy (girl power).
This month’s What’s the Difference? from Cinefix covers Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
This month I’m just sharing.
Yep, that means I’ve neither read the book nor watched the movie.
Feel superior in the comments.
20 years ago a new generation was introduced to the peak of Gonzo Journalism with Terry Gilliam’s adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Really great filmmakers have tried and failed to bring the savage journey into the American Dream, so what makes Terry Gilliam’s version so successful? Time to get cracking and ask What’s the Difference?!
This month’s What’s the Difference? from CineFix covers Ready Player One.
Normally I’d add a few comments here about what I thought about the book and/or the movie, particularly the adaptation. But Ready Player One falls into an odd realm for me. I’d initially had the book on my TBR pile but ended up removing it after a discussion at a writers’ group. The gist was that the book is a great example of the “you’re not a real geek” toxicity that pervades geek culture, exemplified by rating pop culture references.
Then when the movie trailers came out, it too looked like one long list of pop culture references that only true geeks would appreciate… By appreciate, I mean argue and post overanalysed articles and Youtube videos online for weeks after most people have moved on.
Hey look, here’s a video of all the pop culture references:
This is a roundabout way of saying I haven’t read the book nor watched the movie, nor do I feel particularly inspired to do either. Enjoy the video anyway.
Update – This covers Ready Player One from a writer’s perspective:
Further Update – This video expands on my point above about toxic geek culture with reference to GamerGate.
PBS Digital Studios have a new video series It’s Lit! which is part of The Great American Read, an eight-part series that explores and celebrates the power of reading. Featuring one of the premiere video essayists in Lindsay Ellis, this series should be brilliant.
The first video briefly discusses a topic I’ve frequently discussed here, what makes a good adaptation and why the book is so often regarded as better.
Lindsay has very concisely summarised why movies so often don’t make for good or faithful adaptations of the source material. But she also touches on why they can sometimes improve the book, or make an adaptation that uses the source material in an interesting way to tell a different story.
With the recent spate of superhero movies, it is easy to forget that not every movie has a superhero in it. Even the superhero films aren’t always about someone on steroids (Captain America) or weather presenters (Thor) but are instead about your everyday billionaire playboy (Batman, Ironman, Arrow). So it is easy to forget that feats of superhuman strength are not meant to be the norm in films.
Think about the scenes where the everyday hero is clutching the edge of a building by his fingertips – and I’m sure someday I’ll be able to write their instead of his. Valiantly they hold on to the ledge with one hand whilst the love interest or bad guy is dangling from their other hand. Of course, the hero never loses his grip on the ledge, but the bad guy may slip from his grasp.
We accept that scene as plausible because we have been brainwashed into thinking that the average person can hold their own bodyweight with a single hand for extended periods. Double their bodyweight? They can hold that for the length of a dramatic moment – a period of time that is impossible to measure in real time since dramatic speeches and slow motion really mess with reality.
The problem is that outside of gymnasts, rock climbers, or people who crush rocks with their bare hands for a living, the Average Joe wouldn’t even be able to hold their own weight with a single hand for more than a few seconds. Good luck having any unbroken fingers if they caught themselves from a fall.
Elite grip strength can be measured a few ways, but the Captains of Crush grippers are one easy way to distinguish strong hands. The #1 requires 64kg (140lbs) of force to close, while the #3 gripper takes 127kg (280lbs) and is regarded as world class grip strength. Just for shits and giggles they made a #4 gripper that requires 166kg (365lb) of force to close and has been officially closed by 5 people. Ever.
So let’s just assume that our generic action movie has an everyday hero who weighs a buff 80kg and his falling love interest is a sexy 55kg – because stereotypes. That’s 135kg hanging from the hero’s fingertips, a weight that even a really strong person wouldn’t have the grip strength to support. Two normal sized adults are not going to be hanging onto that ledge for any length of time.
Which brings us to the next amazing feat of strength in this scenario: lifting that falling love interest back to safety. For a strong person, lifting their 55kg love interest should be easy. Patrick Swayze managed it in Road House. A buff 80kg hero could probably clean and jerk a dumbbell weighing that much…. assuming they work out, have some chalk on their hands, were able to get some leg drive happening, had decent technique, and that the dumbbell wasn’t particularly unwieldy. But most falling love interests are a tad unwieldy, not designed for easy lifting – no obvious knurled handles – and there isn’t a lot of leg drive happening when you’re dangling from the side of a building by your fingertips. Yet without fail, the hero manages to get them both to safety. Well, unless it is one of those tragic character defining moments, in which case the hero will be in the same situation later and will find the determination to succeed the second time. Sucks to be the first love interest in that scenario.
Interesting to think about just how many amazing feats of strength are passed off as normal in movies.
Recently a YouTuber discussed what makes for a good story, based upon three important pillars: pictures, feelings, and ideas. Or as he put it:
Hello and welcome to another instalment of “X lectures you on matters he himself knows nothing about”.
Video removed, see why further down.
Like with everything that has a simple explanation (and even some complicated ones), I think the response to these sorts of posited arguments is “I think you’ll find it is a little bit more complicated than that.” But this one was funny, so points for effort.
A lot has been written on how to tell good stories. Seriously, every second creative person in history has a list of rules or advice. So here is a list of seven things that make for good stories, because seven is more than three, and it was on the first page of my Google search:
A central premise.
Strong three-dimensional characters who change over time.
A confined space — often referred to as a crucible.
A protagonist who is on some sort of quest.
An antagonist of some sort bent on stopping the hero.
An arch in everything — everything is getting better or worse.
And perhaps most important — Conflict. (Source:Â from Inducing Reality: The Holy Grail of Storytelling by Ken “frobber” Ramsley)
I think Ramsley’s explanation is more of a traditional checklist of things you need in your storytelling. X’s, in contrast, is a more generalist feel of where a story sits on one of those trinity diagrams. Neither, in my opinion, is right. And as a creative person, I’m now going to make a list of rules and advice….
Joking. Joking. Because I don’t think it works like that. I think that what makes a story good is the execution of the various story elements, done at the right time, finding the right audience, and being interesting enough to be remembered.
As an example, Star Wars is regarded as good, despite containing clunky dialogue, wooden acting, and passable directing. Why is it good? Because it hits all the story elements of the hero’s journey, it was one of the first space operas that hit the baby boomer generation and their kids, and had cool ideas like light sabres, space battles, The Force, and merchandising before that was really a big thing, to be remembered.
I’ve previously discussed how the luck factor of being a good story works. One example I cited was of Moby Dick and how it became good literature by accident/chance. Essentially one person dug it up, liked it, wrote favourably on it, and the rest is history. Shakespeare is in a similar boat, as his works were collected posthumously by 5 fans (750 copies, 250 surviving). These are examples of how finding the right audience is important, and how timing may not coincide with when something is made. How many other potentially good works were lost because they didn’t have an advocate who chanced upon them?
Of course, that’s just my thoughts. It’s probably more complicated than that.
Edit: When I originally posted this discussion on what makes a story good, I linked to a video by a YouTuber. Via Twitter I have learnt that this YouTuber sexually abused his former partner. Please take a moment to read her story in the links.
This isn’t behaviour any of us should condone, nor support. In this instance, I was sharing his video and promoting his profile – hence why his user name and video have been removed from this post. I was wrong to tacitly support abuse in this way. By not standing against abuse you might as well be condoning it.
Given the impending authoritarianregimes and mega-media corporationsforming, CineFix decided that this month’s What’s the Difference? would look at our near future. Reality TV will soon bring us The Running Man.
Back when I first saw Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Running Man the title sequence credited the source material as being written by Richard Bachman. One of the people with me, turned to us all with one of those know-it-all looks and said, “That’s really Stephen King.” So as we watched Arnie take down hulking professional killers with his trademark killer puns, we wondered if he was correct. Spoiler: he was.
Decades later I finally got around to reading and enjoying the novel. The movie and the novel were starkly different in so many ways. For starters, no half-starved, poverty stricken Running Man contestant is going to look like Arnie. But many of the themes are the same, if explored in differing ways.
This made The Running Man more than just a standard action film. By exploring the themes of totalitarianism, class subjugation, and media control while Arnie slices a guy in half with a chainsaw, we got a movie that was subversive and satirical. While not on the same level of social commentary as King’s novel, it does stand as an example of how you can do a loose adaptation of source material as an action movie but retain the exploration of themes.
And watch a guy with no pants get electrocuted when the fire sprinklers are set off. Way better than reading the description of Ben Richards’ entrails getting caught on plane seats.
This month in CineFix’s series What’s the Difference? they cover Oldboy. Live octopus not included.
Not having read the Manga, I don’t really have much to add to the above video. The film is amazing. It redefined “off-the-wall” and managed to make it compelling watching.
Let’s not talk about the Spike Lee remake. Because it wasn’t very good. Although, because it is an American adaptation of a South Korean adaptation of a Japanese work, it can be interesting in an intercultural sense. This article is very interesting in that regard.
Hugh Jackman is a proud Aussie export. We love that he is a Hollywood A-lister, and even more that he makes the rest of us Aussies look awesome.
But, and there always is a but, Hugh has appeared in some films that could have been greatly improved with one simple addition. I give to you the list of movies that would have been much improved if Hugh had popped the adamantium claws and gone berserker.
Van Helsing
Let’s face it, anything would have improved this schlocky mess of a movie. Instead of Hugh turning into a werewolf toward the end, if he had turned into Wolverine and shniketied some vampires, this would have been watchable.
Australia
Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have Wolverine living in outback Australia? Then he could have taken on the invading army during the WW2 scene.
Scoop
Imagine a Woody Allen film with Wolverine in it! Imagine the boat scene with Hugh going Wolverine on Scarlet Johansen’s character, and Scarlet going Natasha Romanov on him! Imagine if this newly awesome film wasn’t directed by a creep!
Deception
Imagine if this film didn’t suck. I think adding Wolverine to the mix would have done wonders for this lame movie.
Real Steel
Wolverine versus Robots. I rest my case.
Swordfish
Who else wanted to see Hugh decapitate John Travolta in this film? Or any Travolta film barring Pulp Fiction?
Pan
I’m not sure anything would have made this a film worth watching, so claws wouldn’t have hurt.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Wouldn’t it have been great if Hugh was playing Wolverine…… Wait a minute. This movie sucked even with Wolverine in it.
Do you prefer a Chianti or an Amarone to accompany human liver and fava beans? This month CineFix ask the question in their What’s the Difference? on Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris.
I’m going to be controversial here and say that the movie, Silence of the Lambs, was better than the book. That’s right. I’ll give you some time to warm up the tar and pluck the chickens.
That isn’t to say that the novel is bad, far from it. In my original reviews of Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, I noted that they were great stories, very interesting and layered (thematically, compositionally, etc), and gave us a charismatic villain for the history books. But I wasn’t a fan of the writing. Some passages were on point, especially some of the dialogue that was pretty much lifted straight into the movie, but other parts felt like they were letting down the team.
Compare that with the cinematic classic and you can see which one stands taller. The themes, particularly the sexism, are more subtle yet more omnipresent (camera angles and shot staging vs inner monologue). The tone of the film is brought to life, and how could it not be with Anthony Hopkins’ Lecter exuding menace and demonic magnetism, and the brilliant cinematography – the night vision scene is unmatched.
It’s a pity none of the movie sequels managed to capture the same magic. I’m yet to read the rest of the Hannibal Lecter novels, so it would be interesting to hear if they managed to continue the magic, or if they slowly drained of life with each thin slice.
Because some people are obsessed about the official candy holiday based upon on former harvest festival, Halloween brings about the discussion of the horror genre. This month’s What’s the Difference? from CineFix covers the movie based upon a hoax, The Amityville Horror.
One great thing about horror novels is the ability to go wild with creepy ideas that will scare people. Blood suckers, flesh eaters, scary clowns in the closet, demonic possession, crazy inbreds, mild mannered fathers who go crazy and murder their family: all great ways to scare people and haunt their dreams.
But it is always hilarious to see the line “Based on a True Story” or similar at the start of a book or movie. Any time that has to be stated up front you can guarantee that the tale is pure fiction. It’s like how smart people don’t go around having to tell people they have a high IQ, or people who are successful don’t have to go around telling people how rich they are.
Needless to say, The Amityville Horror has long been known to be a hoax cooked up by the Lutzs and their lawyer, and then sensationalised in the “totally non-dramatised” book by Jay Anson.
To this day, the fact that The Amityville Horror story was an admitted hoax is still not widely known — as we often say, the truth never stands in the way of a good story. Though the story was made up by the Lutzes and further sensationalized by Anson, there were real victims of The Amityville Horror (the film, not the demons). In addition to the murdered DeFeo family, the subsequent occupants of the Amityville home have suffered a continual stream of harassment by curiosity seekers, horror fans, and gawkers who want to photograph and tour their infamous house. Then there are the people who, fooled by the films’ and book’s tagline, think they are partaking of works based on true events. (Source)
Tyson Adams 