Freaky Friday - A Plea

Please, for the love of God, do not go see this movie. It might be good, for all I know (it won't be), but that's not my point. The first two were awful. Sure, if that crap was happening to you, you'd be scared, but after you watched the first video showing some screwed up stuff, wouldn't you GET THE HELL OUT OF THAT HOUSE or LEAVE THAT FREAKY BITCH SOMEWHERE? I understand that you wouldn't have a movie otherwise and the horror genre is full of people doing something illogical for the sake of a plot, but come on.

Besides, they aren't that well made to begin with. The acting is sub-par at best and the security camera thing was played out with the first one. And let me clue you in on a little secret...they aren't SCARY. There's only one decent scene in the first one and the second one had no scares at all. I haven't watched the third one (waiting on Netflix, because I'm not paying for this crap), but I'm sure it isn't much better. You're actually being duped by a mob mentality in a theater. Everyone expects to be scared and as the audio swells, so does the palpable tension in the room. The girls that are dragged there by their boyfriends so they can cop a feel start screaming and you start to buy into the scariness. Watch at home, and you'll go "Meh".

The fact is, they are super cheap to make (3 was $5 Million) and people go see them in droves. That's great for the Studio, but horrible for the horror movie buff. Although it is still one of my favorite horror movies, I blame "The Blair Witch Project" for this. What makes that one work, is that the forest is actively working against the group so that they can't leave. They're stuck. They've gone too far and there is no hope of escape. It's that claustrophobic atmosphere and impending doom that creeps up that makes it effective. There's plenty that can be done to remedy the problems with these "haunted houses" but they just don't. And yes, I know that's the case in movies like "The Amityville Horror" too, but I don't like that one either.

But I digress. I would ask that you stay home and don't go see this one. You're just feeding into the studio engine of churning these and all its copycats (since this is this generation's "slasher" flick) which isn't helping anyone. Go see something like "Sinister" instead (which is produced by the same people that produced "Paranormal" coincidentally). That one uses found footage too...but looks AWESOME. I hope to hell it is.