I really can't understand the hatred that I've seen thrown around at this year's much-hyped revival of the giant monster movie genre, Cloverfield (recently released on DVD). In interviews before the movie came out, J. J. Abrams was quoted as saying that he wanted to give Americans their own Godzilla and walking out of the movie theater last January, to say I was blown away would be an understatement. The reality of the experience was an incredible thing and speaking as someone who's seen more horror movies than I could ever count, it was the first film in a long time that actually had me feeling unnerved at the end. Just driving home, I was fully dreading that a giant purple leg would crawl around from behind the buildings. Cloverfield was an excellent revitalization of what had been a stagnant genre and I for one was eagerly anticipating not only a follow-up but a revival of the giant monster genre in general.
The movie made its fair share of money, to be sure. However, I've noticed a very negative fallout after the release, with many disappointed viewers. Part of me wonders if Cloverfield was simply over hyped...but on the other hand, one starts to consider if maybe, just maybe, people are incapable of ever taking a giant monster seriously again. Peter Jackson's King Kong, which was anticipated to the extreme, wasn't near the monster success that everyone expected and we can even go back to the failure of 1998's Godzilla, though that can be blamed on the movie, well, sucking.
Is it simply that the age of giant, city-destroying monsters, created by King Kong in the 1930's and brought to its greatest heights by Godzilla and nuclear paranoia in the 1950's, is over and done with? One never knows. But, as a diehard fan, I'll certainly hope for the best and be eagerly anticipating any announcements concerning a possible Cloverfield 2.
- Nicholas Conley
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4 comments:
Interesting thoughts, I too hope the era of giant monster movies is not over. The three recent movies you list seem to reflect directors not "getting" the genre.
Godzilla sucked, no way around that one. King Kong was too long for the genre. It had many great scenes but was weighted down by so much character development that, at times, the "monster" seemed an afterthought.
And though I really liked the monster in Cloverfield, I am one of those who hated the film. This is for two reasons:
1. The hand-held camera gimmick was old halfway through Blair Witch and should never be resurrected. But more importantly
2. The LONG boring party scene that made me hate the characters enough that I was hoping the monster would kill them sooner rather than later. No film ever made was worth sitting through that.
Still I hope the genre survives but I am not going rush out and see the next giant monster movie without reading several reviews first.
I do see what you mean about the party scene. It's another example of a movie dragging out the opening too long, straying too far from what the audience came to see. Even I was yawning at the beginning, though I loved the rest of the movie after that.
However, I gotta admit to loving the Blair Witch gimmick when it was used in Cloverfield, heh. Though it did get very old when George Romero recycled it a third time in Diary of the Dead.
Either way, thanks for leaving your thoughts and stop back by, any time!
meh, I wouldn't say the big monster was causing me to shake in my boots, I think it was the fact that you never got a clear, lightened up shot that kind of gave me a reason to yell at the screen. In my opinion, if the horror movie you are watching makes you desperately yell at it's characters, you have won, it's good. And boy did I do a lot of "Oh no, you stupid!" during that movie.
I think the arachnid things were pretty sketchy though... yuck.
I liked the movie, I like the concept of "fake filmed real life documentation" I get lost in stuff like that.
You may think it's old, but I like it. :p ^-^
I wasn't actually yelling out at the screen, heh--but I definitely was screaming at all the characters in my mind to "Do this," "No! Don't do that!" and so on, so that's the important thing and what made the movie so damn good.
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