Grab Your Hoodie...

It’s the perfect time of year to talk about scary movies!  Everyone has his or her favorites.  Some scary movies are truly horrific, while others are horrifically awful.  A movie that is classified as a horror or suspense sometimes needs protective wear.  Take the hoodie for example.  It keeps you warm in the way too cold theaters. (Especially for some reason if you are watching a film that takes place in the snow.  I for one will definitely be taking one for the upcoming film The Thing.)  The hoodie not only keeps you warm in the theater, but it offers a viewer a way of escape, keeping the terror at bay as your head is brought into the folds of fabric, keeping you safe from something that might POP out at you.  Even if you go to the theater in the middle of the day during 80 degree heat wave, out you still grab the hoodie for your “protection.” Yes, some may laugh at the spectacle, but there is something about covering one’s head that makes viewing a little bit easier. Here is a rating system to help you with your scary movie viewing.

No Hoodie Necessary

You may enter a theater with a hoodie in preparation for the scary scenes to unfold, but walk out without even putting the hoodie on.  This rating would go for such movies as your tongue-in-check Shaun of the Dead or the really dumb horror flicks like Scary Movie 57.

1 Hoodie

For movies that fall into the 1 Hoodie rating, these are your oldie but goodie hoodie flicks.  The dated slasher flicks with predictable jump scenes with the likes of Mike Myers and Jason Voorhees.  Sometimes the hoodie comes off halfway through when the viewer is more enthralled with the campiness of the film rather than the scare factor. 

2 Hoodie

Here we get a little bit more serious.  The hoodie will probably stay on throughout the movie. A 2 Hoodie rating is for your more suspenseful stories such as Mothman Prophecies or What Lies Beneath.  A few jump scenes and unpredictable events (thus classifying it as suspenseful) leave the hoodie on in case this 2 Hoodie rating jumps to a 3 Hoodie rating.

3 Hoodie

A 3 Hoodie holds onto suspense and carries throughout the film.  These are the films that don’t have slow narrative that explains the existence of the horror, but continually keeps the audience in its grasp as it twists and turns through the plot.  Many jump scenes through out, leaving the hands at the ready in case one’s eyes need to be covered.  This rating is for some of the darker classic tales, such as The Shining or Amityville Horror.

4 Hoodie

Not for the faint of heart…sometimes these 4 Hoodie rating movies need to come with a warning label.  Adding onto the 3 Hoodie rating, is the “stay with you moments.” These movies leave an impression on you with vivid scenes that haut your mind.  Like a train wreck, your eyes can’t be averted from what is playing before you.  (Like the small Japanese boy sitting in the corner staring at Sarah Michelle Gellar in The Grudge.   Yeah, you remember that.)  The hands may offer some shielding, but you still peak between the fingers.  You definitely drag your friend with you to the bathroom after the movie and may have a hard time falling asleep, but by dawn it was as if it were just a bad dream.

5 Hoodie

For the Die Hards—these are by far the most haunting tales as they literally stay with you for weeks after.  Hands definitely fly up to the face as that all too familiar creepy music starts playing.  (“Tip Toe Through the Tulips” will never be the same to me again.)  You lean in closer to your friend or your significant other (or if it is really scary a complete stranger), grasping their arm with one hand and covering your face with the other, yet still peeking through your fingers because you want to watch and you paid $35 for the ticket, popcorn, & soda.  You definitely don’t want to be alone afterward and you even make plans to stay the night with your friend, in the same bed, with the light on, and a Bible on top of your chest.  And yet when you still get goose bumps from thinking about the 5 Hoodie Scary Movie, you can’t wait to grab your hoodie and head out to the theater to be terrified all over again.

Next Time on Ellipses…Top 10 Scary Movies.

To Sequel or Not to Sequel?

With the latest announcement that Stephen King is penning the sequel to The Shinning, the “What If” scenario started up again in my brain.  I began thinking about would be sequels in the realm of cinema and sequels in general that have been a blessing and a curse.  I had this conversation with my brother one night last week.  We talked about some of the best sequels as well as some of the worst, what should never have been made into a sequel and what would make a curious follow-up

First off I am by no means a film expert, just a girl who loves movies and would like nothing more than to pen quite a few successful ones.  Also, as a side note, I play a pretty mean game of Scene It so the next time you are up for a round, be sure to have me on your team.

The Best of the Best

To start off with, it seems like by Hollywood’s standards, you can’t be successful unless you have a sequel.  In some of these cases, Hollywood bet right and the sequel outshines the original.  There is no way I can put it in any kind of order either.  I leave that up to you, there are just too many opinions out there. Great sequels are included in many trilogies Back to the Future, Terminator II, and Indiana Jones.  The movie that seems to always be at the top of everyone’s list in the sequel discussion is The Godfather Part II.  Having only seen Parts I & II once, I can’t really comment.  I whole heartily agree they are great films and Francis Ford Copola masterfully tells the story.  I really put it here only so I don’t wake up to a bloody horse head. 

A sequel I can write about and will have many agree with me would have to be Aliens.  Alien was good.  Aliens was better.  In the hands of James Cameron, the tension is that much more palpable and there seems to be even more at stake with young Newt in tow.  Who can forget Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in that film?  Ripley not only has to battle some of the most terrifying creatures created by Stan Wiston, but she still has to fight the system, this time flesh & blood in Paul Reiser’s Burke, not a crazy milk spewing android.

The Dark Knight, for me, has to be one of the best sequels.  Would the film have received as much interest as it did had Heath Ledger not pass away before it was released? That is open for debate, but it was his performance that made the film.  I remember many conversations where there was much skepticism of Ledger as the Joker…until the first pictures of him were leaked onto the Internet.  With his passing, the momentum grew and after watching his performance, no one questioned what kind of nightmare he had put himself into in order to pull off that character.  The acting is what made the sequel better than Batman Begins and I have a feeling from the talk going on with the third installment, better than The Dark Knight Rises.

Where, might you ask, have I placed The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Star Wars (the original trilogy, not the prequels)?  Personally, I can’t separate these films.  Sagas such as these are one film…with a very long intermission in between.

No Sequel, Please

Hopefully Hollywood has some sense not to make something as horrendous as Titanic II, but then again we do have Transforms 1, 2, & 3 and an order for another Green Lantern.  Some films are great on their own and to try and replicate that or build off of it would only taint what was originally offered to us.  In the literary world, the great Harper Lee wrote only one book, the masterpiece To Kill a Mockingbird– also a great film that should never be remade. (Another discussion for a later date.)  Same effect goes for film in such cases in great achievement like Inception.  I’m kind of happy it ended the way it did.  Each individual was able to make his or her own conclusion…sometimes it is nice not to be force-fed an ending.  How about ET?  Can you imagine having ET coming back to Elliot as a grown man who has become cynical of the world and lost all belief in magic and things beyond our temporal Earth?  Seven?  Brad Pitt gets out of jail and commits a newly created eighth deadly sin?  But alas, in some cases the temptation is too great and we are exposed to sheer idiocy.

The Unmentionables

There are those films that producers push for the easy moneymaker that should never have been green lit.  Movies, such as my bother suggested, Weekend at Bernie’s II or Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey both go without saying.  So do films like any sequel to Final Destination…Final implies end, fin, done!  Some sequels have the promise of greatness found in building off of their predecessor, but are epic failures.  Indiana Jones had three great films and then came Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and that went the way of Jaws III and The Hangover II. 

Take for instances Jurassic Park II.  Coming off a highly successful first film—the book as usual was so much better (yet another discussion).  Jurassic Park was a terrific summer blockbuster.  I was obsessed all summer and into my 6^th grade year.  I wished scientists would make an amazing discovery and would recreate dinosaurs.  Alas, Hollywood did in the form of The Lost World: Jurassic Park.  It was a fairly decent film, not better than the first, but enjoyable.  But then it takes a horrible turn to the ridiculous when the dinos hit San Diego. The running joke all summer was my friends and I quoting in fake British accents “Are you there?”   The third installment made things a little better, but here is hopping with the advance in technology and Steven Spielberg can have another crack at it and the future Jurassic Park IV could be spectacular.

What If...

This leads me to the final part of our discussion.  Those great films that leave us just the teensiest bit curious of what would happen if Hollywood decided to make a sequel.  Don’t tell me that you aren’t in the least bit curious to see Mikey, Mouth, Data, Chunk and the rest of the Goonies (original cast please) reunite for another adventure…Goonies never say die!  Or what about the latest Robin Hood reboot with Marion and Robin living out in the forest with King John still needing to be dealt with?  What about the Incredibles?  I’m sure Pixar has something for the superhero family.

I leave it to you.  What are your thoughts about sequels?  Is our culture too sequel happy?  Should we leave well enough along?