It’s Friday, and around here, that means it’s movie-review posting day. We’re in the doldrums of fall—the blockbusters of summer are long gone, and the Oscar-bait films of winter have yet to roll out—which means the theaters are filled with lots of cinematic oddities. And this Friday features a full-on quirk-fest.
Where the Wild Things Are features towering, balloon-headed beasties who elect a 9-year-old as their king. Paranormal Activities, the much ballyhooed R-rated thrill-flick which cost about $11,000 to make, rolls out in wide release (we haven’t posted our review of it yet, but stay tuned). Against competition like that, Law Abiding Citizen would seem to be the predictable one of the bunch. I mean, like it or not, you know what you’re going to get when you watch the trailers, right?
Wrong.
Every year, it seems, the film industry plays dress-up, crafting a painfully bloody horror flick and disguising it as a nondescript thriller. Two years ago, it was Mr. Brooks, with its bloody serial killings. Last year, Untraceable (in which we watch a police officer slowly die in a vat of acid) was the culprit. This time around, it’s Law Abiding Citizen—a film that takes more than a few cues from Silence of the Lambs and Saw. About halfway through the screening, the woman sitting next to me whispered, “Do you get paid enough to sit through stuff like this?”
For me, the more compelling question is why the studios keep green-lighting these flicks.
Listen, I understand (sadly) why Lionsgate issues another Saw movie every Halloween. They’re cheap to make and they have an audience, so they’re guaranteed money-makers.
But really, the torture-porn genre ushered in by Saw seems to have peaked and is on the decline. Paranormal Activity gets its R from language, not gore, and other notable Saw wannabes have failed to attract an audience. Throw in a big name, and the financial peril grows: Mr. Brooks, starring Kevin Costner and William Hurt, banked just $28.5 million stateside. Untraceable, with Diane Lane, pocketed $28.7 million. These, typically, would not be the sorts of figures that would encourage studio execs to say, “Hey, we gotta make another one of those!”
I don’t know, of course, how Law Abiding Citizen—with charismatic actors Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler—will fare this weekend. Me, I’m hoping moviegoers find other ways to amuse themselves.
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