28 Days Later: Thoughts on scary movies

[spritechan]

I was getting ready to leave for work when I came across my double feature of 28 Days Later/28 Weeks Later. I stuck it in my bag for Isaac, my work partner, because he loves watching scary movies in his downtime. Probably because it's hard to fall asleep to a scary movie.

Just being in proximity to the movie made me ultra paranoid. When  I got in my car I saw shadows and thought someone was running up to my car. Turns out it was just a truck coming down the street. And when I got to work I thought the same thing, but it was just a resident coming out for a smoke. It is SCARY. I couldn't sleep for days after that movie. I kept thining someone would break in my windows and come get me.

I don't watch scary movies that often just because of the above reason. I am a huge baby for movies. Let me remind you that while I LOVE Jurassic Park, I have nightmares about velociraptors every few months, and I haven't seen that movie in years. 28 Days Later terrified me to my very SOUL. I think it's the scariest movie I have ever seen (but I know it's incredibly personal and probably lots of people didn't find it as scary). I thought it was really well done. It put it into me just how scary it would be to have nowhere to go, that your very scent is what made it easy for the infected to find you. Nowhere was safe. Talk about PTSD-inducing, being in that situation.

28 Weeks Later, however, I thought was a little overdone in the gore, and I thought the catalyst for disaster was incredibly stupid and unrealistic, which made me mad for the duration of the movie. Other than that I bet it actually was pretty good. I was too busy glaring with my arms crossed and stuck on the catalyst to enjoy it.

But other movies that are supposed to be realisticish, like Quarantine, annoyed me and weren't scary at all. No person in real life would act as stupid as the characters in that movie did, especially professionals like army men and cops. Any movie that has a REALLY STUPID way to get everything in motion ie what makes the Peace start falling apart and Havoc takes over, ruins the entire movie for me. For some reason The Ring was scary the first time I saw it, but then lost its charm. The Grudge was really scary because of the intensity of the jump-inducing effects. I actually was mad that the American version had an American actress and a real story. The original is better.

The Chaser, a Korean thriller, was very well-done and could really happen. It is about escorts disappearing and trying to get to the bottom of it. It jumped between the murderer and main character escort, the pimp-like guy trying to solve the mystery, and the investigators. It was really good. One thing I really like about foreign movies is not having to tie everything up into a pretty little package with a happy ending.

Like I Am Legend, why the fuck change the ending to the original story? I hope anyone who's seen that movie also saw the cut-out alternate ending. SO. MUCH. BETTER. and makes a hell of a lot more sense. Of course, the book is a million times better just as most books are.

Hostel was also a terrifying movie, because again, it really could happen. I was very afraid of that movie for awhile too, but when I heard the sequel was pretty much just gore porn, I decided not to see it. I don't need gore to be afraid. As for the original, I thought it pretty well done and well thought-out, but I'm not sure if I have the stomach to see it again.

Overall, I'm not actually much of a thriller buff. I don't need to see scary movies, and I once-in-awhile get the urge to scare myself, but I need a safety net rpesent so I don't die, too.

Comments

[vixenofflames.livejournal.com]

Hm. I MIGHT see it then. I'm curious, and Hostel did scare the crap out of me. I just might check it out - I never heard anything about it from people I knew.