Shao Kahn is most displeased at the massive amount of suckitude this month, so he’s forced three of us to clear out some of it for him. Joining me this time around are Chad E. Young and Nicole Fiss, and they’re both a little fed up. Chad is ready to take on horror fans who make outrageous demands on convention boards, Nicole attacks non-endings in horror flicks, and I go for the Fatality on horror cons that make announcements on Facebook. Shao Kahn’s brought along some backup this time, and Lord Goro will make sure we’re up to task (or he’ll use his four arms to rip off my two. OUCH!).
Let’s start off with a word from Chadworth. Beware that though we hold ourselves to high standards and normally refrain from profanity, Shao Kahn has allowed the use of foul language:
- Fans who demand the wrong guests- I understand we all did not become horror convention experts after 1 show. I also understand that some people are not aware of the history of the fandom community, and sometimes need to be clued in. But HOLY FUCK, posting on forums over and over again saying “I know this is a dumb question, but why isn’t Jamie Lee Curtis added? Can Rob Zombie appear?” on EVERY FUCKING FORUM is a real pet peeve of mine. First off, people claim there’s no such thing as a dumb question, and I hate when people use that as their way of covering up their idiocy. Second off, JAMIE LEE CURTIS HATES YOU. If certain stars really, really, really wanted to show up, they’d have done so by now. JLC doesn’t like horror. Rob Zombie doesn’t like conventions. Christopher Lee is too damn old. Plain and simple. There you have it. Now get over it.
Glad the big guy got that off his shoulders. He’ll have more to say about convention boards in future You Suck! entries.
Chad’s not the only one who’s upset. Nicole is all riled up about having sat through THE DEVIL INSIDE and not getting the ending she paid for:
- Horror flicks that end on non-endings- I hate home video movies. Watching them I have gotten dizzy, headaches, and at one point during THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT I’m sure I fell asleep. I have endured the PARANORMAL ACTIVITIES, CLOVERFIELD and now, THE DEVIL INSIDE. And while some are a little more decent than others, they all have one thing in common. No endings.
I watch horror because I want to be scared, grossed out, thrilled and chilled, and sometimes offended. If I wanted to watch a movie where after 90 minutes everyone skips off into a field of tulips and lives happily ever after, I would strap myself to a chair CLOCKWORK ORANGE-style and put in a copy of THE NOTEBOOK. I want to see everyone get killed, mutilated, eaten, turned into zombies or just plain left for dead. I like a movie more when there is an unhappy ending. But, there has to be an ending!
Let’s take a look at the evidence, as there’s a trend here. In BLAIR WITCH, the credits roll when the camera hits the floor and we have no idea what happened. As for PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, I would say that it depends on which version you’ve seen. But it doesn’t matter in this case because both left the audience hanging without an explanation. And in CLOVERFIELD… Please don’t make me go into detail with this one.
The most recent and worst example is THE DEVIL INSIDE. This was disappointing, because the rest of it was actually pretty good. A young woman travels to Rome where her mother is being held in a hospital for the criminally insane after she’s found guilty of murdering three people during an exorcism. While she’s there she meets two priests who, against church law, perform an unauthorized exorcism on her mother. The story twists and turns with scares and creepiness, and got to the point where I forget I was watching a “documentary” style movie. I was genuinely scared. The movie comes to a climax, I’m on the edge of my seat watching through my fingers, and then it happens. The screen goes black and the credits roll. That’s when half of the people in the theater start booing, and I don’t blame them. I got my hopes up for what I thought was going to be the exception in home video movies and yet again, I got cheated.
So in conclusion, and I do prefer a conclusion, if you’re going to make a scary movie please make one with a beginning, a middle AND an end. Is a little closure too much to ask?
Let’s thank Nicole for giving us some closure to her You Suck entry. Shao Kahn is pleased, as she respected her audience more than THE DEVIL INSIDE did its. And while I’m discussing respect…
- Listing guest cancellations on your con’s Facebook page, but not on your official site- Fellow DE writer and longtime friend Dom has been pushing me to go to the HorrorHound con in Ohio. Based on my love of all things Romero (well, almost all; there’s no loving THERE’S ALWAYS VANILLA), he pointed out that with all the Romero guests there, the con should be a lock for me. He had a decent argument, which weakened just a bit once I saw that Mike Trcic, one of the autopsy zombies from DAY OF THE DEAD, was no longer on the official site’s guest page. Also not on the page was any word regarding his cancellation. I sent a text to Dom, who replied that the promoter announced it on the con’s Facebook page, and that I should get a Fb account. For personal reasons, I don’t have a Fb account, do not want a Fb account, and find it insulting that I should have to get a Fb account to find out when a guest cancels a con. I’m sure there are plenty of people such as me out there who don’t want to get hung up in the Fb scene, and for them I speak when I say: cons have an official website for a reason and promoters should respect the fans interested in their show by placing important information such as cancellation on the official website. If you want me to come spend money at your show, please provide all the up-to-date information in the proper place, instead of being all hip and Facebooky. If you’re searching for meaningless “likes,” search elsewhere. It’s common courtesy, dudes.
The teacher in me once again feels compelled to sum today’s lesson up: If fans don’t beg on a convention website for a Jamie Lee who’ll never show, but that con lists all its cancellations on its website, and provides only movies with solid endings, Shao Kahn will be pleased. Until that happens, all offenders above should expect a visit from an angry Goro, because… It’s official! You suck!
-Phil Fasso, with contributions from Nicole Fiss and Chad E. Young
Fair comments re JLC ( now minor UK nobility, and busy selling yogurt and board games), and heavily agree with official vs Facebook page ( if you don’t have the ability or cash to update your website, don’t have a website).
As for the hanging ending … it would depend upon the skill and intention of the filmmaker. Does it look as though the production ran out of money ? Was the final vision too expensive to bring to the screen ? Is what we could imagine more terrifying than what could be shown ? Are we being set up for a sequel ?
I’ll leave the non-ending as a case-by-case judgement. More times than not, it’s a cop-out… but allow for the occasional winner.
“JAMIE LEE CURTIS HATES YOU. If certain stars really, really, really wanted to show up, they’d have done so by now. JLC doesn’t like horror. Rob Zombie doesn’t like conventions. Christopher Lee is too damn old. Plain and simple.”
Whiny, rude, clueless “writers” suck too…
JLC doesn’t “hate’ anyone, and is doing a con, and the fact you diss Mr. Lee’s age says quite a bit about you.