Random thoughts

[brigdh]

I adore horror movies. However, I loathe the gory aren't-snuff-films-illegal? Saw/Hostel/The Hitcher (also? 'The Hitcher' is the most idiotic title of a movie I've ever heard. Who the fuck says 'hitcher'? The word is 'hitchhiker', seriously, it's not that long) genre that seems to be the only type of horror movie coming out lately. I've been watching previews of the upcoming Primeval with interest, in the hope that maybe here would finally be a movie I could stand. I didn't have a lot of hope, but hey, there's always a chance.

The commercials keep claiming that it's "based on the true story of the deadliest serial killer ever". I'd been idly wondering who they were talking about, but wasn't terribly concerned about it. And then last night I saw a commercial where they named him: Gustave. Was that the crazy French medieval werewolf guy?, I wondered, not being able to think of any other serial killers named Gustave. So I googled it.

It is a crocodile. People, what the hell. That is not an appropriate villain for a horror movie. I think I almost prefer the snuff films to yet another movie in the grand tradition of Lake Placid and Anaconda. I share this news with you in case anyone else was under the mistaken impression that Primeval might be worth seeing.

By the way, the crazy French medieval werewolf guy was probably one of these, though none of those stories seem to quite match the one I was thinking of. They'd still make a better movie than freaking crocodiles, though.

Comments

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard of Pedro Lopez before. Creepy guy.

A movie about Ciudad Juarez would have been a great way of getting attention to the case, but no. The filmakers went with the evil crocodile. Animals aren't even scay in the way human killers are! They don't have the same sort of intelligence and delibrate violence.

[gamera.livejournal.com]

I'm a criminology major, so I know about all kinds of obscure creepy guys. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

My brain immediately jumped to Ciudad Juárez just because I'm writing a paper on it this term. I'm kind of divided on the concept of a movie at this point-- on one hand, it would bring a lot of world attention to the case, which would be a very, very good thing. On the other, though, in the event that anything new was ever discovered, a movie at this point could actually be detrimental (look at the Andrea Yates trial and that Law & Order episode that turned out to not even exist but still caused a lot of headache) to future investigation or prosecution.

Crocodile. I'm still boggling about this. I mean, animals can be scary in film (see: The Birds), but most modern directors don't seem to have the right way of going about it. ...of course, it just might be that Alfred Hitchcock could make anything really creepy.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Ah, good point. Plus, I fear how a Hollywood film about Ciudad Juarez would manipulate and distort the facts.

The other thing about crocodiles is that, if you're not in the water? You're probably pretty safe. Which I guess is also true of sharks, and yet Jaws is a good movie, but I do not expect anything called Primeval to live up to those sorts of expectations.

[veleda-k.livejournal.com]

Actually, some types of crocodile can have a land speed of 10.6 mph when galloping (yes, galloping), though most don't go faster than 7 mph. You can definitely outrun them, but you'd better run.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

...dude. Remind me to stay away from crocodiles.