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

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

What the hell? Can a crocodile be a serial killer? I mean obviously killers, but a serial killer, with ya know, ritualistic behavior and the like? Does the FBI know about this....

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Well, it's a serial killer in the sense of having killed multiple people. It has "over 300 victims"! (Though I totally call bullshit on that, because how do they know it was this crocdile and not multiple crocdiles in the same river, or people drowning, or people just leaving the bloody village.)

But yeah. I find it annoying that they play all the advertising up to be "serial killer, whoooo, scary!" and then it's an animal.

in case you don't want to read this whole comment, a basic summary: I AGREE!

[drmoonpants.livejournal.com]

OH MAN THAT IS SO SECONDED.

...e-excuse me. Just... I have, as I have asserted on several occasions to friends, a disease, where I have trouble focusing on fiction if it could actually happen. There are of course exceptions to this rule, sometimes just for things that are really good, but more often they're caused by there being something interesting or surrealistic about the narrative style. I even get bored with hard science fiction. Sooo, while I am like a lifelong giant, slightly obsessed horror fan (first Stephen King novel at nine! WE HAVE A HISTORY), it's always been about the potential fantasy element of horror, and as I get older, I come to really, really not like movie violence. So, yeah, basically, this was all a really long way of saying that I ALSO DISAPPROVE OF THIS TREND.

Of course, I've been pretty frustrated with Stephen King, too, but he at least has the excuse that he got hit by a van and now thinks he's Kurt Vonnegut.

Also we saw that preview too, and crocodile wtfffffff

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

Clever bastards for taking the words "serial killer" literally. Although, honestly as a suburban Ohioan I feel soooooooooooooo very threatened by a renegade man-eating crocodile. Death by saurian reptile, real high up there as a likely cause of my demise, along with death rays and evil ninjas, of course.

Re: in case you don't want to read this whole comment, a basic summary: I AGREE!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

For me, it's just the fact that this trend is TOTALLY NOT SCARY, at least in the sense of having suspense and building up and being creepy and all. I don't get my jollies from slow-motion close-ups of men burning to death! It's hard to watch, yeah, but that does not equal scary.

I get you on the fiction thing too, though. I can do realistic fiction and I can do fantasy fiction, but people who are all "GOOD stories are based on actual events!" drive me crazy.

And Stephen King is looooove, though I haven't read anything more recent than, uh, I think the last book of short stories, the one with a goldfish bowl on the cover.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

WHAT.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. Lake Placid is all about killer crocodiles in rural New York, though! You could be threatened by that. Especially since it's actually GIANT crocodiles!

Disclaimer: I swear to god, the only reason I watched the movie is because it was on HBO and I didn't have anything else to do. I bear no responsibility.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia backs me up (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_(crocodile))!

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

Damn. You really don't know what lurks beneath the dark polluted waters of Lake Erie....I shall be so very nervous from now on.....Killer perch....or something. HAHAHA, this is random, but I did see a turkey once on a beach near Lorain. That was weird. It dive bombed my car. And then my boyfriends car a week later.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Lake Erie is dangerous!

Actually, someone once told me this story about how a girl was sitting on a dock with her feet in the water. She had on a sparkly toe ring, and it attracted a barracuda, which came and bit her and pulled her into the water and she lost her whole leg. I thought about that every time I went in Lake Erie for years, and was terrified. But, uh, I don't know if barracuda even live in Lake Erie, so someone was probably just trying to scare me when I was 8.

Killer turkeys! They want revenge for centuries of Thanksgivings.

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

You know, my father told me that there were stories of barracuda lurking beneath the waves of Erie. I have no idea if that's true or not, but I was swimming in Lake Erie at Kelly's island when I was little and this huge mass of tangled black hair floated past my leg. I have not returned to the torpid, grossness of that particular lake since.

Re: in case you don't want to read this whole comment, a basic summary: I AGREE!

[drmoonpants.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm with you on that too! Making me sick is not effective horror, it's just... making me sick. That was also why the end of the Silent Hill movie made me so mad, too. If three days later thinking of it is not still making me jumpy but is making the pit of my stomach feel bad, yeah, no, you fail.

And, uh, GOOD, DON'T!! ...I mean. ...no, that is what I mean. I've bitched this bitch a lot lately, (http://mrmoonpants.livejournal.com/261069.html) but the basic gist is that it feels like since the accident he's forgotten how to write a novel that goes anywhere, which is sort of horrible and tragic and annoying all at once. Cell was going along much better and then freaking welshed on me, and now I'm nearing the end of Lisey's Story and just terrified that it's going to do the same thing. ...The latter, though, may end up being really good; it feels a lot less unpleasantly smirky and self-conscious (or labouredly ham-handed with desperate 'I MUST BE RELEVANT!!' pop culture bullshit) than he's been lately. I'll keep you informed! ...as clearly I am kind of obsessive.

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

I'm almost positive barracuda are salt-water fish, and need tropical water at that.

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

Actually there are tropical barracuda, which means that they are fresh water. However, it is still highly unlikely that they are swimming around Lake Erie, but my dad and his diving buddies talked about them all the time.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's pretty skeezy. I'm always steeping on seaweed (lakeweed?) and freaking myself out. But there's not a hell of a lot of other options for beaches in Ohio.

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I just sorta sit on the beach and look at the water. Although some one told me it's cleaner than ever now. Still doesn't make me feel so great.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I've heard that too. I still wouldn't drink the water or anything, but at least I don't have to worry about my potential children having extra limbs.

And hey, on the beach you can build sand castles! Plus, you have to walk, like, half a mile out from most of the beaches to get into deep water anyway, which is just annoying.

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

Hey, I didn't know that. All I knew about was the tropical ones then. Isn't there a football team or something that are barracudas?

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

Yes, there are advantages to being on the beach :). Although as far as Lake Erie is concerend, in the words of Bender "I'm boned" as I eat Lake Erie perch whenever I can get it. Which is often.

Re: in case you don't want to read this whole comment, a basic summary: I AGREE!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

God, yes! That was so annoying. And they'd been doing such a good job up to the ending; it wasn't Best Movie Ever, but it was hella good for a video game adaption. (Did you hear they're making a sequel? I'm not sure if I'm excited or horrified. And then I heard Neil Gaiman was supposed to help with the script, but that was only a wacky internet rumor, dammit.)

Man, what is up with all the good authors going crazy? I hereby decree that the more famous you get, the more editors you are REQUIRED to have. I expect to see my demands carried out immediately, world.

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

In fish speak, tropical usually denotes fresh water (warm fresh water that must have specific mineral contents and PH) but fresh water. If the fish is marine, it is salt-water.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think you're right. In Florida, or something.

Wikipedia says that there's 26 different species of barracuda, so even if Lake Erie does have some, I'm sure it's a tiny, boring kind.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Heh. I just spend all of my time at Cedar Point when I'm there lately. Not that high-speed upside-down loops are better for my health, really.

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

Yup. If any can survive the pollution. The type I was thinking of come from the Amazon and other rivers in South America, which is where most of the fresh water fish one puts in fresh water fish tanks come from.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Dude. People keep barracuda as pets? Wouldn't it eat all the other fish in the tank?