Thoughts on movies, comic books, life, and other nonsense, by someone who should know better
Immodestly, I have a pretty wide knowledge of what’s considered “black magic” – it’s been an interest of mine since my very early teens. I say this as someone who, simultaneously, has no belief whatsoever in the supernatural or magic, it’s just a subject that I’m endlessly fascinated by. Recently, I saw a blurb on the internet claiming that a horror movie explored the Abremalin ritual in detail, so I had to see it for myself. That movie is 2016’s A Dark Song.
Here’s a question for you: what do Michael Bay’s Transformers movies have in common with A Ghost Story? What element do they possess that ties them together? On one hand, you have a multi-billion grossing kinetic action franchise full of all kinds of wanton destruction – on the other, David Lowery’s movie is small and quiet. Where could the connection possibly be? Simple: audience polarization. The audience for both appears to be divided into two camps, one who enjoys the experience, one that dislikes it.
You ever watch one of those movies that just feels like it never gets going? That by the time you’re at the end, it still feels like that? It’s the cumulative effect of the wrong people doing the wrong things at the same time. By that, I’m not referring to the actors, who are the least at fault in most productions. The ones to blame are those on the other side of the camera. In this case, I’m talking about the mild supernatural drama Lavender, starring Abbie Cornish, Dermot Mulroney, and Justin Long.
What is it with Hollywood’s propensity to use the “evil/vengeful female ghost” archetype? Offhand I can think of Mama, Crimson Peak, both Conjuring movies (technically, the nun in The Conjuring 2 isn’t a ghost, I know), The Woman In Black, The Grudge, etc. There are male ghosts in movies too, but if you bet on the gender of the spirit in any upcoming ghost-themed horror movie, you’d get long odds on male. Such is the case with Lights Out, a movie that promises a lot more than it actually delivers.
When it comes to supernatural claims, I’m both a skeptic and a cynic. I’ve never experienced anything weird that can’t be explained by natural phenomenon, and I firmly believe that as widespread as claims of the supernatural are, the fact that science hasn’t found one shred of evidence to back any of them up says it all for me, but there are plenty proven examples of fraud and deception. The cynical side of me is all too ready to dismiss a claim of having seen a ghost as nothing more than attention-seeking lies. While doing some research for this review of The Conjuring 2, my position on the above remained intact.
AT THE FOOTHILLS OF MADNESS 