Petting Party

Thanks to a friend at the super-awesome Filmstar Magazine I was able to attend a preview screening of the new horror-flick Dorian Gray. I’m not a massive fan of horror flicks to be honest; they have to be really really good for me to enjoy them. And Dorian Gray fell into the exact same trap that irritates me with so many other horror films. It’s a simple thing but it does wind me up so. Unneccesary special effects. I have no idea why some directors do it but they use cheap looking special effects when a bit of thought and a lot less money could produce something infinitely more scary.

With Dorian Gray, the whole thing fell down with the painting. A bit of a crucial area, no? As soon as they animated the painting and made it snarl at the camera, my heart sank and the whole thing just reeked of Ghostbusters II. It is my firm belief that no film based on an Oscar Wilde novel should ever remind you of Ghostbusters II. Perhaps if they had just kept it as an aging painting and focussed more on the horror of Dorian’s hedonistic debauchery, murders and homosexuality (these being the things which led to Dorian’s downfall in the book),  then it would have been more scary and less faintly ridiculous.

Many a good horror film has been ruined by shoddy special effects. You can see they have the best intentions but sometimes you have to have facts: no matter how much money you pump into it; if it doesn’t work then it simply doesn’t work. Ginger Snaps is a good case in point. I really enjoyed that film… right up until the end when they felt they had to show the werewolf. No, no you didn’t. It looked shit.

One of my all-time favourite horror films is The Haunting. No, not the piece-of-shit Catherine Zeta-Jones remake. It is genuinely one of the scariest films I’ve ever seen and the vast majority of that hinges on amazing sound effects. My brief bit of research on Wikipedia just now claims that “There is not a single drop of blood in the entire film.” I haven’t seen it for many years so I can’t personally vouch for that as I have a dreadful memory but I highly recommend you watch it for yourself. Alone. In the dark.

And so, a brief little porno mention for all my smut-lovers out there. I mentioned in a previous post about our horror-porno-parody featuring Kerry Louise. Well, now we have a nifty little micro-site up where you can see images and little clips from each episode of Screwed. Wooo! ‘Citing, no?

(DISCLAIMER: Last 2 links are NSFW)

***Thanks to Sam Ashurst for the title of this blog***

Filed under: film, porn