I explain why:
This is Exhibit A in “Why most horror movies that cinephiles love made this century are massively overrated in my eyes.” Strap in folks, this'll be a long one...
If people weren't mad that I thought the new Masters of the Universe was one of the worst motion pictures I've ever seen, they will at my not even liking Obsession, let alone swooning over how it's "a masterpiece" like everyone else. No one's more disappointed than myself that this is my honest opinion. For context's sake, it has to be noted that while my opinions of modern movies are different from many on Letterboxd, that is especially so when it comes to the horror genre & what's been made in the 21st century.
I'm talking everything from the French Extreme films, Elevated Horror, indie darlings, and all the rest. Plenty I've skipped as there's been no interest. Now, I do rate films like Get Out and The Witch highly. Otherwise, It Follows, Hereditary, The Babadook, The Lighthouse, Talk to Me, Barbarian, the Candyman remake, the other Jordan Peele films-among many others-rate from “fine, I guess” to “mediocre” to “bad.”
Regrettably, what works for most people concerning such motion pictures just does nothing for me. For transparency's sake, the film was watched on Thursday, which was just a piss-poor day in general. Yet, even if the day was great, I got to go on a date with Inde Navarrette, and we attended a screening of this film... my opinion would be the same. The general idea was great-unfortunately, this did not work for me on a fundamental level. “Low-lighting” is one of the many modern cliches in this genre that I thumb my nose at, although that is also an industry-wide problem, as is “plots that make no sense if you apply even a modicum of logic to them,” “shallow focus” and “center-framed.”
Not Charlie Kirk... er, I mean “Bear” being a sad-sack pathetic loser is one thing. The fact that Nikki was his friend/co-worker for years and he was too much of a fraidy-cat to express his feelings is goofy, but I guess that's popular now to have an abhorrent horror protagonist, especially if it's a man. What I detested: the scares coming from Nikki YELLING, staring for seconds on end, sporting a goofy expression, staring for seconds on end while sporting a goofy expression, moving like she's a supernatural creature, the jump-scares, or those unnecessary gross-out moments-I couldn't be more opposed to this decision.
For those thinking that I loathed the constant F-bombs or the cat dying early on-yes, both are just irksome tropes in-what happened with the cat later was extremely unnecessary and I hated the movie the longer it went and the stupider/more unbelievable it became. If this was a short in an anthology-speaking of that, the ONLY good horror anthology made this century is Trick 'R Treat-and derived its scares & tension differently, then I'd probably love this. Perhaps that would also have less editing/continuity issues that stuck out large for me as someone who usually doesn't notice such things...
There are even bigger issues (such as how the female characters were treated) or how surface-level everything was but that'd be spoiler territory that won't be dived into. Obsession is another movie I could write a doctoral thesis about to list all the cardinal problems I had w/ the story and characters. Sigh... I'm still glad a random horror movie featuring an original idea has been such an unexpected hit that at least in the United States is still drawing big crowds and hysterically did better at the box office for a few days than the new STAR WARS movie... I'm glad most critics and fans love it-I just don't get it myself.
I can say that there were some nice subtle moments-there needed to be far more of those-and while the cast was hit or miss w/ me, Ms. Navarrette was by far the highlight. I could have an existential crisis over why June so far has been so crummy, why I've always felt like an outcast, why modern cinema is just so unappealing in totality, or more specifically why critics, the general public, and cinephiles have gone bananas over this film.
Perhaps I shouldn't worry too much, be optimistic that the rest of June will be better, and go back to a previous mindset of being baffled yet not worry about what's “popular” in recent years. After all, ever since I saw a Tweet last year describing the love for Everything, Everywhere, All at Once as “COVID-induced mass hysteria,” it makes me happy that a small segment are happy to be vocal over abominations like that insufferable crap was, no matter what “the masses” believe. Christ, that was much worse than even Obsession.
I'm glad that films like this and Backrooms (something that stands a good chance of eliciting another negative reaction from me) exist and aren't the lame, safe garbage Hollywood has made for far too long. Be that as it may, watching horror from the 20th century is just MUCH more gratifying for my tastes, no matter its flavor-Gothic, giallo, slasher, krimi, supernatural, etc. Sometimes I should just be satisfied that I'm “different” & not like anyone else.
No comments:
Post a Comment