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Guys, I am totally a grownup.

This fact dawned on me recently as I sifted through my Instant Watch queue and thought, "Maybe it's finally time that I give Poultrygeist a try." Troma's low budget telling of zombie chickens had been on my radar for what felt like an eternity (back when I was in my TWENTIES, no less) but I had just never reached the point of actually watching it. 

So I did.

But I didn't.

See, I generally know what I'm getting with a Troma movie. There will be boobs. There will be crass comments (often about boobs). Silly but often sweet practical effects. And probably more boobs.

As any horror fan with a video store membership in the '80s knows, Troma is what it is, and Lloyd Kaufman wouldn't have it any other way. But as I began my journey into Poultrygeist, I found it hard to enjoy the charm. "You're the best dry humper in school!" comes the first line, which is fine and almost sweet in its own way. But as soon as a character (named Arby, and his girlfriend is Wendy, because CLEVER) responded with, "My dad's a retard," I said to myself, 

It's not that I'm above Troma dialogue. I'm angry at myself for not seeing The Boy Next Door in the theater, for goodness sake. It's just that I took a moment to realize that at this point in my 33 years on this planet, I have grown past certain things, certain things that might have been so charming (and far less offensive) in my youth.

An adult. That's what I felt like.

Naturally, I celebrated my newfound maturity by turning off Poultrygeist and queuing up what I assumed to be an Asylum cash-in on Ouija, The Ouija Experiment.

Quick Plot: Brandon is an obnoxious film student (who immediately sheds any lingering cred by claiming that not only is Twilight about ghosts, but that it actually good) hanging out with his airhead friend Shay, her beefy womanizing boyfriend Calvin, Calivn's sister L'nette and pal Michael. As most groups of twentysomethings in Dallas do, they spend a few evenings playing with a non-Parker Brothers version of a ouija board.

Not, mind you, a Wee-Ji Board, which may be the most exciting knockoff thing I've ever discovered while shopping at Five Below.

Michael lays out the rules of the oujia, which include the all-important 'Never leave the room without saying goodbye' commandment that because it's repeated no less than four times, will inevitably be broken at least twice. 

What could possibly go wrong?

In this case, the quintet releases the ambiguous spirits of a murdered little girl named Gracie, her drowning foe Joseph, and her mother Lisa. The ghosts have all sorts of mean qualities, like spilling to Shay that Calvin's been cheating her and turning Michael's manly bathroom into a pink paradise. C'mon, people, you can't expect Lions Gate-esque terror when your major special effects involve your actors moving a pointer on a ouija board and not one but TWO jump scares that are simply Halloween decorations in storage.

As you can no doubt piece together, Israel Luna's The Ouija Experiment is not going to be shortlisted for the Oscars (or heck, People's Choice Awards) anytime soon. But you know, in the realm of found footage ghost stories made for less money than was used to cater Craft Services for the REAL Ouija, it has some charm. And by the way: considering Ouija starred young good-looking actors who probably don't eat, that's saying something.

To my surprise, The Ouija Experiment was made in 2011, several years before even the Asylum would have thought to capture a name. Granted, I figured this out for less than stellar reasons: one character references Paranormal Activity 1 AND 2, and there's a scene that involves a couple laughing and mimicking what was, in 2011, the hot YouTube "Hide Yo' Kids, Hide Yo' Wife" viral sensation.

The Ouija Experiment, you can say, is kind of dated. And not actually scary. And filled with amateur actors who give it their all, but clearly didn't have the screen experience or proper direction to know how to make a line like "I LOVE  YouTube" sound even mildly believable. If, however, reports about the budget being in the $1200 range are true, then I find myself in an awfully forgiving mood. I've seen worse films made for far more money. It doesn’t mean The Ouija Experiment is deserving of your time (for most of you with kids or cats or jobs or dishes to wash, it’s really far, far less important) but eh, it could have been much worse.

Film criticism at its finest!

High Points

There's something admirable about how director Luna was able to generate ghost suspense in spite of the utter predictability of his story. We've all watched enough of these kinds of films to know that when a little girl appears at the end of a long hallway, she's going to snap and sprint towards us or that when the camera is fixed and a character is facing it, something ominous will appear far behind him in the specifically empty frame. All of these trite touches are alive and thriving in The Ouija Experiment, but I'll still give Luna credit for building to these scenes skillfully enough that the sudden jerks of action occasionally really do work

Low Points

On the flip side, I can think of a lot better ways to generate creepiness than to film an actor literally reading about spirits from the computer screen in front of him

Lessons Learned

Always say goodbye

Always say goodbye

Always say good--

Eh, it’s not like you’re going to listen to the rule the characters repeat thirty five times during the course of the film’s 90 minute run time, so why bother?

Rent/Bury/Buy

I wouldn't particularly recommend The Ouija Experiment to anyone. It's a predictable and decisively unremarkable entry in a crowded field of found footage. I feel like it's a genuine compliment to say that while I was watching it, I likened it to Paranormal Entity in being an Asylum movie that was better than it needed to be. Now that I know it WASN'T an Asylum production,I guess I'd convert that opinion to dubbing it a better movie made under two weeks with a $1200 budget than it needed to be. Make of that what you will.

More Proof For Why You Should Never Let Barbara Hershey Be Your Mom

Here’s the thing about the act of “going to the movies”: it lets you know what a ‘real’ roomful of ticket buyers actually thinks about virtually every beat. Sure, there are cell phone ringtones that defy rhythmic logic, inappropriate comments about after-show plans, and nacho crunching so loud it would make Marlee Matlin jump, but there is sometimes a genuine joy that comes with a Friday night crowd at a horror movie.

Thus is how I saw Insidious and really, that’s the way this better-than-you’d-think ghost(ish) story should be seen.

Quick Plot: A soon-to-be unhappy happy family moves into a creepy new house and immediately starts sensing trouble inside. Musician mom Renai (Rose Byrne, always sympathetic and sad-eyed) hears funky sounds over the baby monitor while middle child Dalton complains about bad things abound in his bedroom and dad Josh (Patrick Wilson) grows cold and distant. Before long, the boy falls into a mysterious coma and Renai is seeing flashes of mysterious strangers lurking in closets.

That’s the very basic setup of Insidious, and maybe all you should know going in. For the fresh spoiler-free review, skip down to the bottom or just hear me say here “I liked, didn’t love, but genuinely enjoyed Insidious and highly recommend buying a ticket.” Thanks for stopping by.

MINOR SPOILERS BEGIN

With Dalton unresponsive and the weirdness growing in the house, the Lamberts do something wacky (for a horror movie) and move. Assuming their real estate jenga cost them a few bucks, the new digs are much smaller and less haunting-ready, but that doesn’t stop an evil little dwarf thing from dancing wildly to Tiptoe Through the Tulips!

Yes, that happens, and it’s way more terrifying than Tiny Tim’s turn as a maybe-killer clown in Blood Harvest.

although looking at this photo, maybe Blood Harvest is way scarier than my memory recalls

I mean it! The dancing dwarf thing is ICKY and got the kind of universal “Ahh!” scream from my nacho-eating movie crowd that you long for with these kinds of films. For its first half, Insidious is incredibly effective as a haunted house/child tale. The solid cast keeps it grounded, central horror of a little boy lost keeps us caring, and two pretty dang incredible jump scares catch us at just the right place. It’s a GENUINELY scary film.

Even the ghostbusting comic relief keeps Insidious alive. At the recommendation of Josh’s mom Barbara Hershey (whaaaa?), Renai invites a trio of paranormal investigators inside. Sure, they’re clearly modeled on Poltergeist’s Zelda & Co. (or nerds from that OTHER Barbara Hershey possessed film, The Entity), but as played by screenwriter Leigh Whannell, Angus Sampson, and Dead End’s Lin Shaye, they’re quite entertaining and do a nice job of lightening the mood before the inevitable spookhouse finale. And that, dear readers, is right where Insidious goes from great little theatrical horror treat to good one.

It’s not that Insidious throws away its strengths in the final reel; it just doesn’t quite commit to what it had established. The explanation for Dalton’s possession/absence/coma-thing works fine, and bringing in Josh’s past hauntings adds a fine layer to the end. The problem lies in Wan’s execution and styling in The Further, the sort of astral netherworld trapping Dalton and a slew of other beasties. While individual moments are skin-crawling (ironing ironing ironing!), the setting has no real visual style or basic geography, something that limits our sense of place. It doesn’t help that the main villain that has been terrifying us for the first hour ultimately looks like an extra from the ballroom dance sequence in Labyrinth.

But that being said, Insidious does end on a pretty fantastic note and hey, for one hour, it actually unnerved me. That’s not an easy feat nowadays.

High Points

Just because I get tired of people whining about it, let us all give a little nod to the fact that Insidious is rated PG-13 and in now way does that ever detract from any of its scares

One of my biggest pet peeves in horror is how characters never seem to think to turn on their lights when there are mysterious noises and/or certain killers lurking throughout their homes. So thank you, Josh Lambert, for insisting on flicking on EVERY SINGLE light switch when investigating

Low Points

Generally, the whole design (or lack thereof) of Dalton and Josh's astral land. Now that I've said that, I'm envisioning an amusement park named Astral Land and my goodness, it's far more visually interesting 

Lessons Learned

When not eerie, gas masks are great for a go-to laugh

Pay attention to your children's art. It may be awful, but occasionally, it will also give perfectly specific clues for finding them in Astral Land

Matching your pajamas to your family members is really just asking for a demon thing to come take one of you away

If we’ve learned anything from The Entity, Beaches, Black Swan, and now, Insidious, it is this: Barbara Hershey is not the woman you want to be your mom

Stray Observation

So do we all agree that the only reason this family had two other children, in terms of story, was so 1) we could have a baby monitor scare and 2) the older brother could spout that quite unsettling line, "I don't like when Dalton walks around." Because really, that's all they were there for yes?

See/Skip/Sneak In

Depending on which marketing campaign you’ve seen, you probably know that Insidious is made by either the (deep voice) “team that brought you Saw” or (slightly less deep voice) “producers of Paranormal Activity.” What it actually ties most to, however, is Wan & Whannell’s second team effort, Dead Silence, an imperfect but fun little throwback to classic horror. Insidious is far more accomplished and does seem to show an upward growth for these two genre enthusiastic Aussies. More importantly, it’s an original horror film (cue token ‘not a remake/sequel/reimagining/redux/rere’ tag) that is, in my opinion, easily worth a modern day ticket price. See it, share your thoughts, and if you eat nachos (and why should you not?) please, I say please, stop raping them during the quiet parts.

Paranormal ActSwimmity

Like many modern films with any morsels fit for digestion by the horror community, Lake Mungo is being marketed as a terrifying ghost story that makes The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, and The Haunting look like Casper Meets The Wiggles. The problem with that description is not that the film isn’t scary, but that Lake Mungo is of a hybrid, undefinable genre more akin to something like Jacob’s Ladder or Bug.

NOTE: Because this is a brand new release making its way through DVD and the After Dark Horrorfest, I’m instituting a self-no-spoiler policy for this review. All plot reveals and sssssecretsssss will, however, be fair game for the comments section so expect full divulgences after the jump. Until then, we'll keep it clean and pure.

You know the type.

Quick Plot: 16 year old Alice disappears while swimming with her family in suburban Australia. Months later, her seaweed-soaked body is found, prompting her family to deal with their grief in personal ways. Dad has nightmares but trudges on to work. Mom begins wandering town like a lost puppy late in the night. And brother Matty throws himself into investigating the strange appearances Alice may or may not be making in witching hour videos and backyard photography.

There’s a good chance that nothing in that plot synopsis whetted your appetite for this film. In terms of premise, Lake Mungo is a pretty plain tale inspired more by Sightings than The Sixth Sense. In no way, however, is it that simple.

Filmed in documentary style, Lake Mungo avoids the found footage format trend that makes viewers queasy. While some critics have complained that such a choice robs us of most dramatic payoff, I found the honest, straightforward narrative completely worked to make the story feel like a moving photo album missing key pages. Something has happened to this family, and their honest, baffled, and lost faces tell a sad and haunting tale.

There are dabblings with psychics and scandals, but Lake Mungo never quite goes where you expect. Critics who often complain about forced finales should be pleased with how organic Lake Mungo proves to be. There are plenty of chills generated from the more ghostly leanings, but ultimately, this is more a film about grief than gotcha! moments of shrieks.

High Points

The performances--particularly Rosie Traynor as June and David Pledger as Russell--a are believable for a documentary and layered enough to keep you intrigued. June’s introversion gives birth to a different kind of grief from Russell’s stoic false closure. Director Joel Anderson lets their pain speak for itself with no swelling moments of tears or screams, and as a result, the loss cuts even more deeply.

I was often reminded of another teenage girl disappears into Australian wilderness film, Picnic At Hanging Rock. Whether this was a direct inspiration or not, fans of Peter Weir’s 1975 ethereal genre-defying film may find some of Alice’s past comments about her future to be equally eerie.

Low Points

The main way Lake Mungo draws your attention to something amiss is to show video footage, then zoom in on the phenomena. While it’s still creepy and I’m thankful to have seen all the paranormal activity, I would rather have had a little more added mystery with more moments of did-I-see-that?

Lessons Failed

In order to avoid any spoilers, I will forego this section. That’s how much I love you all. I’m actually putting my education on hold.

Rent/Bury/Buy

I’d hate to repeat myself so soon after And Soon the Darkness, but like that slow burning 1970 thriller, Lake Mungo is a polarizing goosebumps giver or dull dud. Opinions will vary pretty sharply due to the creeping pacing and documentary style. If you have the slightest appreciate for suspenseful and ambiguous films that don’t really fit a specific genre, then rent Lake Mungo quickly and judge for yourself before the inevitable Paranormal Activity love/hate hype endangers your own viewing experience. I genuinely felt my heart beat a little faster during some of Lake Mungo and a day later as I think back, it feels even more haunting a story. While I’m generally not easy to scare (although my barely readable review of Magic might prove otherwise), the combination of striking imagery plus an utterly everday family living with tragedy truly struck some sort of nerve. Hopefully, it does for you as well. 

And remember, I've declared the COMMENTS section to be a spoil happy zone so hold your nose and proceed at your own risk.

Based on a true story (because it's a true story that there was a movie made with the exact premise you're about to see)

Ever pull over for lunch at one of those suburban diners with less character than a Michael Bay movie? You know the type. Neon sign hanging over the awning, mismatched furniture inside, a menu so lazy it can’t even spellcheck ‘mozzarella’ or list the choice in salad dressings? You’re expecting Jamie the waitress to bring you a spotty spoon with soup-from-a-can special and paper-thin cheeseburger straight out of a freezer chest. If you’re lucky.

Then something strange happens. The chicken noodle is smooth and filled with actual meat from a once living bird. Your fries are crispy enough and the burger drips with genuine juice. Sure, the Diet Coke is flat, coleslaw soggy, and Jamie seems to get lost in a vortex during her cigarette break, but overall, you’re pleased enough with your experience and feel a tad guilty for being such a quick judge of cuisine character.

Such was my recent experience with Paranormal Entity--yes, that’s not a misprint--the latest offering from The Asylum, the studio that brought you such classy and timely direct-to-DVD titles as Transmorphers, Snakes On a Train, and The Day the Earth Stopped. Having never seen these or any of the two dozen other titles, I assumed that all were speedy cash-ins primarily designed to trick those movie buyers without finely honed reading skills or 20/20 vision. For some of their films, that may indeed be the case, but I was pretty shocked to discover that Paranormal Entity, in the words of Hans Landa, is... not so terrible.

Quick Plot: Some all-too-familiar text informs us of the Finley family tragedy, something better left to the next 85 minutes of screentime to show. We then hear a frantic 911 call from big brother Tom (I think...note most character details will be shoddy as IMDB has yet to acknowledge this is a movie) telling the operator about the brutal attack on his sister Sam. It’s a creepy way to start a film, but a tad too self-spoilery as well.

Flash back a month when Tom buys some fancy camera equipment (you mean just like--Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer?) to document the ‘haunting’ of his kid sister. Along with their mother, the 19 year old Sam and early twentysomething Tom have spent the past year dealing with the sudden death of their father in a car accident. Some questionable advice inspired Mom to write letters to her late husband and in doing so, opened some sort of portal for an annoying and amorous--paranormal even--entity to slip through.

Much like some other found footage ghost story of 2009, Paranormal Entity is something of an experience in whether minimal effects and suggested evil can still scare an audience raised on 3D bloodshed and torture porn. Whether it works or not depends a good deal on the individual, just as The Blair Witch Project had little room for those with in-between opinions. 

Early scenes focus a tad too hard on mysterious phone calls and TV static, but later touches--such as the demon nastily stomping about in Daddy’s ashes and a jarring cut that sets off the final mayhem--do succeed in creating a disturbing atmosphere. The actual entity, though never fully identified, has a truly mean nature that makes you genuinely concerned for the innocent-enough object of its obsession.

Is this a great film? Goodness no. A good deal of the scares are predictable, while stretches of run time slog through Tom’s shaky cam investigations without the payoffs we’re hoping for. The script is a little less clever than its source of inspiration and the performances not quite as charming, but I quickly found myself invested in the fates of these characters. Like Paranormal Activity, Paranormal Entity creates an unseen villain whose steeply escalating fixation on a clueless young woman is eerily frightening. Viewers who felt let down by the final shots of Paranormal Activity may be more satisfied with the final chaotic moments of this harder R film (side note: I’m still trying to figure out where that original rating came from) while those who prefer a more suggestive ghost story will find it gratuitous. 

High Points

The choice to include the late Finley father adds a solid touch of sympathy for the family, particularly when we realize the ironic sadness that it’s the mother’s inability to let go of her husband that leads to her and kids’ eventual demise

Low Points

Considering the gimmick of its low budget, every post-production effect (such as the too-loud phone rings and TV static) stand out like the CGI recuts in the not-so-special edition releases of the original Star Wars trilogy

Unlike Paranormal Activity, where viewers quickly gain a clear map of the house due to some careful plotting and camera tours, it’s a challenge to navigate through the oddly door-heavy hallways of the Finley home. In a film so confined to one space, this is something of a problem.

Lessons Learned

Incubi have a soft spot for young women with minimalist taste in bedroom decoration and who prepare for bedtime at 3 in the afternoon

Always invest in a spill-proof urn following the cremation of a dear relation

As Cloverfield, Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity, and countless other films have taught, the dude holding the camera is inevitably a really big jerk

Rent/Bury/Buy

While I appreciated Paranormal Entity as a far stronger film than its reputation could possibly have suggested, I have a hard time deciding what kind of audience will actually enjoy it. Moviegoers who loathed Paranormal Activity will have the same problems with the minimalist Paranormal Entity, while those who long to marry and mate with Oren Peli’s juggernaut of an original will be offended by the very existence of this film. If, on the third hand, you’re like me--someone who liked without loving Paranormal Activity--then Paranormal Entity is certainly worth checking out, if only to see how a recycled concept fares in different hands. Whatever your thoughts, be sure to come back and share them. This film is, not surprisingly, receiving its share of verbal hatred, so I’m curious to hear if my expectations were simply so low that it passed by default, or if indeed this was a refreshingly okay little cheapie worth a free rental and hour fifteen minutes of your time.

The Horror of Hype

Genre fans tend to feel a little unpatrioritc pledging allegiance to the same mass-produced flag saluted by 80% of the general public. We’re far more comfortable digging our way through dusty, sometimes crusty DVDs in questionable basement or neon lit video stores than we are sitting amongst the Friday night crowd at the week’s big release. 

It’s no wonder then that movies like Paranormal Activity throw some of us for a loop. How, you ask, could I possibly enjoy the same film that my coworker with the Twilight screensaver has been raving about all month? At the same time, we also get stuck trying to evaluate our own opinions amidst the chokingly thick fog of fanboy enthusiasm that surrounds new cult favorites like Hatchet and Grace. 

So how, you ask, can one navigate the dead-end, it’s-not-as-good-as-people-say labyrinth that is viewer hype? To find a map, we first have to consider the type o’ hype, and I don’t just say that because rhyming is fun.

1.  Long Awaited Hype 

Admit it: you drooled like an overly hydrated zombie when details surrounding Land of the Dead surfaced, just as you giddily brushed off your boomstick at the sound of Sam Raimi returning to his horror roots with Drag Me to Hell. When our childhood heroes reupholster their bloodstained director’s chairs, our own expectations can grow to unreachable heights. Thus, when George Romero makes a decent, if weirdly clean smelling zombie film with a happy ending in the 21st century, we put aside the flaws of the obnoxiously acted Day of the Dead and its own cheat of a final shot in order to blast horror’s indie king for seeming to sell out for CGI and Canada. 

As hard--or maybe impossible--as it is, any film needs to be seen on its own terms and unless it’s in 3D, with no tinted glasses to fog our sight. Sure, it’s depressing to watch Dario Argento continue to roll down a hill of film quality and near impossible to not look up the address of the actress narrating Diary of the Dead in the hopes of slaying her puppies and tearing our her vocal chords, but I promise you that these directors didn’t make these films simply because they hate you. Maybe they’ve lost touch or maybe their visions were simply more startling in another era. Either way, the main thing to remember is that a film should be judged against itself, not your memory of its older brother.

2.  Defensive Hype

There’s a reason nobody makes feel good features documenting the NY Yankees. We don’t care about winners born into luxury, and while not all genre fans can latch onto a sports analogy, everybody loves an underdog. 

Hence, horror loyalists stand on virtual soapboxes to warn passerbys about studio-backed cash cows like Saw while gleefully catching rides on The Midnight Meat Train. Is it fair? In theory, yes, but this comes from a long-suffering Met fan well accustomed to disappointment. Likewise, Lions Gate earned genre fan disapproval when it failed to give a wide release to 2008‘s public transportation terror trip, and I waved my fist in solidarity. 

Then I saw the movie.

While it wasn’t nearly as awful as some recent remade offerings (I’m still washing out my eyeballs for the stain imprinted by Black Xmas)Midnight Meat Train just....wasn’t good. Well-acted and polished, but dank, oddly plotted, and ultimately, quite uninvolving. Aside from battle ready horror fans and Cliver Barker bookworms, would full price ticket buyers really have wanted to spend their Friday night allowance on such an unlikable film? The same could easily be said for Repo! The Genetic Opera, a polarizing rock opera that amassed an army of devotees alongside a migraine suffering horde of conflicted haters.

The best solution I can conjure is to assume nothing. Praise the idea of an original film and support its release for people to actually see, but don’t force yourself to love something that simply isn’t your taste pallet. This leads us to ...

3. But I’m Supposed To Love This, Right?

What do you mean, you didn’t want to marry Hatchet and have its pickaxe babies? And really: what are you doing going out to a Halloween party when you could be home rewatching Trick ‘r Treat, aka The Greatest Horror Film Of All Time, for the ninetieth time this week? 

Of all the hypes out in the cinematic universe, this may be the most difficult to overcome. After two years of nearly universal ravings about a little unreleased horror anthology, it’s hard to watch a film without feeling sadly underwhelmed, angrily disappointed, or unconsciously bullied into submission (remember: Alllllllllllllll the boys love Mandy Lane). 

We could certainly try to build our own Skinner boxes and block out any rumblings from around the genre community, but in the age of blogs, podcasts, and bootlegs, that’s about as realistic as Martyrs getting an Oscar for best foreign film (what, you agree? you didn’t like Martyrs? What kind of fan are you?) Ultimately there is no such thing as a universal opinion, even in a more isolated specimen like the horror community. There’s nothing wrong with not loving a film that makes Fangoria swoon, but try to not let your dislike grow with the positivity of others; don’t hate it more just to match the positive intensity of those who enjoyed it. The best way to handle this is to return to the film several months--or years--after its buzz has been died down. Sometimes, you can only discover what your genuine thoughts are after they don’t seem to matter anymore.

4.  Mainstream Mania

In many ways, Gore Verbinski has earned a rigidly uncomfortable seat for himself in the filmmaker realm of hell. No, the mini pirate boom of the 00s wasn’t that bad, but his fairly big budgeted Americanized take on Ringu is the heavily botoxed grandma when it comes to remakes, aka the Scourge of 21st Century Horror. And to think, most of 2002‘s The Ring‘s impressive box office return came straight out of the pockets of...well...everyone. Men, women, eighth graders...you couldn’t throw your popcorn without hitting someone raving about that randomly scary film they caught in the theaters, much as

Paranormal Activity and 1999’s The Blair Witch Project commandeered a normally neutral audience immune to the haunts of quiet horror.

So where does that leave you? You can’t be the only one in the office without a take on why Michael was standing in the corner, and more importantly, you may be the only one with the sense to explain that no dear, Heather, Michael, & Josh are NOT still lost in the Burketsville woods. Plus, if you avoid a film just because everybody else didn’t, you might actually miss a good movie.

Think of the experience like dining in a fancy, highly recommended but seemingly overrated restaurant you’ve yet to patron. You have to make reservations. Wait 45 minutes and still end up in a less than desirable seating area, then deal with rude waiters. After all that, even a decent meal can’t live up to the hype. Likewise, when watching a too-talked about film, one must be careful to judge it on its own terms. Any extra effort only adds to the aggravation and inevitable unmet expectation. 

In other words, wait a month into a film’s run and hit up an economy priced matinee. Make sure that when you give the film your less-than-premium-price dollars, you can judge the film on its own merits, rather than the experience that surrounded your viewing.

5. Late-to-the-Party Classics

We’ve all hear our parents and grandparents wax nostalgic on how Frankenstein lurched through their nightmares and Psycho made Janet Leigh swear off showering, but depending on your initiation process into genre cinema, many older classics can fall flat on modern eyes. Some timeless films work in any era, but when you’ve eaten cereal shaped like smiling vampires, it’s hard to accept that Bela Lugosi’s Dracula was once a force to be feared.

In order to enjoy a film that’s been written about for 30+ years, it helps to understand why it’s still relevant in today’s cinematic universe. Something like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, for example, may seem rather--well, silent--upon a blind watch, but pop in the special edition after after Blade Runner, Total Recall, or Dark City and note some of the architectural inspiration. From Birth to JoshuaRosemary’s Baby as the matriarch of eerily sterile NYC thrillers. Sometimes, the only way to fully appreciate an older, possibly dated film is to go backwards and watch with your head, not heart.

So which films have you hated due to humongous hype, or felt never had a true chance in the face of overexposure? Share your thoughts but remember: don’t get too excited. Then I’ll have to figure out what the Hype-Over-Hype-Type-Hype means, and that gives me a bigger headache than hearing Bill Moseley duet with Paris Hilton.