The Death Knell

I'm a fan of horror movies. and not just any horror movies, but I also enjoy BAD horror movies. I've seen all three Leprechaun films, okay? So I know there's a certain arc to the death throes of a once-proud franchise. There's the one sequel too many, followed by the misguided cross-over movie, and then, only every once in a blue moon, the comedy. It's kind of sad to watch, but most horror franchise die in some terrible movie with D-list actors and the word "Versus" in the title.

Which, of course, bring me to Alien v. Predator 2. I haven't seen, nor do I really have plans to, but Matt saw it yesterday, prompting the rest of us to pop in the original. And it struck me that this was the one horror movie that deserved a better fate. Mainly because it was always more than just a horror movie. It was an actual movie, with plot and characters and all of that other stuff that so rarely gets used in movies anymore. The famed chest bursting scene doesn't take place until the movie is almost at the one hour mark. You don't see the Alien until about twenty minutes after that, when Harry Dean Stanton is taking one for the team. The Alien is probably only on screen for five minutes total, and that's pushing it. The movie was more about the interaction of seven people stuck in the middle of the nowhere.

But the franchise ends up the same way as Jason, Freddy, the Wolfman, and Dracula. Slumming it in some lame movie slapped together in a weekend which just seems like an excuse to make a video game. That's sort of sad. Good thing this doesn't happen to movies like Casablanca. Though I would like to see Rick take on Atticus Finch.