Eminem's Fault?

Like the rest of you, I get my movie trailers at Dark Horizons. So imagine my delight when I clicked on the link to the Shrooms trailer. Just like the rest of you, my immediate thought was, "Yes! This is going to be the best killer fungus film since Japan's Matango (aka Attack of the Mushroom People, 1963)." Really, it's been decades since that lyrical, poetic musing on the horror of atomic genocide (shrooms... mushroom clouds... Hiroshima... anyone? No?). So imagine my disappointment when it turns out that the monster in Shrooms is just some geezer in a shroud.
I guess we can hope that he explodes into a mass of giant fungal spores by film's end. But sadly, the "shrooms" of the title refers to the hallucinogens eaten by the hapless young folks who get offed, not to a race of bloodthirtsy shiitakes. May I just say that I'm tired of slasher movies? A guy with a hatchet/knife can be scary, for sure, but it's getting harder and harder to discern your Screams from your Fridays, your Chainsaws from your Halloweens (let alone the countless one-shot imitations they churn out). How many times can they make the same movie? I count the original Psycho and Chainsaw among my favorites, so I love what the form has to offer. But I mourn the loss of genetic and atomic mutants in horror films. It's been so long since a good one, and Hollywood doesn't try them nearly as often as slashers.

It all puts me in mind of a line (why can't I remember what it's from -- Blackadder maybe?): "Let's get back to the kind of war worth fighting and the kind of enemy worth killing." Enough slashers. Gimme some killer mushrooms and giant lizards. Maybe Cloverfield will offer a nice return to the Japanese-style kaiju eiga ("monster movie"). But then again... "What is Cloverfield?"

I'll find out tonight.

AMENDMENT 9/15/08: I figured out what that line is from. I got it a bit wrong, but the "kind of enemy worth killing" bit was right. It's Harold's uncle from Harold & Maude.