
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.
1 comment:
"I mourn the loss of genetic and atomic mutants in horror films."
Of course you do, dude.
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