1408 Wins, R-Horror Loses?
So I’m sure you’ve heard by now that 1408 (review) did pretty damn well this weekend, bringing in just over $20 million and winning the honor of being the highest-grossing movie based on a Stephen King story to date. Damn, feels really good when a deserving movie actually does well, and I’m sure the Brothers Weinstein are happy about their decision to move the film up a few weeks now.
So the big issue that I see being raised everywhere now is the advent of PG-13 horror winning out at the box office, a trend that we seem to be seeing more and more of in the past few months. Hostel Part II was the one film we all thought would do well no matter what, but look how wrong we were there. But was it because it was an R-rated horror film and audiences were scared away by it, or is it just a sign that, as a society, we might be done with movies centered on torture and humiliation for a while?
Personally I think it’s the latter; it’s just too bad it had to happen to Hostel Part II, which I thought was a far better movie than the first, though still not without its flaws. 1408, however, is just a well made, scary horror movie from start to finish, so if that’s what works at the box office, well damnit, I’ll take more of that, thank you.
The real test, I think, will be Halloween. It’s opening close enough to its eponymous holiday to do well based on that yearly trend alone, but it’s really relying on the following of The Devil’s Rejects for its box office; you’ll recall neither Rejects nor the last Halloween movie did well when they were released, so will a Halloween movie directed by the Rejects helmer give it that extra push it needs? As long as Zombie made a good movie, I really won’t care one way or another.
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