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Five Days of Film Fright
Day 2: Predicting the next vampires and zombies
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Let’s get them out of the way: vampires. They’re still popular, what with Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, True Blood…okay, they’re still really popular, but there’s been a bit of a backlash lately, thanks to stink films like Vampires Suck trying to cash in (and luckily only making $36 million, although it’ll inevitably be picked up by HBO and make millions in DVD sales). When writer/director duo Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer get on a genre craze (Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, etc.), you know it’s time to move on. That’s why zombies are the new vampires. AMC’s The Walking Dead (stupidly) premieres on Halloween, a film adaption of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies is in the works and Resident Evil: Afterlife was a major hit, proving that zombies are more alive than dead (wow, that was bad).
But at some point, no matter how cool The Walking Dead looks (and oh man does it look cool), people will eventually grow tired of zombies. So, what’s next? Resurgence of monster movies? They’ll always be there, like Monsters and Cloverfield, but after that awful Godzilla re-make in 1998…well, I still haven’t recovered from that. I mean, why couldn’t the plane just go higher to escape Godzilla? C’mon! Or how about slasher flicks, with Freddy, Jason or Mike (Myers)? When Rob Zombie took a stab, pun intended, at Halloween, it didn’t do too well. And Halloween II did even worse. I think (hope) we’re finally beyond these guys.
So, to recap: pop culture went from somewhat dead humans who suck blood to totally dead humans who eat other humans. The next logical stop: totally alive humans who eat other humans. Yes, cannibals will be the next fad for horror movies.
Over the last few nights, I’ve been brushing up on my cannibal films, including the awesome Welcome to the Jungle (Axl-approved?) and the awful Emmanuelle and the Last Cannibals (IMDB tagline: “That Emanuelle [sic] girl is back more EROTIC & EXOTIC than ever”). I’ve already seen the cream of the cannibal crop (ew), including Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust, Jungle Holocaust and other films with “holocaust” in the title, so it’s been fun going through, like, page nine of Netflix’s options for “cannibals.” Oh, and we can’t forget Cannibal! The Musical, Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s second best film (sorry, Team America).
Have you never seen a cannibal film? I don’t blame you. Clearly, there aren’t that many, and there are even less if you don’t feel like watching one made by an Italian director (no judgments). Probably the most famous American cannibal film is Alive! Sweeney Todd and The Rocky Horror Picture Show don’t really count, as they’re not really about cannibalism, although I would love to see an actual cannibal film starring Meat Loaf. Oh, the irony (sort of).
Obviously, you won’t be able to have a Twilight-esque series about cannibals. No matter how dreamy Edward is, I’m pretty sure his appeal would drop to teenage girls if they saw him rip some guy’s heart out and eat it. So, cannibals wouldn’t marketed to the teen crowd, but that’s fine; zombies aren’t, either. The Walking Dead is for adults, as were 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Shaun of the Dead. Most films, actually, except for Zombieland, but even that was more about 80s nostalgia (see: Bill Murray) than anything from this millennium.
So why will they become popular? I think the reason True Blood and The Walking Dead are so popular is because they’re so bloody and gory (and, in True Blood‘s case, sexy). Non-tween girls are growing tired of restrained monsters, and what could be scarier than an actual human eating another human? That’s terrifying. Plus, cannibalism is REAL (here), which means producers can put “based on a true story” in the opening credits, but doesn’t pose much of a threat, unless you’re a group of white twentysomethings messing around with ancient relics in the Amazonia. Or so the movies tell me. Plus, it’s a genre of films that hasn’t been tackled so much, so a young director could make a name for him or herself by doing for cannibals what George Romero did for zombies. Do it, Young Director! Just don’t cast “Emmanuelle.”