Movie Review The Horror Crowd (2020)
.jpg "Movie Review The Horror Crowd (2020)")
Terrible crowd, 2020.
Directed by Ruben Pla. With Russell Mulcahy, Lin Shea, Darren Lynn Bousman and Ryan Turek.
SUMMARY:
The Horror Crowd is a heartfelt and intimate documentary from veteran actor Reuben Pla that explores the creators of dedicated nightmares that make up the Hollywood horror community.
We've all watched horror movies and thought about who would be doing this bullshit and also who would be watching this bullshit. The Horror Crowd, a documentary produced and presented by actor and director Reuben Pla, aims to provide insight into the people behind the genre and those who never tire of watching it.
At its core, this film aims to reflect what scares people as artists and viewers alike. Divided into a series of chapters with an awkward title, Pla's documentary touches on factors beyond the film itself, be it the characters' personal darkness, their life experiences, our shared fear of death and so on.
Despite the general imperfections of the document, Pla at least deserves credit for compiling a good number of articles, including Lin Shaye, Russell Mulcahy (Highlander), Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity), Adam Robitel (Escape Room), Darren Lynn Bousman ( Saw 2), Chelsea Stardust (Demon Panic) and Greg Grunberg.
It's a shame it ended up being a mess; a series of rather hasty interviews, accompanied by some insightful comments. If you're interested in horror enough to watch this movie, the discussion of most of the movies here will seem relatively straightforward and won't tell you much you didn't already know; it is a challenge to preach to new converts.
While there are certainly some amusing anecdotes when subjects discuss their formative experiences in the genre - The Exorcist, The Omen, and Alien - which many of the interviewees cite - the final product is less coherent. At one point, Pla is out of place to bluntly discuss the respondents' romantic relationships and their connection to horror, which seems too frothy for a decidedly minor documentary.
Sure, it's exciting when filmmakers talk about their new challenges in the industry, but the scope here isn't broad enough to satisfy. Thematically, Horror Mob feels too often a hasty homage to the director's friends, with limited and inconsistent workarounds for tackling secondary problems, but with little real glitz.
Even for a documentary made with a limited budget, the technological credit is an estimate; The cheap subtitles are very reminiscent of the heyday of Windows Movie Maker, most of the interview audio is of variable quality, there are awkward jumps, and a lot of low-quality JPGs used for B-series movies.
The film is also accompanied by Pla's amateur narrative, which points out that the project appears to be put together and unfinished. While it's more intimate than, say, a brilliant Netflix documentary on the subject, it also lacks the finesse to take full advantage of the meaningful access it gets from the big genre.
Very fun but casual and technically sloppy, only the most passionate fans of the genre should register.
Sparkling Myths Rating - Film: / Film:
Shaun Munro - Follow me on Twitter for more cinematic digressions.
