Cinema Issues: The Rise In Youth Horror

The last weekend at the box office was truly something unprecedented, two small sub 10 million dollar horror films not from a franchise lapped a Star Wars film and kept it from being #1.

These two films are Backrooms and Obsession, both of which we have reviews up for on the site if you want to check them out.

The question a lot of the trades are asking is what is behind this massive surge in horror. It’s the youth. The under 35 demo is making up a huge amount of the audience for both of these films. What we are here to discuss is why.

Arguments can be made of the fact that Star Wars is an aging franchise and young people just aren’t into it, but we think it’s more than that. These horror films are reflective of online culture both being made my YouTubers, these films talk in a language of memes and references younger people can get. What’s more they feel more authentic, due to the fact that these people were YouTubers first there is more of a parasocial bond than there is with these big directors and Hollywood. This can increase loyalty and ticket sales for people who are fans of these people, maybe they had a chat message read aloud and feel seen by them. There is a drive for authentic voices and with these smaller scale horror films they are being marketed far more personally, the stars are showing behind the scenes clips and doing AMAs and live streams, as well the directors seem more like casual viewers rather than auter cinephiles.

All of this is without even mentioning that horror has been on the rise, these past years people are really into horror right now, so that helps too. It will be interesting to see if there is a difference between more original horror fair such as the two we’ve been talking about and franchise horror such as Evil Dead Burn or Insidious 6. If there is maybe we’ll write another post assessing the situation.

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The Moment: A Nobody Thinks People Care About Her

Summary: A Charlie XCX mockumentary

Charlie XCX seems to think she’s Madonna, she keeps trying to force herself into films despite the fact she can’t act and can’t sing without auto tune.

The plot follows her prepping for one of her tours, yet unless the joke was to make her seem insufferable and incredibly unlikeable then the comedy is not presenting. She was involved in constructing the story for this mess as well so clearly she didn’t see anything wrong with it.

It is one thing to be self deprecating but to openly portray a horrible version of yourself for a joke seems odd in the least.

The fact that they force one of the Kardashians to be in this shows who this film was made for, it needed 10 million to break even and made 5.

Overall, musicians need to stay out of films.

0.5/5

Pros.

A few unintentional bits of comedy

Cons.

It’s boring

The characters are deeply unlikeable

It is badly paced

When it tries to be funny it really isn’t

It’s depressing

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Backrooms: The Film That Killed Star Wars

Summary: A man finds his way into a liminal space seemingly between dimensions.

For the most part this film was very good and represented something truly original within both the horror space and broader cinema. There really isn’t an analogue.

There are some issues with pacing, and the film takes some odd turns shifting from what would be viewed as more straight horror into science fiction, however these are relatively minor.

The mystery of what the backrooms are isn’t addressed in the film and that is good as you would ruin it if they had tried to tack on some kind of explanation. There was a worry for a while they were going to tie it into the central man and his divorce it, it is a good thing they didn’t go there with it.

Overall, one of the most original horror films of the year.

3.5/5

Pros.

It is interesting

It leaves you with questions

It doesn’t require previous knowledge of the YouTube series

The ending

Cons.

Pacing

Genre feel

The focus on the lead’s divorce is dull

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Finding Emily: The Search For A Dream Girl.

A boy searches for a girl he met on a night out.

Sitting in a Dutch cinema a crowd amasses there is talk that this could be a new Love Actually or Notting Hill. The ex-pat crowd who start off the film so hopefully begin filling out over the course of the film.

Where to begin, the central character is a dumb northerner, which is a harmful stereotype in the UK. He is not one of Emily’s classmates he works for the university, is the implication that Northern people couldn’t possibly go to university. That is the impression when you hear the accents or most of the other students.

The film was sold on being an anti woke rom-com, in some circles, there is a sense of parodying the extremes of cancel culture and of wokeness. For example the lead character sends a mass email to try and find this girl and is branded a “predator” by a left wing activist in the film. Whilst this may be spot on commentary of how ridiculous the need to be a victim has become, however, it is unbearable to watch and you do feel tempted to leave.

Even the female lead, not the girl he’s looking for but the one he meets along the way, played by Angourie Rice of Spider-Man fame, is awful. She uses the idealistic northern to get a post grad role she wants and for her final thesis. All without his consent, she even forgets his signature on documents during his case study which is straight up illegal. She destroys this poor guy’s life by encouraging him to send the email in the first place after he had given up looking for the dream girl. Yet the film expects us to like and sympathise with her.

Sometimes in the review game, which one is fairly new to admittedly, there are times when you regret the fact you have to stay until the end. This was one of them.

Overall, avoid, avoid, avoid.

0/5

Pros.

None.

Cons.

Another Northern England stereotype

The female lead uses and manipulates the male lead

The awfulness of most of the students

The pacing

The characters

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Analysing The Mandalorian and Grogu’s Box Office

We are trying out a new type of article today wherein we are looking at the box office of The Mandalorian and Grogu to see the health of the Star Wars franchise.

A few things first we will be looking at first weekend numbers and estimated second weekend positioning, we won’t be looking at the life time run. Additionally this will be about breaking even theatrically so whilst you can scream about toys that isn’t relevant here.

So the Mandalorian and Grogu is the first Star Wars film to open in 7 years, and many outlets even the access media said that it had the worst opening of any Star Wars film since Disney bought them. Yet Disney said it was pleased with how it did? That’s confusing, does Disney have low expectations, did they think it would do worse? One would argue that regardless of if it’s true or not Disney have to say that otherwise it could spook second weekend sales.

The opening weekend of the film brought in around 168 million dollars, which you might go well the budget was around that so it broke even. Wrong, films needs 2.5 times their budget to break even this accounts for marketing and for cinema distribution costs. By our count the film needs around 412 million dollars to break even. However, the trades are reporting that it needs 500-600 million to break even, suggesting that the budget may be bigger than has been reported or the marketing budget could be huge. The headline which many people ran with was this that film opened to worse than Solo which was considered a flop for Star Wars. The sad truth is that’s true the numbers were lower even without adjusting for inflation and you must always adjust for inflation at the box office as the value of money changes with inflation and 160 million dollars (just an example) a decade ago is actually much more now adjusted.

Some of you may say well it’s a marathon and not a sprint the film still has a long theatrical run ahead of it. That’s true the film could reach 412 or even the 500-600 if it’s in cinemas long enough and it doesn’t suffer a huge drop off. Although it must be said that reporting is suggesting that the film could suffer a drop off of as much as 60% this weekend,, it was down Eighty Percent on Friday sales and the projections for the weekend box office say that The Backrooms and maybe even Obsession will take the top two spots at the box office. This could massively harm the run of the film at the box office, also add to that that next weekend is the release is of He-Man, which would aim for a similar demo as such the third weekend could be harmed by direct competition.

The fact that a Star Wars film is being lapped by an A24 indie horror film and possibly also by Obsession does not speak to a healthy franchise. The fact is all the Disney + shows have trained audiences to think of Star Wars as a TV show and also damaged the brand and alienated fans, as such it is going to have a hard time commanding the box office in any capacity.

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Passenger: A Homeless Demon Film

Summary: A couple who have taken to van life soon start to realise that the open road at night can take a chilling turn.

The reviews for this film were terrible, and whilst it certainly wasn’t the best film, it also wasn’t terrible. Yes it was over reliant on jump scares, yes a lot of the story had been done before and done better. However, bringing in aspects of the Hobo Code and some lesser known Catholic mythos did give it a unique flavour.

It was also interesting that this film had a demon in it but it didn’t go down the possession route as one might expect. Furthermore, seeing two random civilians be able to kill it at the end rather than calling in a priest or a demonologist was a nice change of pace as well.

One thing that will cost this film points is the shameless product placement, when the couple sit down to watch a film it is of course a Paramount film, this is also a Paramount film and the amount of time that shot lingers for is artistically bankrupt.

Overall, if you like horror films there is some novelty here. However, if you want something truly fresh this isn’t that.

3/5

Pros.

Some new stuff

Seeing regular folks beat the demons

Some good scares

Cons.

An over reliance on jump scares

Some aspects are predictable

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Ladies First: Netflix Continues To Double Down On The Culture War

Summary: The patriarchy is bad so let’s show what it would be like if it was a matriarchy to try and explain to men why the patriarchy is bad.

The social commentary here is about a decade out of date, no one is arguing that the patriarchy is good, most people just want equality rather than the threat of a matriarchy which would do everything the patriarchy is doing just in reverse.

Rosamund Pike needs to get a better agent after her stint on The Wheel Of Time and now this she is in danger of turning into an activist rather than an actor. Hearing her talk about feminism in marketing interviews for this film one can’t help but hear the posh accent she speaks with and think about how the only people still pushing wokeness are these out of touch elites.

It goes about how you would expect and ends with more cringe lecturers.

Overall, a waste of everyone’s time.

0/5

Pros.

None

Cons.

It’s preachy

It’s boring

It’s badly paced

It’s social commentary is dated

All the characters are deeply unlikeable

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The Mandalorian And Grogu: Star Wars’ Big Comeback?

Summary: Din and Grogu head to the big screen.

So this won’t move the needle for a lot of people. If you like the Mandalorian you’ll like it and if you didn’t you won’t. This isn’t the film to save Star Wars if such a thing can even happen. This is life support. It doesn’t change that Pedro is poisonous to the brand and needs to go or that the film opened to record low numbers.

The one thing to note is that is markedly better than season 3 of the show, and Din is not sidelined here as he was in that. The action is stronger and the father son relationship between Din and Grogu feels weighty and meaningful. Particularly the sequence of Grogu looking after Din towards the third act of the film, you might get a bit misty there. Seeing Zeb back from Rebels was good though one wishes they did more with him particularly during the Hutt storyline. It is interesting to see what will happen to the crime world side of Star Wars after these Hutts have been taken out.

An additional thing to enjoy about this film is the amount of puppetry in it and how well it’s done as opposed to horrible CGI.

The issues with the film are threefold. Firstly the music is off, yes you have Mando’s theme but you also have all this weird techno trance music which feels more befitting something like Blade Runner than Star Wars, this is jarring. The secondly you have the structure, it feels like two episodes mashed together you have the remnant story and then the Hutt twins story, and whilst there are plot threads to connect the two it isn’t enough. When the remnant storyline ends you go okay is that the end of the film, but there is still over an hour left. Finally you get to the Sigourney Weaver of it all, seeing her as a New Republic military leader is one thing, but seeing her be this old woman fighter pilot at the end is laughable in a bad way. Do you mean to say that they didn’t have anyone else who was more in their prime to carry it out on the whole base. That said Weaver was

Overall, serviceable and much better if you are a fan of the show and wider universe than not.

3.5/5

Pros.

The action

Mando and Grogu

Where it leaves the universe after the end of the film

The puppetry

Cons.

The pacing

The music

Weaver as a fighter pilot

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Obsessions: A Surprisingly Funny Film

Summary a man uses a make a wish device to get the girl of his dreams, things then go badly.

So when the trailers for this film came out it looked like yet more boring modern socially conscious horror cinema. The message of the film seemed played out, and after watching it is still. However, what changes is that the film is fun enough to make up for it.

I would say this is a star making turn for Inde Navarrette. Not so much in the early film when she plays the out of reach Nicki but definitely so when she becomes the overbearing and nightmarish version of her. The horror and the suddenness if it at times has the power to be shocking and funny in equal measures and Navarrette is at the heart of that.

Overall, a surprisingly good film is a little familiar at times.

3.5/5

Pros

Navarrette

The horror

The ending

The humour

Cons.

The social commentary is tried

Pacing issues

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Normal: Nobody 3 In Disguise

Summary: a police sheriff moves to a small town for a temporary gig only to find it is run by the Yakuza.

So, this was a lot of fun, the action was great and it was surprisingly funny across the film. The action wasn’t as intense as Nobody 1+2 but it was still pretty gory and full on.

There is some woke stuff in the film, but it’s only a small amount and you can ignore it if you want to. There is a woman who claims to be non-binary, and the sheriff’s main allies in the town are a young interracial couple, whilst most of the white folks, and a few non white folks try and kill him. The fact that the final team consists of the sheriff, a black man and a woman claiming to be non binary, is a choice. So if that sort of thing bothers you then maybe this isn’t for you.

By and large the woke stuff isn’t stuffed down your throat or heavy handed and for the most part you can just ignore it and get on with the action.

The ending of the film where it seems like the interim Sheriff might just spend his time travelling round to different gigs, facing off against different underworld crime factions is a great set up for future sequels.

Overall, a fun action film.

4/5

Pros.

The action

The premise

The silliness

The gore

Cons.

The on the nose woke stuff

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