Groucho

Interest in The Passion of the Christ is waning...not a bad thing, just inevitable. It will continue to bring in the $$$, but it will not return to #1.

Supermallet

I guess, in that case, the question will be, will Hellboy be able to beat any current #1 movie when it comes out?

By the way, saw the film last night, and I loved it. Can't wait to see it again. Best comic book film since The Hulk (and no, it's nothing like The Hulk, but I loved The Hulk and love Hellboy just as much). Ron Perlman is a perfect Hellboy, and there's some very nice faux-Lovecraftian imagery in it.

moocher

Oh and on the previous comment from Suprmallet ref horror. I guess there are different "levels" of horror but I don't really think of The Sixth Sense as a horror movie. And Ghost??? That seems quite a stretch to me.

If those are horror, then I guess you would have to count "The Mummy", "The Mummy Returns", Silence of the Lambs, Se7en, etc. Maybe they are, I just don't think of them as such. Horror to me is Halloween, Scream, Friday 13th, Nightmare on Elm St, Dawn of the Dead, Evil Dead, 28 Days Later, etc.

Supermallet

Well I guess I have a wider definition, then. I consider thrillers to be horror (thriller being a wussy term movie studios use to avoid using the word horror). And how is The Sixth Sense not horror? There are tons of scary scenes, and ghosts, and jumps and frights. The Mummy and Mummy Returns are action movies based off of horror stories, but I would gladly include The Silence of the Lambs and Seven as horror. Just because it doesn't have a ghost or a monster doesn't mean it can't be horror.

Oh, and why the head scratch about my Hellboy comment?

moocher

I guess its because most people thought Hulk sucked and also because there haven't exactly been a lot of comic book pictures since last summer when Hulk came out.

Thriller = horror?? Murder Mystery (Se7en) = horror?? Sappy Love story (Ghost) = horror??? Yes, I would say your definition of horror is quite broad. But that is not to say it is wrong. I was just throwing in the perspective from which I made my original comment about horror such as Dawn of the Dead appealing to more of a niche audience. From mojo it looks like Dawn is doing quite well and soundly whipping Passion so I guess I was wrong.

talemyn

balancer and Vegas, you both seem to take a very "conspiracy theory" view of TPOTC. It's name was changed because of another movie titled The Passion that was released in 2003 (this one, I believe). The lightning incident has been well-documented by numerous reputable news sources and backed up by several eye-witness accounts. And, while I don't think anyone ever thought that it would fail, nobody expected it doe succeed to that level that it did.

Jackskeleton

I thought he hulk was terrible film with shitty editing that only was slightly worse then the actual story. I would not relate it to Hellboy. Hellboy had a very good comic to film adaptation and has a great look and feel to it. I throughly enjoyed it.

talemyn

I think I gotta agree with moocher on this one. Movies like Se7en and The Silence Of The Lambs I would put into the Thriller genre, Signs would go in Suspense (along with The Sixth Sense), and, as for Ghost . . . Romantic Comedy.

For me, horror movies are the more along the lines of supernatural and visceral films like the Halloween and Friday The 13th movies. Once you get into the more intellectually engaging plots, you leave the Horror aspect behind and enter the Suspense and Thriller realm.

I guess I also think of it as having to do with the realism factor. Horror movies are not realistic, Suspense and Thrillers are.

Supermallet

About the Hulk: I specifically said Hellboy is not stylistically like The Hulk. However, I found The Hulk to be a very high quality film, and one of the better comic book adaptations I have seen. I felt the same way about Hellboy, thus the comparison. For people who think I'm insane for liking The Hulk in the first place, then let's say the best comic book film since Spider-Man, okay?

About horror: I said earlier that Ghost is a love story, but has horror elements. I would not consider it horror. Thrillers are horror, though, because what do they do? They scare you. That's what horror does. The only difference is that a thriller doesn't have a supernatural aspect. And I think the ending of Seven moves it into horror territory. As for the Sixth Sense and Signs, how are those NOT horror? They've got ghosts and aliens, all of whom are villains at one point, and scare the heck out of you.

I guess I'm just missing your criteria for thriller/suspense vs. horror. I don't think "intellectually engaging" plot is good, because there are horror films that can engage you intellectually (Cronenberg is a great example of this). The only films I would really call thrillers are some of Hitchcock's films that don't do much scaring, but you're still at the edge of your seat, wondering what will happen next. If your criteria is the fantastic (aliens, ghosts, other monsters), then both Signs and The Sixth Sense should be horror. If your criteria is some kind of stylistic difference, than Halloween should be a thriller, because it plays more like a thriller than a horror film, especially in the first forty minutes. If there's something else, I must be missing it.

Vegas9203

Se7en, The Sixth Sense, and Silence of the Lambs are definitely horror movies. The Sixth Sense was about seeing dead people for Chrissake. So I must agree with Suprmallet on that one.

As for the whole Passion business. About a year ago we started to hear rumblings about that movie (and as you know people that are into movies hear these rumblings waaay earlier than the general public) and the name and the languages and all that business. MY husband and me started hearing these rumblings and KNEW that the movie would be successful. Very rarely do we see a movie that shows Christianity positively and it was guaranteed that churches and Christians everywhere would embrace it. It's a built-in audience . Do you honestly think that my mom who was dying to see this movie and hasn't seen a movie in the theatre in about 10 yrs would have seen it had it NOT been about Christ? NO. And she was telling me MONTHS before it came out about how her church was all going in a group etc...So I KNEW it had a huge following already. The dead languages don't matter, because it's not about that. Whether or not the movie is actually good doesn't really matter either, because people that flocked to it, like my mom and her church friends, don't care about cinematography and dialogue and things like that. She just wanted to go see a Jesus movie. And that's how MOST of the people that are going to see this movie are.

As for being conspiratorial....I don't believe James Caveizel was hit by lightning....somehow that comes out right around the time the movie is being MAJORLY hyped. Kinda like when there are always stories of costars dating right around the time a movie is released. And there are tons of movies with the same names....Gibson named it "...of the Christ" to make sure there was no doubt as to what his audience wanted and were getting.

And Suprmallet, I agree about the Hulk. I Loved it! And I don't really care that "most people thought it sucked"
I thought it was great.

talemyn

I think that we are just going to have to go with a "differences of opinion" on this one. Personally, I don't find traditionaly "horror" movies to be very scary (too unrealistic). The ones that I would label suspense or thriller have better believability and, therefore, have more of an effect (although, I still don't know if I would say scary).

Maybe "horror" just needs to pitched? It seems like it's too wide. We've got suspense, thriller, slasher, psychological thriller, paranormal, etc. Maybe they should be enough.

As for The Sixth Sense and it's dead people, Winona Ryder sees dead people in Beetlejuice, but you wouldn't call that a horror movie, would you? I think that there is more required for horror than interaction with dead people, and I don't think that The Sixth Sense has it.Do you think that she and her friends would have gone to see it if they heard from people before them that it was a rotten movie (say it got even half of the bad reviews that The Cat In The Hat did)?While word of mouth may have turned it into some kind of "Jesus was struck by lightning on the cross, it must be a sign!" story, the original press coverage was far more mundane. From the BBC . . .In another story covering the incident, it is stated that it was during the filming of the "Sermon On The Mount" scene, not while he was on the cross. I think that people have certainly blown this story up, but I, personally, don't think that it was made up.I've found this in several news sources . . . And finally . . . On the other hand, I'm with you two on this one . . . I liked very much and thought it captured the feel of the story extremely well (dark and dramatic).

Although, I do agree that the "end battle" was a pretty weak addition.

Supermallet

Either that or we just admit that those are all subcategories of horror.

I wouldn't say Beetlejuice is a horror film because it's a comedy. The ghosts are played for laughs. But in the Sixth Sense, until the end, the ghosts are used to scare the audience and the boy. Ghosts that scare the audience = horror in my book any day. And I don't find that many horror movies scary, either, but I have a strong consitution. Try telling the girl with whom I saw Dawn of the Dead who kept grabbing my hand and covering her eyes every two seconds that it wasn't scary. She was even scared hours after the movie ended. She made me walk her into her room to be sure she was safe (not that I'm complaining ).

talemyn

NEVER!!! No, no, no, no . . . I'm not listening! La, la, la, la, la, la . . .

moocher

Even though this has gone way OT, it is a rather interesting discussion. I never really thought the definition of "horror" was so much in debate. Look at the variety of opinions on this. I would never have believed that someone would mention Ghost in a discussion of horror films (or even that it has "horror" elements).

Suprmallet (and Vegas) apparently think that any film that has scenes intended to scare the audience is horror yet he doesn't think Mummy or Mummy Returns are horror even though they have many sequences intended to scare. I agree that these aren't horror but I don't agree that Se7en is horror just because of the ending. Apparently he believes that any movie that has some "gore" sequences are horror as well.

I don't believe that one or two scenes make a movie "horror". You have to take the movie as a whole and determine what the intent was. I think a movie is "horror" if the main reason for the film is to scare you. I don't think Sixth Sense, Se7en, or Silence of the Lambs fit this catagory just because they have some scenes that scare you. I don't think the intent of theses films was primarily to scare the audience. Scary sequences are there because they reinforce the other major elements of the film. I guess the difference is that I think of thriller and horror as two separate catagories. I would put those films in more the "thriller" catagory.

horror = primarily a scary film
thriller = primarily a suspenseful film

As for Hulk, we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one .

Groucho

Well, we strayed off topic for most of this thread, but we finally have our answer regarding box office this weekend:

(estimates from www.boxofficemojo.com):

1. Hellboy $23,500,000 ($7760 per screen average)
6. The Passion of the Christ $9,879,000 ($2,898 per screen average)

Terrell

Well, it's a silly matchup in the first place. Passion of the Christ has been in theaters what, 5 or 6 weeks? Of course it was gonna beat it head to head. This was Hellboy's opening weekend. There wasn't much drama here.

Supermallet

You're right, and I intend to fix that immediately.








Well, I feel better about this whole thread now.

Jackskeleton

AND THE WINNER AND NEW BOX OFFICE CHAMMMMMMPION OF THE BOX OFFICE BATTTLE ROOOOOYALLE! Hellboy.