A good horror movie scares you, gives you chills, makes you scream, and causes you to sleep with all of the lights in your house on because you’re pretty sure that something is going to come out and get you. Sometimes, though, horror movies do so much more than that -- sometimes they just disappoint you. I’m not talking about bad graphics and orange, fake blood everywhere; I mean the kind that seem like they could be good, they build just right, and then you walk away saying, “Wait, what?”
There are three movies that I have found that rank highly in the disappointment department but are seriously lacking in most of the other horror movie departments. “Haunting of Winchester House” which is supposed to be based on a true story, “Children of the Corn” which was made in 1984, and I will more than likely get some backlash about bashing (#sorrynotsorry), and the most recently made, "The Babadook.” All three of these films start out with the potential to be a good horror movie, but all three of them fall short.
Warning: Spoilers ahead!
3. “Children of the Corn” – 1984
This film comes in at number three. It has some great potential to be a good horror movie, but it’s the end that makes it fall flat. A basic summary of the film is that a couple on a road trip wind up running over a boy, and when they get out to take a look at the body, they realize that the boy has had his throat slit. They decide to take his body to the police, and the girlfriend, Vicky, makes the best suggestion: “Let’s drive to the town that’s 70 miles away.” However, the boyfriend, Burt, decides that instead they’ll go to the nearest town which is in the middle of nowhere where they encounter a strange gas station attendant who points them towards Gatlin because he’s been bribed by the creepy children that live in Gatlin to do so. As they explore the town of Gatlin looking for the authorities, they are ambushed by the children living there. The only children who are not trying to kill Vicky and Burt are siblings Job and Sarah, whom Vicky and Burt decide to save. Vicky gets captured and is about to be sacrificed to He Who Walks Behind the Rows when there’s a power struggle amongst the crazy adult-sacrificing children, and instead Isaac gets offered up for sacrifice. This upsets He Who Walks Behind the Rows, so he reanimates Isaac’s body and kills the person who decided to sacrifice Isaac. After a lot of time spent in a cornfield, the battle for power amongst a group of angsty, corn-loving children (who, by the way, sacrifice themselves once they become adults), Vicky and Burt manage to escape with Job and Sarah. The reason why this movie falls so flat at the end is that as Vicky, Burt, and the two kids go to run away, they find one of the cult members in the car and what do they do? They slam the door in her face, somehow knocking her unconscious, and they walk away. They. Walk. Away. The end. Nothing more. They just walk away like nothing happened, literally.
There’s so much more that they could have done with the ending of this classic horror flick, and while I understand that it is based on a short story by Stephen King, they already altered it a great deal for the movie. They could have done so much more with the ending, they could have even stuck to the original Stephan King story, and it would have been ten times better. In my opinion, the corn being pleased is better than them somehow knocking the girl unconscious with the car door and walking away.
2. “Haunting of Winchester House” – 2009
This one was a tough decision because there was just so much wrong with this movie. The first time I watched it, I was kind of excited because it said that it was based on a true story (Yay for creepy ghosts that are actually real!), but as the film got underway, I soon realized that this film was a huge let down. The family is staying in the Winchester house as housekeepers for a while, and almost as soon as they move in, all hell breaks loose. Early in the film the daughter is abducted, and the parents are running around screaming their heads off trying to find her while they are being chased by countless ghosts. They enlist the help of the strange paranormal investigator who stopped by earlier in the film, and he dies, but the family is able to unravel the mystery of the house, save the daughter, and get the hell out of Dodge.
They find themselves walking (again with the walking) away from the Winchester House because their car is MIA and they see something strange on the side of the road. The mother goes over to investigate and when asked what it is she tells them that it’s nothing. Oh, what a lie. On the side of the road is the family car with all three family members dead inside. This answers a number of the questions in the film, such as why the parents keep randomly bleeding, coughing up blood, etc., why the daughter goes missing, why they could not get the gate open when they first arrived, and why the paranormal investigator mentions that he can speak with the dead. However, as the family walks away with only the mother knowing that they are all dead, it brings another question to the forefront of the viewers’ minds: If the family, and the paranormal investigator, and everyone involved in this story are dead, then how on earth is this based on a true story?
There’s a limit to how believable a horror film can be. While it’s easy to believe that ghosts and bloody axe-wielding psychos are real, it’s extremely hard to believe that everyone involved in an incident died, and yet we have the entire story of everything that happened after they died. This movie is a perfect example of why you cannot trust a movie just because it’s based on a true story. While there is some truth behind how crazy the Winchester House is (the whole legend that everyone who was killed by a Winchester rifle now haunts the house), trying to make this story seem as believable as the rest of the stories involving the Winchester House is a stretch. Earning a whopping 2.3 on Rotten Tomatoes, there is not a whole lot out there about this movie, but it is a serious let down in the “based on a true story” genre of horror that I enjoy so much.
1.”The Babadook” – 2014
It was a struggle deciding which of these last two movies was the worst because “Children of the Corn” is a classic and, while disappointing in the end, it's not throughout, but this one took the cake after a deal of deliberation. “The Babadook” is one that I kept seeing trailers and ads for and people kept suggesting I watch. It took me three attempts watching it to make it all the way through, and that isn’t because of graphics or even the plot. No, it’s because the film is positively boring.
It has such great potential to build and have an outstanding climax, and misses the mark drastically. While they do a good job showing the mother being overtaken by the Babadook, they don’t do much with it. The amount of what they could have done for this film but they didn’t is actually upsetting. They could have done so much more with the little boy fighting the Babadook that is living inside of his mother as well as leading up to the Babadook starting to show itself. The most is that the mother tears up the book, throws it away. It comes back, so she burns it, goes to the police, and then runs from the police because of a jacket and hat hanging up at the back of the room. I was also really confused as to how the dead husband fit into the story. I understand that the Babadook is using him as an incentive to get the mother to let it in, but it almost feels as though they are hinting that the father is the Babadook, not just it using him as bait. They have the Babadook pretty much live in the basement amongst the father’s things, and when we first see the strange hat and coat that freak the mother out they are the father’s clothes hanging up in the basement. With all of the buildup leading up to this final “battle” between the boy, his mother, and the Babadook, it’s really disappointing to see that all the mother does is yell at the thing and it runs and hides in their basement. The most disappointing part about this movie is the fact that the mother and son decide to keep the Babadook. That’s right, they decide to keep the thing that made the mom kill the dog and almost kill the son as a pet. Where do they keep it? In the freaking basement. How do they keep it in the basement? Who freaking knows. Why does it choose to live in their basement as their worm-eating pet? Your guess is as good as mine.
A friend of mine also watched this movie and felt the same exact way: “It was odd. It had good moments but overall disappointing. It left a lot of questions. And I felt like it was supposed to end like eight times." The movie was mainly disappointing because of the end. It seemed like they could have done so much more, but instead they chose to keep the monster as a pet and they don’t even explain how it’s possible for the mother and son to keep the thing locked in the basement with just a lock on the door, or why the thing would let them and not just tear them to shreds as it was mentioned that it would. This movie fell flatter than a pancake.
There are good horror films and bad horror films out there. There are films that are truly scary, and there are films like these three that don’t quite check all of the boxes. While each movie has marks that they do hit, they miss the mark of being scary. Whether it’s consistency issues like in “Haunting of Winchester House,” a flat undramatic ending as with “Children of the Corn,” or it just seems like it could be good but lets you down at every turn as with “The Babadook,” these three all manage to miss the mark of a good horror film. In one case, they missed the target completely (*cough* “Winchester House” *cough*). Hope you enjoyed this third installment in my #SearchForAScaryMovie series, and remember, sleep well.
