Musics I done

Sunday, November 30, 2014

What do troll hunter and the re/animator both fail at?

A couple of years ago I saw year two films, and it struck me soon after that they both left me unsatisfied in for a similar reason. I felt they both cheated.

The Re-animator is a better film; schlocky, humourous, and inventively gorey. Troll Hunter was a disappointment, feeling episodic and inconsequential. 

What they had in common, though, was a disregard for their source material that they visibly hacked up to try to make for a more entertaining film.

I've not read all of HP 'Herbert west: re animator', considered one his poorer works, but I see why it was considered a good property to develop into an 80s horror film, a sort-of parody-tribute of Frankenstein. What's wierd is that to fit in with the Romero zombie fashion, West now lobotomises his zombies, lest they be too clever. Even after he explicitly does this to the first reanimated, all the further Zombies have the tell-tale mark on their heads to explain their shambling stupor.

TH pulls a similar trick; it wants to tell us that trolls are peaceful creatures - so why the need to hunt them? Well, apparently it's because they have troll rabies.

It's annoying because it never delivers on its own setup - instead it fudges it to fit in with the current favourite genre.

Tbh I don't think I've seen any other work pull this unsatisfying just-becausism, a sort of have-your-cake-and-eat-a-different-cake attitude. There must be some, anyone know of any?

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