New Year's Resolution

As a fan of horror movies, friends and acquaintances are often recommending titles they enjoyed. About a month ago, V/H/S came highly recommended by an extremely reliable source. I've been saving the viewing of it for just the right moment. Two days ago that moment came.

And now for my New Year's resolution: for one year, I will do absolutely everything in my power to avoid any movie that includes "found footage," is filmed in a "shaky cam" style, and all films where one of the characters in the movie is filming the footage.

We can all trace the scourge of this style back to Blair Witch and the phenomenon that followed. Studios fell in love with the low cost of making these movies and people flocked to see them (and even when they didn't, the low cost of making the film was quickly made back).

Mind you, not all of these films were bad. Project X, Chronicle, Cloverfield, Quarantine and more than a few others were enjoyed by me. But here's the kicker: all of those films, and all films made in this style would've been better if not made in this style.

I'm sick of the character running away and being forced to endure the picture bouncing around ferociously for way too long. I'm tired of the moment when the cameraman inevitably drops the camera and we're forced to see a sideways shot of nothing.

In case you haven't guessed by now, V/H/S sucked. It wasn't the worst movie of this genre though, that belongs to a movie so bad, I can't even remember the name of it. But here's the rundown of that movie. The shaky cam in this movie was the recorder mounded on a police car. An hour and a half of a police cruiser driving around on woodsy roads. That's it. There was one moment, after about an hour and fifteen minutes of fast forwarding when the police vehicle stopped, the policeman got out to investigate some sort of monster or alien. All action took place off-screen, and I was rewarded for my patience with nothing. 

V/H/S was the straw that broke the camels back. It's the movie that made me finally want to stand up and say "Enough. No more found footage! No more shaky cam! No more!"