NEWSLETTER

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Making this issue was a lot of fun because the main editors are secret horror nerds, but one thing we really noticed when trawling through all this stuff was: how come pretty much every horror movie that Hollywood shits out these days looks like if Trent Reznor directed a two-hour-long Calvin Klein advert?

What happened to the rule in horror where EVERYBODY in the picture aside from three girls is ugly as sin. The stars of horror films these days are all underwear models. This is one of the main reasons that the major release horror films are so boring and unscary. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve left the multiplex £35 shorter after watching shit like the last Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake.

What really pissed me off was looking into the business of zillionaire producer Michael Bay whose production company Platinum Dunes put money up for the film. On his blog, he boasts how the film only cost $9.5 million to make but had returns of more than $80 million. Like, that is good news for anybody apart from him. He further patronises horror fans by saying the recent brace of totally un-horrific horrors “have a built-in audience of dedicated fans who trust Fangoria magazine more than Newsweek.” Umm, no Mike. Real horror fans like me who go out and buy Fangoria magazine despise your shitty film. Only 14-year-old kids who don’t know the alphabet and weird couples on first dates like them. All our fears about how and why these insulting, un-horrific travesties get made were totally confirmed when we spoke to the director of the film, Marcus Nispel.

Vice: Why did you make this film?

Marcus Nispel: I didn’t want to do a horror movie, nor a remake, but one of my best friends Daniel Pearl shot the first one. He said I should to it, so he could be the first DP on an original and a remake. I didn’t really want to do it. But horrors are good debuts for directors.

OK, so it was a careerist Hollywood boys’ club move. But why is the film a study in (main female star) Jessica Biel’s tits and ass? The first film is creepy and ugly but this is like Extreme Baywatch: Texas Edition.

Well, I asked for the young Sissy Spacek but Michael Bay was the producer with his company Platinum Dunes so I got a brunette instead. With Jessica you can’t help but keep her in camera. She demands a lot of attention. Our cinematographer couldn’t help himself. I asked this guy at the cinema, is it scary? He said “No” and that the kids at the cinema kept coming back to see it but they “just come back for the girl with the belly-shirt.”

ANITA CRAPPERSTEIN

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