By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Bored With Torture Horror? You're Not Alone
In 1408, John Cusack doesn’t believe in ghosts. But they believe in him.
Was it the web piracy of the HOSTEL sequel, the overexposure of director Eli Roth, market saturation of torture-porn horror, that led to the film’s underwhelming box office performance?
Among this weekend’s releases: 1408, the Stephen King adaptation starring an ideally cast John Cusack as a supernatural-debunker who dares to stay in a haunted hotel.
When 1408 comes out near the top of the heap, expect a bloodbath of Monday morning box office analysis declaring the death of slasher movies and the demand for suspense-driven terror. The next test for hard core horror is CAPTIVITY, already notorious for its Los Angeles billboard campaign. Starring Elisha Cuthbert as a fashion model in a SAW-like predicament, the movie’s been pushed to mid-July.
An early essay about Slasher Fatigue from a site called Beyond Hollywood, which has extensive coverage of Asian films.
And here’s the NY Times taking a whack at the gore slump: …
“a strong showing for “1408” curbed speculation that audiences were tiring of horror. The film, starring John Cusack as a skeptic who investigates a mysterious room at a New York hotel where suicides have taken place, sold a better-than-expected $20 million in tickets.
New installments of the gory “Saw” and “Hostel” franchises have performed poorly at the box office, fueling worries that the genre was fading. Healthy receipts for “1408,” produced by the Weinstein Company’s Dimension Films and distributed by MGM, could signal that audiences were simply shifting away from the gruesome disembowelment stories that have dominated in recent years.”