This is getting out of hand. It was cool the first few times, but now its starting to get lame.
The new craze of Hollywood film makers (who’re apparently running out of ideas) is to make hand held video camera movies. And with their super rich industry being able to afford expensive CG, they can make something relatively low budget, add in a pinch of special effects to make it look as if it’s part of all that shaky action, and release it as a movie.
The breakthrough came with Blair Witch Project ONE. I thought this was a bloody cool style. Really captured the truth of the moment, makes you feel like watching something REAL. Well, I didn’t really watch the entire movie. I just liked the idea.
Then, many B grade film makers adopted the style. Some of them pulled through nicely, like the movie Alien Abduction, which is made to look like a documentary with ‘professionals’ commenting on the footage throughout the movie. Up till here, it was still ok, although it’s starting to lose its freshness.
Then came the all too cool Cloverfield. I like the movie mainly due to its viral marketing, and how this kinda style can be used to make a Monster Movie. In that sense, it’s new. A monster movie using the shaky cam method.
But the line should be drawn there. Instead, recently, at Apple Movie Trailers website, I saw two movies in the horror category, Quarantine and Diary of the Dead, which are of the shaky cam genre.
And every single one of these shaky cam shits will show some stupid woman in distress with their faces smack closed up on the camera, crying and drooling mucus from their noses. Sometimes, they even show men in such situation, which is seriously gross. They had it in Blair Witch, Cloverfield, and yes, you guessed it, in the two ‘new’ movies, Quarantine and DotD.
Super Scared Women in Shaky Cam Movies. Cloverfield, Blair Witch and Quarantine screencaps.
Alright, I’m not saying I hate this style of movie making. I actually liked it. But the fact that Hollywood’s starting to adopt it, and making more and more of it, when they could be making proper movies with proper camera work and directing, just irritates me.
The shaky cam style is supposed to be a secret weapon for low budget film makers to capture the audience without employing high tech rigs or involving expensive effects. And these Hollywood people are taking it away from such aspiring film makers.
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