Word: shockingly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...horror genre's attraction-repulsion for the filmgoer: what-happens-next? vs. why-am-I-watching-this? It makes canny use of dramatic longueurs. It's scary even when nothing happens, because something awful might, and, eek!, right now! Anticipation is all. Anxiety is a more powerful emotion than shock. Knowing we are to die is worse than dying...
...biggest Blair Witch shock has been felt by the movie's directors. "When we did the film," Sanchez says, "we hoped for a video or cable deal. When Artisan told us the film would be released in theaters, we were thinking, 'Man, if we make $10 million, it'd be a dream come true. But to do $29 million in one weekend was so beyond our comprehension. If anyone had said that a year ago, we would have had him committed...
Then came the big shock...
Gargan's strategy, if he had one, was to play the reluctant warrior. His shock troops were made up of three befuddled senior citizens who swooshed around the ballroom wearing GARGAN'S GEEZERS T shirts. He compared the chairmanship to captaining the Titanic. "I don't want the damned job," he said. "But I'm not about to let this ship go down." Proof that he was a hard worker? He used to drive live chickens to market, a job that meant stopping every few minutes and beating the sides of the truck to keep the birds flapping and alive...
...trapped, for no compelling reason, in an old mansion the size of Versailles--not the palace, the city. Doors rattle and children's voices whisper from the dead in this poltergeistian theme-park ride and spooky radio show that never add up to a movie. There's one good shock, with a skeleton in a fireplace; but finally the film collapses in its own special-effects idiocy...