The Mimzy Incident

While browsing through Cinematical the other day I ran across this post. In a nutshell, a bunch of parents brought their kids to a screening of The Last Mimzy but received a bit of a surprise when there was a projectionist mix-up and The Hills Have Eyes 2 was shown instead. The latter movie has a pre-credits sequence depicting a chained naked woman giving birth to a mutant baby, so there was no warning for those seated in the theatre.

I'm assuming that this is a demographic of the movie viewing public that would not notice the difference between a New Line logo and a 20th Century Fox logo when it hit the big screen up above and wonder to themselves, "hey, am I in the wrong theatre?"

Anyway, I can only imagine what the kids must have been thinking. Even though the story does have a 'happy ending' with the group eventually getting to see Mimzy after all, those images may be imprinted on their minds forever.

My wife, who is constantly arguing that horror/thriller movies serve no purpose made the point that we wonder what seeing the opening to THHE 2 will do to these little guys psychologically yet 20 years down the road we consider it a perfectly decent popcorn movie for the same group of kids now all grown up.

Personally, I think this whole sub-genre of torture porn movies like Saw, Hostel, and Michael Bay's remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes are giving good horror films a bad name and I'm pretty sure that most of her objections to the genre stem from this little group of movies (although, really, she is no fan of any movie or show that depicts anyone preying on women or children). I can't really blame her, either. I mean, if ruthlessly torturing, maiming, violating and, finally, disembowling naked teenagers in the most graphic ways possible is the future of the genre, I don't see myself partaking in the ol' cinema scare much in the days to come. I like a good scare just as much as the next guy, and I have a pretty high tolerance for graphic stuff, but these movies are usually just too much to stomach.

I guess my problem with these movies are the same with many of the slasher flicks I grew up with in the '80s. Elaborate, or even not-so-elaborate, set pieces with no story or substance just makes for a stupid movie. If any of the above movies had any truly redeeming qualities, I would probably give them a reprieve. Mostly, though, they remain as appealing to me as curdled milk.

Onwards and upwards!

mike