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Recently, I've been disappointed by several so-called "thrillers".
The string of boring thrillers began, as far as I can trace
it, with "The Mummy".
Next came "The Haunting", then "Lake Placid", closely followed
by "The Blair
Witch Project".
The newest addition to this list is "The Sixth Sense". Chalk
up another one to Hollywood's evident opinion that moviegoers
are, for the most part, a nervous, paranoid lot of wimps who
will freak at the slightest scare in a movie. They must think
the entire thriller -movie-going population needs nerve pills.
Bruce Willis stars as Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist. Early
in the film, he is shot by a former patient whom he obviously
failed to help. About a year later, he takes on a new patient
- a little boy remarkably similar to the patient who shot him.
It seems the kid sees dead people - ghosts if you will- walking
around, and is able to communicate with them.
Willis is a talented actor, but if he thinks wearing the same
pained expression through the whole movie makes him look like
a caring doctor, he's wrong. He just looks like someone doing
an antacid commercial.
"The Sixth Sense" isn't hopeless though. While slow moving,
the plot does have a somewhat surprising end - some people will
undoubtedly be shocked. "The Sixth Sense" plays more as a romance-drama
type film than a thriller, however. This makes it yet another
movie that was marketed badly.
I think I've identified a link between all these thrillers that
don't thrill. All five films mentioned are either PG-13 or rated
R only for language, not violence or gore. I'm not saying that
a film needs buckets of blood or overdone, cheesy special effects
to be thrilling, but I think too many movies are being "tamed
down" these days. Producers targeting teen audiences realize
that they'll make more money if their film is rated PG-13. And
it doesn't help that the film industry has been cracking down
so ridiculously hard on R rated films (carding at the movie
theatre is insanity).
The result is more movies like "The Sixth Sense": softened versions
of potentially exhilarating horror films that fall flat. Sometimes,
it takes a little justifiable blood and gore, violence, or other
horror effects to make a movie gripping. And if a "thriller"
doesn't fulfill its promise of suspense, thrills, or chills,
I feel cheated.
My rating: 2 stars
Rating : Rated PG-13 (For intense thematic material and violent images)
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