Good and Bad?

“Haunts” --- oooooh, stupid people doing stupid things.

“Syriana” --- oooooh, smart people doing stupid things involving oil and money.

You really can’t get too films that are nearly direct opposites.

“Syriana” was excellent but a film that I wonder how it got made. Again, we’re looking at a very interesting award winning film (WITH TORTURE!) and some big stars but no real discernible plot, nothing REMOTELY “High Concept” (write to me if you want to know what that is), filmed in foreign countries with oodles of subtitles and complex story lines. And Clooney “slumming” it for an Oscar (see Charlize Theron in Monster). Great film but, again, a film that breaks the mould when it comes to what makes a “successful” film and/or successful film-going experience.

“Haunts” is just, well, stupid. Hot blond women, with Swedish accent, with some sort of “past” is haunted by some guy who kills people with…wait for it…SCISSORS! Yes, if I want to murder someone I’m certainly going to do it with scissors. Well, she’s threatened and raped by this guy with scissors but it looks like there’s another guy who’s killing with scissors (what a co-ink-a-dink! Did they start a club? Get drunk one night and find two pairs of scissors?). I’m over an hour through the film and one has been killed and the other is, I think, hiding out. What I find unintentionally hilarious is that the woman has been attacked, she’s found a dead friend in a chicken coop, but she STILL goes out at night, in the dark, alone.

Hmmm. Idiot?