Horror & Exploitation is Bursting Out All Over
Horror & Exploitation is Bursting Out All Over
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Legendary film critic, historian, and screenwriter of one of the most audacious exploitation films ever (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls), Roger Ebert, has recently and notoriously written an essay decrying today's 3D craze… so, I won't repeat his sage, if perhaps old fogeyish, sentiments here. [You can read the article Why I Hate 3D at the Newsweek website]
3D is hardly anything new to we horror hounds (from Vincent Price in The House of Wax, to Andy Warhol's Flesh for Frankenstein, to Freddy and Jason and all them), but thanks to mainstream films like Avatar it's got cache (not to mention lots and lots of cash). Headache prone me, I'm not wild about 3D… Though admittedly I have been pleasantly surprised on occasion, particularly when it comes to genre pics — I gladly donned the unfashionable goggles not once, but twice, for My Bloody Valentine in 3D — but usually when I hear of famous directors (hi, Marty) catapulting themselves onto the "gree-D" bandwagon, I don't think they are doing it for artistic reasons. I think they must have alimony payments to rival Mel Gibson's (hey, there's an idea for Mel: The Dimension of the Christ).
If the glee over 3D isn't pervasive enough in Hollywood, it appears to be going globally viral. News out of Cannes proclaims Italy's master of suspense and horror, director Dario Argento, has also staked his claim on the medium. Argento announced that his next project, a period-era Dracula saga, will be multi-dimensional. The maestro himself is writing the script, and he plans on presenting a reverent adaptation of the Bram Stoker tale. Another infamous Italian filmmaker, soft-porn helmer Tinto Brass, is doing it too. Brass's body of work includes directing the Bob "Penthouse" Guccione cult classic Caligula starring Malcolm McDowell as the depraved Roman emperor. His follow-up, Who Killed Caligula?, will be a (this time intentionally) comic take on the decadent tale of decadence and debauchery. Both directors will be filming in English.
Piranha 3D seems tailor made for the craze, while other horror films, such as Resident Evil 4 (I actually got to see that one being filmed and found it novel to be sitting at "video village" donning the glasses and watching the monitors as it was being shot in 3D), probably won't benefit from it. No doubt Alice kicking zombie-dog ass in three dimensions will be cool, but… necessary? Doubtful.
Will it last? Who knows? Variety recently published a very in-depth essay which dug into its own old archives and quoted stories from the fifties. "That bit of analysis led an article in the Jan. 21, 1953, issue of Variety, under the headline '3-D Activity Just a Renewal of an Old Interest; 4 Majors Probing Production,' on the same page as the news that Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift had been cast in From Here to Eternity.
"That's right, even in 1953 stereoscopic 3D (S3D) was considered an old technology. In 1936, it turns out, MGM had released some novelty shorts in red-blue anaglyph 3D, not unlike what was used in the 1970s and '80s. And while Variety remembered that 'reaction then, too, was enthusiastic,' the experiment hadn't led anywhere.
"According to the same story, by that time 3D without glasses, what we now call "autostereo," had already been demonstrated in Europe. What's uncanny about Variety's coverage of the 1953 S3D boom is how much that period parallels this one. Auds flocked to S3D pics and bizzers wondered if 3D would replace 2D just as sound drove out silents. In fact, Variety reported, 2D pictures were starting to be called flats.
"Then, as now, the industry was exploring not just S3D, but larger screens. Then it was Cinerama and VistaVision, now it's Imax -- but at the time, Cinerama was touted as 'a three-dimensional illusion process requiring no glasses.' Today, we'd simply call it immersive.
"Harry M. Warner took the Jeffrey Katzenberg role, predicting 'everything will be in 3D in two years'."
2010 - 2012 3D Slate & In Development (horror and darker titles in bold)
A Monster in Paris
Alice in Wonderland
Alpha and Omega
Alvin and the Chipmunks 3D
Arthur Christmas
Beauty and the Beast
Brave
Burst
Cars 2
Cats & Dogs: the Revenge of Kitty Galore
Clash of the Titans
Cowboys From Hell
Dario Argento's Dracula
Dawn of the Dead 3D
Despicable Me
Drive Angry
Godzilla
Happy Feet 2 in 3D
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Hellraiser 3D
Hidden
Hotel Transylvania
How to Train Your Dragon
Humpty Dumpty 3D
Jackass 3D
Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3D
Kung Fu Panda: the Kaboom of Doom
Legend of the Guardians
Madagascar 3
MegaMind
Men in Black 3
Moomins and the Comet Chase
Newt
Piranha 3-D
Priest
Puppetmaster
Puss in Boots
Re-Animator
Relentless
Resident Evil: Afterlife
Rio
Sanctum
Saw VII
Scanners
Shrek Forever After
Smurfs 3D
Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World
Step Up 3D
Stretch Armstrong
Sucker Punch!
Tangled
The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn
The Cabin in the Woods
The Child's Eye
The Croods
The Gate
The Hole
The Green Hornet
The Green Lantern
The Guardians
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
The Last Airbender
Toy Story 3
Tron Legacy
Underworld 4
Untitled Batman
Untitled Spider-man
XXX: the Return of Xander Cage
Yogi Bear