Hollywood Gothique
LA Cinema Gothique

Revenge of the Quote Whores: The Descent Edition

I hate “Quote Whores” – that is, reviewers who ladle on superlatives in the hope of being quotes in advertisements. Obviously, everybody has a right to express their opinion, but sometimes it is downright ridiculous.

What brings on this thought is the ads I’ve been seeing around the Web for an upcoming thriller called THE DESCENT, which feature this quote from JoBlo.Com: “The best horror-thriller since ALIEN.”

Now there are two things I’m willing to bet about this: of the first I’m absolutely confident; of the second, slightly less so.

  1. THE DESCENT is not the best horror-thriller since ALIEN.
  2. Not even the folks at JoBlo believe it is.

As to the first point, here is just a brief list of some of the great horror-thriller in the years since ALIEN: ALIENS (to begin with the obvious), THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE, THE EVIL DEAD 2, THE EYE, THE FLY, JU-ON: THE GRUDGE, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, THE OTHERS, PHONE, RE-ANIMATOR, RING, THE SHINING, SIGNS, THE SIXTH SENSE, TENEBRE, etc.

As to the second point, the folks at JoBlo are as aware of these titles as I am. You don’t have to like every one of them; my point is only that it’s hard to take anyone seriously who sings such hymns of praise to THE DESCENT, when even a casual, off-the-top-of-my-head reckoning delivers up over a dozen great films (and many, many others, depending on your taste and your definition of horror) that need to be bested in order for THE DESCENT to earn this praise.

Of course, who knows? After seeing the DESCENT, I could be eating these words. But somehow, I doubt it.