The last few days of December and the first few weeks of January usually consists of looking back at the year in movies and determining which ones were the best (and the worse), then taking the initiative to see the films you haven’t seen that topped everyone else’s list. In horror, it was a tough year to select the best films because, unlike other year, 2010 was chock-full of mediocre (or downright bad) movies and not a ton of quality ones. However, the film which made it to just about everyone’s top horror flicks of 2010 list was… Matt Reeves’ LET ME IN, the remake of the 2008 Swedish flick LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. And even though it was released in October theatrically (prime horror movie season), the film pretty much bombed at the box office… and yet so many other crappy films made a shit-ton more money. What up with that???
Hammer Films came out of retirement to produce and distribute LET ME IN, and do you know the thanks they got for it? $12M—that’s its full theatrical take, a measly $12M. The film cranked out some fine performances from Kodi Smit-McPhee and Chloe Moretz, and delivered a fine vampire flick full of love, friendship, and satisfactory revenge. It might have been a remake, but it was a remake that somehow managed to capture the same magic that made the original awesome, and (in some ways) was superior to the original. This right here makes me start drinking—people have been complaining about pussy vampires that sparkle for years now, and yet when a quality vampire movie comes out, no one goes to see it! And since making movies is a business, there’s no way we can expect to see more quality vampire flicks… because it’s been proven that quality vampire flicks don’t make any f*ckin’ money!
Now that I’m nice and sauced right now, let’s look at some of the horror flicks hat came out in 2010 that were more financially lucrative (i.e., what flicks made more money) than LET ME IN. Hold on to your butts, folks, it’s gonna be a long ride: CASE 39 ($13M), MY SOUL TO TAKE ($14M), SKYLINE ($21M), VAMPIRES SUCK ($36M), LEGION ($40M), SAW 3D ($45M), RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE ($60M), THE WOLFMAN ($61M), A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET ($63M), PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 ($84M), and THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE ($300M).
OK, so those were the bad horror flicks that made more than LET ME IN, flicks that sucked on just about every level, and flicks that made it on a number of Worst Horror of 2010 lists by critics and moviegoers alike. And before you go calling the rating card, the majority of those films with the exception of about four of them, were rated R. That’s 11 horror (or vampire) movies that did better at the box office than LET ME IN. And you wonder why shit is released in theaters every year? Because it’s shit that makes the big bucks, yo! And who’s to blame for this? You, me, and everyone else. Which is f*ckin’ hilarious, because you, me, and everyone else are the ones complaining every week about the amount of shitting movies being released. Yet, when a quality flick is released… no one goes to see it. What the shit??
Goddamnit, now I’m hammered. But not all is wrong with the world. There were a number of quality horror flicks that made more dough than LET ME IN, like… SPLICE ($17M), PIRANHA 3D ($25M), DAYBREAKERS ($30M), DEVIL ($33M), THE CRAZIES ($39M), THE LAST EXORCISM ($41M), and SHUTTER ISLAND ($128M). Damn, yo, that list isn’t nearly as impressive as the first one, which I guess proves my point: not nearly enough people support quality horror flicks because they’re too busy supporting crappy horror. And you know what? That shit needs to stop.
Maybe it’s the booze talkin’ (it is), but it’s time for you, me, and everyone else to start supporting quality horror flicks and stop supporting the shitty ones. And what better way to start this endeavor than to pick up a copy of LET ME IN, which hits DVD and Blu-ray on February 1st. Make up for your error in judgment when you skipped it in theaters and dive into the film at home. Home video can breathe life back into films that die horrible deaths at the box office, which means that all is not lost, there’s still hope that studios will want to green light quality horror flicks because they know that it will make its money eventually. But home video doesn’t speak as loudly as the box office, so don’t take this as a ticket to wait for video for every quality flick released. Make a difference in 2011 by putting forth the effort to see quality horror flicks in the theater (and leave the trash at the curb where it belongs).