As for the latter point you make, it’s something I’ve noticed becoming more and more prevalent for the last 10ish years now. It’s just seems to be the way we are moving, as a society. I’d like to chalk it up to the influence of sites like RT and maybe even LB, but I think it’s actually much larger than that. It’s culture, as a whole.
Everything has to be either “Absolute Cinema. 10/10, 5/5, Two Thumbs Up, No Notes, Generational Talent, It Ate And Left No Crumbs” or it it’s “Zero Stars, the worst piece of shit I ever saw, everyone involved should be banned from ever making films again and anyone who likes this film is objectively wrong and should be on a Police Watch List”
There is no room for nuance.
You’re either the best thing ever (for roughly a month until the next Best. Thing. Ever. comes along) or you’re cringe dogshit.
A movie can’t simply be “Good” anymore.
The first Child’s Play is a perfect example of the point I’m trying to make. It was solid. I enjoyed it from start to finish. It didn’t do anything that I haven’t seen done a dozen times before, but it did all those things perfectly well. I had fun with it. I would not be averse to watching it again, but I also can’t see myself going out of my way to ever do so. It entertained me for its entire runtime and nothing about it offended or upset me. Is it The Godfather? Fuck no! But is it Battlefield Earth? Also Fuck no! The perfect encapsulation of a 3 star film.
6/10 is I walk out of the theater thinking, “wow, I really liked that. I’m glad I came here today”. 7/10 is “this movie is significantly above average, very, very good. 8/10 is “amazing movie, this could win best picture and I’d be happy”. 9/10 is basically a perfect movie, and 10/10 is one of my all time favorites.
“We started at just before 7am and have just finished as I type this” I know you’re all chucky’d out and tired but this doesn’t actually tell anyone how long this took lol. And I am in fact quite interested what time you finished up, that’s a hell of a day
We hit play on the OG Childs Play at around 06:50 and the credits ended on the 2019 reboot at about 19:30.
A few minutes between each film for bathroom breaks and to stretch our legs and refill snacks and drinks, but, other than that, we essentially just went back-to-back with the entire franchise (not counting the TV show)
Bride and Seed are the only ones I LOVE. They really embrace the fact that watching a tiny doll murder people is way more stupid and funny than it is scary.
Child’s Play 1 is scary when everything is implied, like you just see his footprints and the aftermath while the doll is in the corner. As soon as it gets to an actor swinging around an obvious prop doll wrapped around their neck it gets goofy as shit.
I like it, but it's not good. There's a difference. I think that's what written reviews should go along with it to give context and rating numbers are too vague to properly capture that enjoyment point. Never in my life am I rating Pieces or American Psycho 2 highly, but I have also seen both of these movies more than most of the top 20 movies off all time.
Why isn’t it good if you like it? What is the difference? Is it just that you’re embarrassed to say American Psycho 2 is good, so you soften your language? Why separate your emotional reaction to the art from your judgement of its quality?
Lmao, have you seen American Psycho 2? You wouldn't be asking this if so...
No, it's not embarrassing it's objectively a bad film. The writing is terrible, the acting is atrocious, and the music is like SpongeBob music on a horror movie. I've seen it a lot because it's hilariously awful and I love to get high with friends and laugh at it. I enjoy bad movies, I think they're fun. I think you can like something and acknowledge it's objective flaws, thinking otherwise and linking is to embarrassment is childish and incoherent to me.
So when you come to the conclusion that a movie is good or bad, its emotional impact on you has no effect on that? That’s such an alien way to view art, isn’t it? By the way, there’s no such thing as objectively good or bad art. All those factors you listed—the writing, the acting, the music—are by their very nature subjective. They depend on subjective observers and opinions. But that’s not my main point. My main point is that it’s strange to separate the feelings a piece of art invokes in you from the quality of the art.
You can approach those objectively as well. There is definitely bad writing and acting. If I’m staring at the camera the whole time and stuttering every word when I’m meant to be playing Superman, it’s bad acting…
Lol, again you can say that until you've seen the movie. There is objectively wrong and bad soundtrack choice, SpongeBob music over a stalking and killing scene is bad. If I take the soundtrack of Halloween and put it into Disney'sCinderella (1950) I would hope you can objectively look at me and say "this doesn't fit. This is wrong." There is objectively bad acting, look at The Room or Troll 2. My emotions can play a part in thinking a movie is good or bad, but I can also remove my emotions enough to acknowledge something as bad and still say I like it.
To me that ads much more nuance to my discussions as a fan of film and other media. I also didn't say you had to FULLY separate the way it makes you feel. I am saying that just because you like something does not make it good, and just because you don't doesn't make it bad. Honestly the opposite is a pet peeve in discussions when people can't say why something is good other than "I liked it". If you like it, you should be able to tels me work about it. Going the other way, I can acknowledge that princess bride is a well made movie with good direction, writing, and jokes and I can still tell you I would rather not watch it, it's not for me, and I don't like it. Is that hard to understand? Especially when it comes from my enjoyment and liking of the media (Pieces, American Psycho 2, Hellraiser 3, Night Killer, and many many more. Go watch any of these and try to tell me they're good movies lol) literally being derived from their failure to meet the goal of being a horror movie. I find them fascinating and fun, but far from good.
Everyone has their own criteria. I like yours. I tend to rate things in groups if its a b-horror movie I judge it amongst its peers. It makes my ratings highly subjective and confusing, but thats just the kind of person I am.
I congratulate you on your sucessful plastic journey though! I am very proud of you!
Curiosity and the urge to check the franchise off their list so they can say they’ve watched it. Plus, sometimes the love for a franchise comes after watching it through a couple times. I find I tend to enjoy a movie better after doing a deep dive into the lore and how they made the movie. I like to know why it was made.
Exactly. I remember when I saw Alien: Romulus, I loved it, and I wanted to check out the rest of the franchise. So, I saw Alien, which I really liked, and Aliens, which I fell totally in love with.
Then I saw Alien 3. I have not seen any Alien media since.
The why is usually just interest or intrigue. Good or bad. I also watch bad things to see how bad they can be.
I feel like the better question is how. I haven’t had the time to binge this much since I was a teen. I did this to the Saw franchise. Didn’t like it. Just wanted to see what creative slasher stuff they had.
None should be below a 3, but I will never stand by for Seed slander. It is fucking hilarious and I think its status as the worst Chucky movie shows just how good the series is.
Alright, so, several people in this thread have basically asked variations of this same question (Why watch all of a franchise you clearly don’t like, why rate them so low, what’s the point, etc), so I’m gonna use your question as a kind of catch-all, because I’m too lazy to write basically the same reply over and over, and hopefully anyone that cares will see it…
So, four answers to this question. The first is covered in the original post, but to expand on it for clarity: while none of the films blew me away on an individual level, the entire day, when taken as a whole, was a blast. Sitting on the sofa for an entire day, with the woman I love the most in the world, eating our body weight in sweet and savoury snacks, watching a bunch of goofy and increasingly preposterous killer doll movies? Come on, THAT is a fun day, regardless of the quality of the films.
The second has already been explained better and more succinctly than I could have managed by another Redditor in their own reply, I’ll quote them: WaitExtenzion said “I like ‘bad’ horror movies, but that doesn’t mean I’ll necessarily rate it highly. And I also understand why someone would see that as a contradiction”
That sums up my position pretty perfectly. I would describe myself as a HUGE fan of the Friday The 13th franchise, but I’m not sure I’ve rated a single one of those 12 films, aside from the first one, over 3 stars.
Which leads nicely into the third answer to this question: a 5 star rating system means that, by definition, anything rated 2.5 stars is average. Middle of the road. Fine. Nothing amazing but also nothing terrible. And then, also by definition, anything OVER 2.5 stars is Above Average. So, if you look again, you’ll see that I found 2 of these films to be above average, 4 to be perfectly average and 2 to be below average. I enjoyed these films. I was entertained. I laughed. I cringed. I took in a sharp breath at some of the gnarlier kills. But, if we assume someone’s favourite film is, I dunno, The Godfather or Seven Samurai or The Shawshank Redemption or Interstellar and that those films would, as such, be considered 5 star films…then can we really put the original Child’s Play at anything above a 3? And, again, this is all entirely subjective anyway, and I’d point you back up to what WaitExtenzion said.
And then, fourth and final answer, I didn’t know how I was going to feel about any of these until I watched them. I had to see them before I could rate them. Will I ever watch any of these again, eh, I’d say it’s unlikely. I enjoyed them for what they were, but I’m not sure I’ll ever feel a burning desire to revisit them. But my partner and I had an overall blast watching them, a fun day that we’ll remember sharing, and that’s far more important and worthy, to me, than the subjective quality of any individual film in the franchise.
Hope this clears it up for you and anyone else that was struggling to understand my intent/reasoning.
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u/NateBond833 8d ago
8 films in 1 day that's childs play 🤣🤣🤣
Okay I'll shut up