Film | by Shane “Liefeld Neck” Hnetka
Wow, a year goes by fast. It’s almost time for another month of horror movies. Every October since 2009, I’ve spent the month blogging about horror movies at prairiedogmag.com. Now it’s that time again — but what’s my theme this year? Glad you asked.
AIIIEEEEE!!! CANADA
In the eight years I’ve done this I’ve written about monster movies, thrillers, classic horror films, B-movies and sci-fi horror flicks (that one was hard), among other topics. You would think after all this time I’d have run out of horror movies to write about … but strangely, I haven’t.
Which brings us to this year’s theme: in honour of the country’s 150th anniversary, it’s going to be Aiiieeeee!!! Canada: 31 Days of Horror.
I briefly touched on Canada’s spooky cinema in “Around the World in 31 Days of Horror”, but this year I’m going to look at 31 of the Canadian film industry’s best horror efforts. With so many co-productions, it’s a little tough to determine what is and isn’t a purely Canadian horror movie, so I’ve decided that these movies need to have been made in Canada, but not necessarily with a Canadian director (although that’s preferred).
There’s a lot to choose from, but as with most genres there is a lot of crap, so I’ll avoid that. And as awesome as David Cronenberg is, I’m gonna ignore his movies. Too easy.
Okay, well, maybe there will be a few…
Something Wrong With The Picture
Bad photoshopping has sadly become the norm for movie posters. They’ve got floating heads, heads on other bodies, obvious airbrushing, and other atrocities.
The latest example of sloppy work is the first poster for the new Tomb Raider. Actress Alicia Vikander (Lara Croft) is standing in water with her back to the viewer but somehow her head has turned so you can see her face (this pose is a popular trend right now with movie posters). The more you look at the poster, the more you realize that there’s something really wrong with her neck. It’s like a horse’s neck, or maybe a duck’s. Human necks don’t bend like the neck in the poster.. For all the money Hollywood spends on marketing, you’d think they could make movie posters that don’t make stars look like they have broken necks.
I miss the old days when studios would have actual artists draw and design really cool-looking movie posters. Column for another day.
Shane Hnetka is a made-in-Saskatchewan film and comic book nerd.