Against The Crowd Blogathon 2020

 

The wonderful Dell over at Dell on Movies is back with his annual summer Against The Crowd Blogathon! I've participated in this every year, and it's always a fun post to write. This year it snuck up on me though. Where did August go? It's not like I've been doing anything.

As always, here are the rules:

Pick one movie “everyone” loves (the more iconic, the better). That movie must have score of 75% or more on rottentomatoes.com (or at least 7.5 on imdb.com). Tell us why you hate it.

Pick one movie that “everyone” hates (the more notorious, the better). That movie must have a score of 35% or less on rottentomatoes.com (or 4.0 or less on imdb.com). Tell us why you love it.

Include the tomato meter scores of both movies.

Use one of the banners in this post, or feel free to create your own (just include all the pertinent details), or just mention this blogathon if using an audio or visual medium.

Let us know what two movies you intend on writing, vlogging, posting, or podcasting about in one of the following ways: Comment on this or any ACB 2020 post on this site, tweet me @w_ott3, or e-mail me at dellott@yahoo.com.

Publish your post on any day from Friday, August 21 through Sunday, August 23, 2020, and include a link to this announcement. If you’re a podcaster or YouTuber that is interested in participating just talk about your chosen movies during your closest podcast and/or video to those dates and mention that you are taking part in this blogathon.

If posting on social media, use the hashtag #AgainstTheCrowd2020

If there's one thing I've over-achieved on during this pandemic, it's watching my entire 2020 Blind Spot list early, I've even cracked into my prelim 2021, so the oldies have been on my mind. Then it came to my attention that the one I hated the most this year, and who currently has the worst letter grade out of any Blind Spot I watched has a whopping 93% certified fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.. Now I must ask myself why...

Folks, this movie is hot misogynistic garbage. And that's saying something for 80's horror when the prerequisite was apparently "boobs." No, instead of some random teenage sex scenes like all the rest, we're treated to a main character who hates women to a distractingly obtuse level (She's looking for her cat I killed? That BITCH) and an extremely graphic and unnecessary rape scene involving the only woman in the movie with more than three lines. I had an epiphany watching this. It makes TOTAL sense that the sleaziest character in American Beauty would describe a rape scene so flippantly. I hate it. I wanted camp and body horror, I did not sign up for the rest of this bullshit. On top of that, the pacing is awful so when I wasn't completely hating it, I was bored. 

I'm not even sorry I hate this. Why is it so high? What did I miss? 

Since we're on the subject of women in horror. Let's talk about a film where women are the main focus...

I know Silent Hill starts off pretty questionably with young Jodelle Ferland screaming "SILENT HIIILLL" like she's going down a roller coaster instead of waking up from a bad dream, BUT this movie is legitimately creepy. I'd argue it's one of the best movies based on a video game out there. Even with a run time of over two hours, it builds the mood enough where you're constantly on edge as you watch Rose and Cybil walk through hell knowing all the dangers lurking. While this film also references a sexual assault, it's done off screen in a flashback and we see how Alessa has chosen the perpetrator's punishment. It's not reveled in the way Re-animator chooses to show theirs. Silent Hill may not be perfect but it does all the things we ask a horror film to do. It makes us squirm, builds a scary atmosphere and gives us leads that we can truly root for. 

Thank you as always, Dell for hosting! Tell me what you think of my picks? Are you with the crowd or with me against them?