B Movies

6 March 2017

While I'm not a huge fan of scary movies, I have, on occasion watched a few . . . the storyline and character development must be superior for me to even consider sitting through something that will ultimately terrorize me . . . make me lose sleep for days or weeks . . . months even!

Here are a couple of movies I consider "scary" that I've actually watched . . . and appreciated:

• The Sixth Sense (brilliant story, twisted ending, the Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osmet characters are well developed)
• The Silence of the Lambs (superior character development, Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins are over the top in their "relationship")
• Seven (wicked cool, Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman are just cool)
• Kill Bill (couldn't look away, kind of a cool movie, Uma Thurman and David Carradine are brilliant)
• Jaws (no explanation . . . scared the living hell out of me . . . still watch it when it comes on for some weird reason . . . still terrorizes me)

Scary B Movies, on the other hand . . . well, I have no idea why I can sit through them . . . probably because they are so extremely absurd! I especially like the ones where someone dumps an animal into the sewers . . . the animals eat some discarded laboratory rat . . . the animal grows to larger than life proportions and attacks the city! Disturbing, I know . . . 

Obviously alligators and crocodiles figure heavily into that story line.

Then along came the Sharknado movies . . . I think they made like 5 of them . . . where hurricanes and tornadoes somehow carry man-eating sharks into the cities where they then terrorize and eat the people!

Can't forget the cross-breed movies: Dinocroc vs Supergator and Sharktopus . . . those are some real winners!

So what's a B Movie? They're low budget, non arthouse films that generally star people who are either unknown in Hollywood (those more well-known actors are typically referred to as A-Listers) . . . allowing them exposure while polishing themselves in their craft . . . or offering continuing employment to actors who may be waning in their careers.

They were extremely popular until the 1950s, but by the 1990's the cost of production contributed to their decline. I've seen a real resurgence over the past few years . . . but the movies are now mostly made for TV and not shown in theatres at all.

A few movies from the 1950s have continued to scare the wits out of me though: The Blob, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I seriously doubt I'll ever be able to watch those movies again!