Open Thread: Children, Wake Up!

If things have been generally subdued here at the site for the past two weeks, that's probably a byproduct of the sluggish trend the film industry has fallen into this year. Everything about this year thus far screams of a sort of sedation and lack of enthusiasm, so much that it makes me question the overall happiness of people these days. No film this year has opened higher than $40 million over the weekend, something that should be remedied this weekend by either the child skewing Rio or the horror genre parody Scream 4. Are audiences really just tired with the theatrical experience, or is it just that there's nothing worth seeing out there? I'd very much like to believe the latter, but seeing as Hop is getting higher numbers than Source Code, we could throw that idea out the window.

Interestingly enough, Hanna seems to be playing better with audiences than I expected it would. The theater I went to see Joe Wright's art house feature in was skewing more towards the younger demographic than one would expect. I'm not just talking about teens and such, but there were young children in the audience, of course accompanied by their parents. It's almost as if they were begging to be observed for their reactions in this really frightening action piece. It actually reminded me an awful lot of Coraline in 2009, filled with kids who weren't expecting a terrifying experience when they initially sat down.

The older demographic's response to Hanna was one of unmitigated shock, and it's something that's completely understandable. I'm not sure if you noticed, but Hanna is an absolutely terrible role model for children. She murders people at the drop of the hat, showing little remorse for her actions afterwords. Obviously, I understand that there's more to Saoirse Ronan's character and performance than that narrow description allows for. It's one of the many things that makes the film brilliant, how varying she is in her emotions of love, happiness, fear, anger, ambition, and apathy. All the same, you could excuse the parents for dragging their kids screaming out of the theater some time before the end.

Teaser Trailer: Scream 4

This is probably the only iconic horror franchise left that I haven't seen yet, though I've heard great things about it. Wes Craven has definitely lost some of his spark with the years, and no film represents that better than his recent release, My Soul to Take. I'm not at all sure what to think of this film, but the trailer for Scream 4 (or Scre4m) looks nice enough to follow to release. Check it out below and comment on your own opinions.