Well 2012 is winding down and I don’t know about you but I’m sad to see it go. It’s been a good year. (So-so with the predictions, but me personally? I’m good.) We end the year with a buzz (of a chainsaw) as some kids head back down to Texas for a little reunion with Leatherface.
Just remember, I'm not reviewing these movies, but rather predicting where they'll end up on the Tomatometer. Let's take a look at what This Rotten Week has to offer.
Texas Chainsaw 3D
We’ve been through lazy horror movie writing with this recent fill in the blank strategy. Go back and check it out. It could have just been the first paragraph for Texas Chainsaw 3D. No one is reinventing the wheel with this new piece of garbage. No, instead I’d like to focus on the crew assembled to dump out this movie.
I imagine director John Luessenhop saying to himself, “Look, I’m an in demand guy. I’ve given the people classics like Takers (27%) and Lockdown (57%). For my next project I need to assemble a dream team.” So who does he go out and get? Writer Adam Marcus for starters. If you’re not a movie buff like me you may not have heard of the dude. His resume is nothing short of spectacular. For starters there’s 1993’s Jason Goes to Hell (27%). Then he takes an eight year “break” penning and preparing to direct Let it Snow (53%). Then it’s another sabbatical, this time for seven years, in order to prepare Conspiracy (only two reviews, one in which Richard Roeper claims “It’s beyond dreadful. It’s jaw-droppingly bad...”).
Of course Marcus comes with co-writer Debra Sullivan, and to pitch in on the story he picks up Stephen Suscoe--who knows his way around a horror with The Grudge one and two (40% and 10% respectively)-- and Kristen Elms (no real credits). Talk about Dream Team.
They’ve all united to continue the story of Leatherface and his completely inefficient, though no less effective, style of hacking folks to pieces with an American made Poulan 306a. And maybe they make it look like the chainsaw’s coming through the screen and tearing apart your theater mate? Go for it. Obviously, this movie will be terrible. It’s released in a down week, with a bad crew, in an overdone franchise and with all the horror conventions you’ve come to expect. The Rotten Watch for Texas Chainsaw 3D is 14%
This poll is no longer available.
Recapping last week and the last year:
Let’s quickly look at three wins from last week.
Django Unchained (Predicted: 90% Actual: 89%)
Les Miserables (Predicted: 70% Actual: 71%)
Parental Guidance (Predicted: 19% Actual: 17%)
A strong showing and helped me get over 50% for the year in quality predictions. Speaking of 2012, how about The Rotten Year in Review?
?Wish I could say this year provided a stark improvement over 2011, and I’ve lied about a fair amount of things in this column. But this is one I just can’t tell. 2012 was almost an exact match of last year. Scarily so. Let’s take a look at the numbers:
I made predictions on 126 movies (111 in 2011). Sixty-four or 51% of those predictions fell within ten percent (51% in 2011). Some of those movies I had head starts on for sure-- that is to be expected in the world of early reviews/ festivals/ etc. Another twenty predictions fell within thirteen percent, qualifying them as near, near misses. That takes the predictions up to 67% in the close or very close range. (68% in 2011). See what I mean? These numbers are almost exact matches. I’m no economist. But I’m sure someone out there can interpret these results to mean something. (Please make sure your analysis is only positive/ praise-worthy. Forget the negative people, it’s a new year.)
My favorite write-ups for the year were Chasing Mavericks in which I go surfer brah for a couple of paragraphs, The Raven and my poet side, and waxing nostalgic on American Reunion.
I got plenty of predictions wrong along the way, but a few represented legitimate shocks to my prediction system. The Three Stooges (Predicted: 9% Actual: 52%), Magic Mike (Predicted: 49% Actual: 80%), Premium Rush (Predicted: 29% Actual 75%), and Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (Predicted: 28%, Actual: 48%).
The biggest miss of the year was Nitro Circus (Predicted: 61% Actual: 6%).
And then finally, as I looked back at the year, there were three movies I just completely forgot were even made. Even after looking at the title, I had to go back and do a quick Cinema Blend search to remember what the movie could have even been about. Those were Safe (Predicted: 31% Actual: 57%), The Vow (Predicted: 44% Actual: 29%) and Big Miracle (Predicted: 34% Actual: 74%). These weren’t necessarily bad movies, just completely forgettable to me.
It’s been a good year everyone. Thanks for reading, keeping me honest in the comments, voting in the polls, throwing up a Facebook opinion and just for clicking through here every week.
Next time around it’s squads of gangsters and haunted houses. It’s going to be a Rotten Year!
