BYE BYE ... UNDERWORLD

These days we got so many options at the movies that we have to choose carefully what to watch, specially around this season when we get all this award winning options that not just bring incredible stories but terrific performances or perspectives from visionary directors. So that would give us plenty of material to talk about but not always what seems good in paper works out. Sometimes something fails in the process leading it's final product to the editing room or a second writing for a better ending. And as we know we are not perfect so neither it is any industry. And entertainment has become huge since globalization and the fascination of us for celebrities and fame is bringing to the industry millions so now everyone wants a piece of the cake but is not all about entertain. Wall people are turned into and hooked by is the story, and the characters on it, the setting, even if it's fiction or not, has to be a good, fun product to justify what is behind it, but if you try to be creative and bring interesting, worthy options to the table becomes a hard peace to keep on with so at some point the quality will be poor or will turn into just the revenue instead of the art or the real intention of the story just to make more money from it. So when a formula works, why not to explode the idea so these days we are all about franchises, remakes, reboots, and very small room for originals. And even worse, now we are getting to a point where we are smashing up ideas delivering a product that feels like a hybrid from other experiences we've already seen, and that's exactly where and what takes us to this time as this month we got to perfect examples to the point and sadly with horrible results.

 The first one is the perfect example of how turn an original idea into a franchise and try to squeeze t's already poor plot into whatever might fill up 90 minutes of violence and action sequence serving no story and character develop. "Underworld: Blood Wars" (2017), is the fifth entry of these series about a millennial war between vampires and werewolves. The story started with Selene a vampire warrior chasing the werewolves new victim, a human that might become the first hybrid between the two species, just to fall for him and together start a new fight, on the independent side against both species realizing neither of them has a true reason to keep fighting each other but that seek of power and triumph. A story that uses its fascination for monsters and that underworld to relate our now days where still see people fighting among races, ideologies, believes, territory, natural resources just to benefit a few and killing thousands in the process. Packed with decent action sequences and a setting dark and old from Eastern  Europe and far from the glowing sunshine land of America, was an option that built a fan base among the years, giving it a green line for a sequel that brought more money than the original, so why not keep those green bills coming? Even if that means sacrifice the originality because there is no much more to tell. So now we get to see four sequels that have been a war that goes on and off with new characters on the table just to struggle with the issues from the characters of the first movie.

So what we get know, in this new entry of the this franchise feels more like a clash of GAME OF THRONES meets TWILIGHT, where our heroine Selene keeps fighting the werewolf pack as they are chasing her to get her daughter, the only hybrid alive since they kill the man she loved once, so now with the help of the only ancient one (a vampire coming from the line of the original ones), which happens to be young and sexy, and willing to sacrifice everything for her, now she debates between the memory of her love for a werewolf and vampires, just to end being chase by another clan of vampires that want her blood, as been proved to be a special one, able to walk in daylight and stronger than the average. So these two know have to hide from both species, again, for the fifth time, but now with another loyal ancient clan of vampires that are more pacifist than the rest and are hiding in the top of a ridge, an iced one, just exactly as the the withe wall from the Westeros, with it's inhabitants wearing big flurry coats and long white hair, preaching peace and practicing some kind of rituals to heal them and even bring someone back from the death. Of course they will join their battle, one that will turned into a sword fight between clans and species and all without a real reason other than bring to the hardcore fans more action scenes to rave for and see how this two species smashed each other, but at this point we can't care less about the characters or what is happening with them, if they have any motivations anymore, or what is all this fight about other than someone trying to get something from the other. As if we haven't got enough of that already.

The second movie to come into this terms is the monthly horror option. And is hard to judge since the genre already by itself is a tough cookie, one that can't be taken too serious and leaves small room to analyze or go deep on it, but at least it's suppose to be fun and while trying to bring some scares or thrills, should be entertain and funny. Sadly not the case of "Bye Bye Man" (2017), a new horror film that even sets everything for a scary story or at least some scary moments, everything leaves there, at just the setting of what is supposed to come and it never delivers. The story centers in three friends that while in college find a very cheap big house out of campus so they can be roommates and enjoy the pleasure of life for cheap. Specially for two of them, a young couple that can't wait to settle and move together so they can experience that idea of becoming a couple and hopefully soon a family. But following all cliches known, things that great to be true are not but a tramp. So is this place that starts bringing some paranormal activities that push them to discover a weird writing in one of the furniture, that repeats, don't think it, don't say it, and the name of the movie, which happens to be a demoniac entity that will hunt them till the commit suicide or end killing others, all by just saying their name, which is obvious to guess they will, as who can keep something like that for their self, specially if not superstitious at all. And so the strange man with his dog will appear to start messing with their minds turning this momentum into a psychological thriller that has everything but deepness and psychologic, because we never understand and relate to these guys that start acting as stupid as any frat boy and following all the rules to be killed in any scary movie.

While trying to wait for a good scare, you can't but think about other movies of the kind, others that actually scare and give you goosebumps. First one very recent, IT FOLLOWS, an indie film about a group of teenagers chased by something that seems like some kind of curse that spreads like a disease, one you get after having sex with someone that has it and will pass to you so either will kill you or you pass it to other by having sex with them. All as a metaphor of this awakening of teenagers to sexuality and how it can affect and transform lives. So the same way this thing no one but the infected sees will follow them till death, same as the bye bye man will follow them till death just that he won't leave them till they die and can spread to others by saying his name, so this gets reloaded but for no reason. Which also reminds to another movie, one older, called CANDYMAN, about an evil spirit that will come to kill you if you say his name three times at midnight. So that was how thing worked back in the 80's and 90's. Now we live in an express culture that delivers everything fast and easy. So you will get an evil spirit hunting you just by saying his name anytime, just once. And in comparison with the other man, that has a backstory about why he became that way, this time we never get to that part, and by then we are so bored and distracted that we don't even care but just to this to end. We actually want everybody to be death just to finally get a bit of gore and feel like the ticket was worth it but to see an experimental try out of horror that never scares, feels like two different movies that we've  already seen and brings nothing to the table, not even a story to be invested in or characters to relate to, in other words, bye bye.