March 9, 2010

My Thoughts on the Oscar's Horror Tribute


Something that was the talk of a lot of people in the Horror Community was Sunday Nights Oscars. Not just for the slew of awards that The Hurt Locker got (which is definitley deserved, as it's a great film), or the fact that Sandra Bullock walked away with Best Actress...but the Horror Tribute which was presented to us.

First off, why did we have Taylor Lautner and Kristen Stewart present this tribute? Now, I don't know anything about these people, other than the fact that they star in some pretty shitty films, but what makes them have the qualifications to present a tribute video to a genre that has been so overlooked by the Academy for decades. If anything, we should have gotten an actor who got their start in Horror, and became something after the fact in the world of Hollywood. Hell, I may not have the greatest opinion on Johnny Depp, but I think it would have been perfect had he presented. Maybe even Kevin Bacon, for that matter. It didn't make matters any better either when there was a split second clip from New Moon thrown in there.

I guess in a way this video was presented during the awards ceremony as a way for the Academy to say that, "Yes. We get it. You people don't shut up about it, we disregard the genre for a reason, blah blah blah, will this video make you feel better?" And, in a way, the tribute did. As a life long Horror fan I was giddy with excitement for the fact that a genre I hold near and dear to my heart was being given some sort of Acknowledgement by a group that has always been known to shun such films. To me, as a Horror fan, it was great to see it get some recognition. And hell, I was blown away by the footage they used, since I didn't think they would show most of the characters that they did. Jason, Freddy, Leatherface, Chucky, Leprechaun, Ash, etc. It was great.

In hindsight, this could also sadly be looked at as a ploy to try and attract a younger audience to the Awards. Granted, I don't really understand that mentality either, seeing as I guarantee you that most of the people of the TWILIGHT crowd probably have no fucking clue about most of the movies shown in the tribute.

So, I guess I can say I was really satisfied with it. Could have done without New Moon and Beetlejuice being thrown in there, but it definitely did it's job: Make this Horror fan happy and proud to love the genre for all these years.

Sidenote: The tribute I embedded above starts at about 1:12, but the video starts off with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin's Paranormal Activity spoof. And don't you fret, whoever uploaded this to YouTube was smart and edited out those crazy Twilight kids' introduction.

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