A Reel Opinion: The People Have Spoken

This past weekend, Darren Aronofsky’s thinking-man’s horror-thriller MOTHER! opened to reviews ranging from mixed to excellent (read Reel Speak’s review HERE), and while some critics hailed it as a masterpiece, audiences were less enthusiastic with many leaving the theatre scratching their heads. The confusion over the movie was quantified by CinemaScore, the un-official official exit-poll survey, in which audiences gave MOTHER! a score of “F”.

For many film reviewers, including this Blogger, that low score doesn’t come as a big surprise; not because MOTHER! is a bad film (it certainly is not), but because of its vagueness, and horrific scenes,  it is one of those movies that is very hard to digest, understand, or just plain make heads-or-tails out of. It’s not the most accessible film, and even admirers of it would probably admit that it wouldn’t be one of the first movies to pull off the shelf on a Saturday night.

The most troubling thing about the low score is how Hollywood will react, or over-react. Hollywood values art, but they value dollars more…and if an artful, thinking-man’s horror film can’t impress audiences or make good box office (MOTHER! only pulled in $3 million), then studios would likely go back to their safe zone; which means more sequels and remakes.

Hollywood and audiences have a circle-of-life thing going on; people show what they prefer to see, so Hollywood feeds them just that. It’s basic supply-and-demand, and right now audiences may be changing for the worse. The film-going crowd which grew up the 1970’s and 1980’s on mega-hits like STAR WARS, E.T., and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK are now in their 40’s and 50’s, and may not be going to the theatre as much as when they were younger. That makes way for the new generation, which thanks to the internet, have become spoiled by having everything at their fingertips; entertainment provided by way of seven-second videos. It’s what this Blogger has been calling Generation YouTube, and they are the ones who will give art films like MOTHER! an “F” while showing up in droves for a fifth TRANSFORMERS film.

Hollywood has a problem; either cater to what people want, which means dollars, or take risks on films like MOTHER! which can go either way. One of the most common complaints about the movies these days is that there isn’t nearly enough original material, but exactly who is at fault for that is the real question.