Warning: I give away everything that happens in three movies below. "The Exorcist," "The Shining," and "Hostel 2." If you haven't seen these movies and plan to do so, don't read this, as there will be plentiful spoilers ahead.

You know what I hate? Being told that I don't know what I'm talking about or that I'm somehow less intelligent because I happen to have a different opinion from that of the majority of people. No, I mean really. I hate that. As a movie fan, it happens to me more often than it might to other people because I insist on hating movies everyone else loves, and loving movies everyone else hates. This pisses me off to no end. So much so that I'll often force myself to watch movies over and over again, trying to somehow grasp what everyone else seems to see. This really bugs me. And I can hear you thinking that it shouldn't bother me so much. And you're probably right. But movie fans are nothing if not fickle and rabid about the things that they love, and the most articulate of them seem to get some perverse joy out of debasing and belittling those with opposite opinions. Whereas most laypeople are content to hurl insults, the articulate practice the underhanded type of attack wherein they demurely debase others with elevated language that is harder to peg as an outright attack, but is an attack just the same.

Instead of directly insulting someone by calling that person an "idiot" or an "asshole," these articulate people will say their opponent "doesn't understand the issue" or is "resorting to semantics" and because these jabs are veiled with elegant language those who hurl them can feel secure in their proper social etiquette and debating style. I'm taken aback that so much energy can be expended over what is essentially a trivial discussion of differing opinions. The thing is, though, it's NOT trivial. Not to us, the cinematically obsessed who rant and rave and devote our lives to discussing and debating and devouring everything that has to do with cinema. We care about these debates and these issues because movies are what we love, what we DO.

I'm ranting, but I'm not JUST ranting. I've found myself in the past three weeks in a position I've been in many times before, trying to defend my opinions on three movies that I've tried to love but I just can't. And I find myself not just giving my opinion but defending my right to even HAVE an opinion that differs so greatly from the opinions of those around me, the other cinema freaks who I know, respect, and love.

And it is in the spirit of that love that I feel the need to say... sorry guys, I just don't like "The Shining."

This is not for lack of trying. I've watched that movie over and over and over (though I've never been able to stomach the whole thing in one sitting, I always fly into a rage and stomp off and have to finish it later). I can't watch it for more than an hour at one time, often not for more than a few minutes, before I become so enraged that I have to take a break. And why does the movie affect me in this way? Well, I never say anything is sexist, as a rule, because it's not my style. But in the book, Wendy is a strong character. In the movie, Kubrick (the director) turns her into a vegetable with barely any intelligence or ability to act, and it gets under my skin and I can never finish the movie because of that. Kubrick wasn't a big fan of women, and it really shows in that movie.

Back off me now, I'm not saying he was sexist, I've heard people say as much, but I didn't know the man personally so I don't know, but I've heard his derogatory comments about women in interviews, and I can't help but feel that it seeped into the movie. Disagree if you want, that's fine, but I don't see how people can watch that movie and not notice that Duvall's Wendy is a brain-dead twit who can barely function as a human being, let alone defend herself against the evil in the hotel. Plus Jack Nicholson is boring, he plays himself and Jack Torrence is bat shit insane from the moment we meet him, so there's no character transformation, no chance to see a man falling apart as his walls crumble leaving only a weak shadow of who he once was, an empty shell filled with the demons that surrounded him in that hotel. That's what we get from the book. What we get from the movie is Jack Nicholson being Jack Nicholson, being annoying and chewing the scenery for hours while Shelly Duvall's Wendy flits around unable to act even remotely human, and I can't stand to watch it. I've tried. I can't do it. People always rant about how well the movie conveys a sense of isolation. Gee, you think? Well, considering that the movie concerns people who are ISOLATED in a hotel, I'd fucking EXPECT the movie to convey a sense of isolation, that's the movie's job, and I don't feel compelled to thank it for doing its job (the only thing the movie does even remotely well).

That's like paying someone to mop your floor and then falling all over yourself to praise that person for mopping your floor. They did their job, the floor is mopped, don't act like it's a big deal when it's not. The movie did its job in that it conveyed a sense of isolation and then it put unlikable characters I hated into that situation and threw in some terrible acting and essentially made me not give a shit what happened to the characters, and I can't fathom why people love this movie so much. Basically everything that made the book good makes the movie a steaming pile of shit. But that's just my opinion and most people disagree with me and love the movie. And that's fine, I realize that I'm in the minority, and I'm fine with that. I think you're all crazy for loving that movie, but more power to you, I don't expend all my energy trying to change your mind, and I don't call you stupid or say you're missing the point. So why do people feel the need to say this to me? Why do people slam me, insinuate that I'm unintelligent, or claim that I don't like this movie because I'm "desensitized" or something? I CRIED during the movie "Rosemary's Baby" because it bothered me so much, and that was made in 1968 AND it's got a slow build and more atmosphere that tangible scares or "jump scenes" and NONE of the "quick cut hey let's pretend we're a music video on MTV" directing style that movies of "my generation" have in such bountiful amounts. Slow builds can hold my attention and move me. "The Shining" does not. Don't tell me I'm incapable of feeling anything anymore...this movie just doesn't do it for me. Is that ok with you? Can I have that opinion, please? I know it differs from everyone else's opinion, but I can't help it, that's how I feel... and I have reasons for it. You may disagree, but can we keep the personal attacks to a minimum? Please?

You know what else I hate? "The Exorcist." I know, I know, blasphemy.

I've tried to watch this movie over and over as well, and unlike "The Shining," at least I can manage to sit through this movie. Although I fall asleep every time I try watching it now. I made it through my first viewing, cocking my head and squinting in confusion as I tried to comprehend how this movie could have had the effect that its had on generations of viewers. But I'll admit it, I don't get it. Now, I understand how the CONCEPT of the movie can bother people. An innocent little girl, lonely and feeling unloved by her distant parents, befriends a demon and the demon takes over her body and ravages her and takes away her innocence and fills her with the ultimate evil. Believe me, I get it

And watching it, I can see how it influenced many movies that came after it and paved the way for some of my favorite movies. So it's got this great concept, this corruption of innocence, and it's got good actors, so what goes wrong? Nothing, if you ask almost anyone in the world. They talk about how great it is, and if you ask just about anyone else in the world, they'll give you that opinion. But you're NOT asking them, you're reading MY column, so I'm going to tell you what I see in this movie.

When I look at this movie I see a pretentious piece of artsy crap that tries to build tension by being an unassuming potboiler with a few graphic scenes interspersed with long stretches of boring conversation amongst unlikable characters that I don't give a shit about. We have an inattentive mother who's such a mental giant that she doesn't notice that her daughter's room has a huge hologram of a demon on the wall. I don't care if that was supposed to be symbolic, it's a hologram of a demon on the wall. It looks cheesy and stupid. Then we get more boring scenes of the mother not moving out of the house like any sane person would do, and we are introduced to TweedleDee and TweedleDumbass, the two priests, an older one and a younger one respectively. The older one seems to know what's going on and wants to fight the demon and the younger one is weak in his faith and shouldn't be let anywhere near an exorcism.

Case in point: the older priest tells him to ignore the demon and not to listen to what it says, and the younger priest agrees, until five seconds later when the demon starts talking in the voice of his mother and he melts into a sniveling puddle of goo, crying and ignoring everything he's learned up to that point. Then the mother runs around wringing her hands while the priests fuck up the exorcism so badly that the demon kills one of them and gets the other to kill himself, mercifully sparing us from having to listen to him whine anymore and somehow the priest's death saves the little girl from the demon because he sacrificed himself...or something like that.

Now, I understand that the idea of this kind of thing happening to a child is terrible, and I would feel empathy if it looked even remotely real, but there's a voice over for the demonic voice (surprise, it's not really the little girl, fooled you!) and her lips don't match up to the voice, so it looks like a badly dubbed foreign film, the blood looks like tempera paint, and the infamous crucifix scene (the little girl stabs her vagina with a crucifix and says "Let Jesus fuck you") is... yeah, I get it, it's SUPPOSED to be disturbing. I suppose if it were real, I WOULD be disturbed, but it's not, and it doesn't look real when it happens, and I wanted so badly to be disturbed and frightened when I saw it,that the fact that I COULDN'T be disturbed by this scene bothered me more than the movie did. I was so disappointed. The whole movie is a disappointment to me. I find myself laughing at scenes that were supposed to be scary and when I wasn't laughing I was bored to tears, falling asleep, and then as I drift into sleep I hear the demonic voice and it startles me awake and I feel a MOMENT of fear until I look at the screen and I'm bored into a coma again. So yes, some of the tricks work for me, and if I close my eyes during the scary scenes they DO scare me, because the sound of this movie is frightening and the musical score is to DIE for, but that's now enough for me.

Go ahead, disagree. Everyone else does and I don't really mind that. What I mind is when people start to psychoanalyze me because I don't like this movie, telling me it's because of the era I was born in, or the amount of horror movies I've seen, or my life experiences. It may well be a combination of these things, but I remind you again: If I can cry at "Rosemary's Baby" I can be scared by "The Exorcist," and it just doesn't do that for me. That doesn't mean I'm not a horror fan, or that I don't understand the themes in the movie and if you explain them to me carefully I'll
magically agree with you somehow. I'd like to pretentiously wager that because of my past experiences I actually understand the themes of corruption of innocence and demonic rape better than a lot of people (certainly better than I'd ever want to) but I still don't like the movie, so kindly keep the themes to yourself, please. I get them. I still don't like the movie.

And now we've arrived at the tour de force, the reason this issue has been bothering me so badly lately, the thorn in my side that is the movie "Hostel 2." I wanted so badly to like this movie that the fact that I'd like it was a foregone conclusion for me. I never considered the idea that I wouldn't like it. I loved the original "Hostel," I love (and hate, but mostly love) the director Eli Roth, and I loved the actors and the concept and I was just certain that I'd love the ensuing film. So it was to my shock and dismay that not only was I under whelmed by the movie but I disliked it more and more every time I watched it and I've actually come to hate the movie now.

It annoys me more and more every time I watch it. I know it's setting me up to care about the torturers but I don't have sympathy for the character of Stuart (I just don't like it when people use any hardship as an excuse for their actions and I don't care if his wife was a bitch who emasculated him every day, that doesn't excuse him going out and killing people, I want to kill people every day and I feel pretty justified, but I don't DO it, and neither should he, so there) and I only liked one character who happens to die early on in the film, and then after she's gone there is no reason for me to care about any of the rest of what happens since I hate every one of the other characters. I also figured out early on that when the movie sets up one of the torturers to be a bad guy and one to be a good guy that there was going to be a "plot twist" and the good guy was going to be bad and the bad guy was going to be good. It's simple logic, it's the easy way out, it didn't surprise me. And neither did the BIG PLOT TWIST at the end.

I'll lay it all out for you here and spoil the ending... I don't care if it was original or new or edgy or any other buzz word, the character of Beth buying her way out of the torture and escaping death that way made her just as bad as the people who were doing the torturing. She's not any better than they are, she's using money to buy her way out of the situation instead of using her money and her power to do something to stop the killers. She's such a cold, heartless bitch, she's not noble like the character of Paxton from the first movie, trying to escape and help someone else escape, she's out for herself and I don't give a fuck if it's logical, it still makes her every bit as much a cunt as she doesn't want to be because she's a prissy twat who hates the word cunt. That's right, I resented that whole setup, where she goes off on a prissy rant because she hates the word "cunt." I love that word, I use it all the time, and I resent the idea that somehow because I'm a woman I should agree with her and hate that word, too. I don't like it when a movie tries to manipulate me, and I hate it even more when it does so BADLY.

Plus I find it a ridiculous plot contrivance that the main character luckily has all this money from an inheritance; how fortuitous. It felt forced and wasn't cool like it was supposed to be and when the big twist comes and she buys her way out of the torture in the end, I saw it coming ten miles away; I knew from the moment that they hastily dumped all
that info on us during the party scene that they were going to use it later on as her means of escape, and not only is it forced, it's WRONG. I hate how she sells out and doesn't even TRY to help anyone else or shut down the operation that's getting people killed. Unless she was planning on using her money to totally blow the operation, like kill them all or drop bombs or something, but if that was the case we needed more of an ending demonstrating this. We need more of an ending period, since the movie establishes that she buys her way out and then shows her killing one of the conspirators that sent her to the Hostel in the first place. Did she pay to kill this person? I just don't see the guys letting her do that, but even if they DID, we need a scene showing that, otherwise it's a plot hole, a huge gaping one. Kids playing soccer with a severed head is cool, but it doesn't make up for me wanting to know what the fuck was going on at the ending of the movie, and Eli Roth should have known better.

It's his job to tell the story, and all the style and flash and manipulation add up to all milk and no meat. The movie falls flat when it should soar because he's providing a back story, a reason behind the madness, and that should work but it doesn't.

And again, everyone in the world disagrees with me. Which is fine, but they won't leave me ALONE, the badger me and push me as though somehow I'm being disloyal to the director because I don't like his movies. Hey, I DEFEND Eli Roth all the time, but when he makes a movie that I think fails, I'm going to point out why. I struggled with this for awhile, turning it over in my head, because I was excited to see "Hostel 2" so I could write a review for it. Then I saw it... and saw it again... and again... and I realized I didn't want to review it, I wanted to scream and tear my hair out and bitch about why it pissed me off as much as it did. So I decided to pair that movie with another movie that pissed me off, and then I decided to throw another movie onto the list, and in the end it spiraled into this rant. Love it or hate it, I'd really appreciate it if people would let me have my opinions and in the case of "The Exorcist" and  "The Shining" at least admit, even if they disagree completely, that I have reasons for my opinions and I'm not an unseasoned horror newbie pulling opinions out of my ass because I think any movie made before 1995 isn't worth my time. Every opinion I have has been carefully honed after years (or in the case of Hostel 2, weeks) of careful consideration on my part, as I'm sure you've done with your own opinions.

So let me have mine and I'll let you have yours and we'll all be horror fans TOGETHER. Ok?