Cloverfield and the theory of lowered expectations

Just watched Cloverfield with Alex. You know what? it was pretty good. How can that be you ask? Well there is no real answer to that question, but there is a theory.

THE THEORY OF LOWERED EXPECTATIONS AND OVERHYPAGE: TM Basically one theory that cuts both ways. This usually happens with "good" films not "great" ones or "terrible" ones. On the one hand if everyone you know tells you that a movie they just saw was one of the greatest movies of all time, chances are you wont think so. Your expectations have been raised so high that no film, but one of the greatest films of all time, I mean literally one of the top three films ever made, could satisfy your expectations. On the flip side, If everyone you know tells you a film is terrible, 1. have a good reason for watching it anyway, and 2. chances are that if there are any redeeming qualities to the film at all you're more likely to see them. Your friends watched it expecting a great movie and it wasn't, so they say it was bad. You then watch it expecting a bad movie, and to you it's good, because you were expecting terrible. Expectations can really mess with your viewing experience.

Two recent examples The Mist and Cloverfield. And I didn't have a ton of friends tell me much of anything about either of these but the general critical response and buzz in general is that they were both subpar. I think horror films are particularly suseptible to the theory, in that those who like horror films are always looking for the one that measures up to the things in their head that make them afraid and it's very rare for something to succeed when it's competeing with the active, altering and adaptive human brain. The other thing is if you go to a horror movie you expect to be scared if you are not you are disappointed, you were expecting to get scared. Now you go to a horror movie that you heard wasn't very scary you really aren't looking for that anymore you are looking for what else might be of interest.

Now both The Mist and Cloverfield had advantages to being watched at home on DVD. The Mist on the 2 disc special edition DVD has a black and white version of the film, this is the director's perferred version of the film and for me it really worked. It also really worked for Alex, while not a particulalry gory film there is some blood, well in glorious black and whute blood looks a lot like ink, which isn't nearly as scary and red blood. With Cloverfield one of the big complaints from people seemed to be that because it's all shot from the perspective of a handheld video camera it shakes a lot. People in the theatre were getting motion sick and naseous. On the small screen it didn't bother me one bit. I remember a similar complaint about Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives, I saw it on the small screen too, no problem. So one of the things that really seemed to turn a lot of people off right away was e,iminated in my view on a DVD screening as opposed to a theatrical screening.

When you hear something isn't very good I think you tend to stop watching for what it isn't doing and see what it is doing. The Mist is really a pyschological story about the nature of mobs, and it does that very well. When you stop looking at it as a monster movie and more in that vein, there are actually some scary things happening, they just aren't gross or what Alex calls poppy outy. Cloverfield too, if you take it for what it is, and can avoid vomiting, you might just find it entertaining.

You know what else helps, get a ten year old boy who hasn't seen it all a hundred times before and whatch it with him. If he likes it I guarentee it will improve at least a letter grade in your book.

Cloverfield B
The Mist B+