Rise and Fall of The Splat Pack

Sure, horror has been alive and kicking since then, but to what end? Taking a quick look at the history of mainstream horror over the past 30 years, we had the birth of horror’s modern age icons, a train of franchise sequels into the 90’s, the slasher revival, the asian horror phenomenon, and now the remake resurgence. Just about at the beginning of the asian / remake takeovers, between ‘02-’05, the Splat Pack popped up and were hailed as horror’s newest and most promising filmmakers. I, however, was not so optimistic.

Follow along if you want. (Wikipedia Link)

Marshall, Roth, Aja, and Wan all came out with their indy horror films that were way above average at the time, on fairly low budgets. I dont know how Zombie got thrown in there, as I dont consider filming a $7 million on Universal’s backlot low-budget, but whatever.

Im really glad they were able to film their movies, find distribution, and enjoy moderate success. But, despite my opinions of the films, they still were’nt that great or that bad. Oddly enough, I dont have many non-internet horror-fan friends. So, my best scale for rating a horror film is finding out what my average moviegoer non-horror-fan non-movie-buff friends think about a movie. Their reactions were exactly the same as my non-horrorfan opinions. And I think confusing the decisions the filmmakers made as horror fans, instead of as great filmmakers, was a big mistake to make.

I was watching Eli Roth’s Icon’s episode the other day and everyone they interviewed was a horror fan working in the horror industry and they were all like “Yeah, I loved it!”, while Eli Roth is a self-proclaimed hardcore horror nerd who caters his films to the horror fan community, even. I would really like to hear the actual opinions of some choice filmmakers out there, but that will never happen. Ironically, as much as I dislike Roth’s entries so far, I believe he might be the only one out of the splat pack with genuine talent. More on that later.

So, the pack came out with their seemingly promising freshmen entries and took a step forward in their careers later with their sophomore follow-ups. Marshall came out with The Descent which put him in the spotlight, Roth knocked his sophomore entry out of the park with Hostel, Zombie continued his retro-horror theme with Devils Rejects, Aja teamed up with Craven on the remake bandwagon, Bousman stepped in to keep the Sawchise going, and McLean stepped in / lucked up with his movie about a killer whose movie came out while he was still on trial.

It all seemed great until things took a turn for the worse. Roth endured a huge torture porn backlash, everyone grew tired of Zombie’s signature white trash motif, the Sawchise shifted its team around and started focusing more on the gimmicks instead of the story, McLean’s Wolf Creek was labeled as torture porn, Aja’s Hills Have Eyes barely broke even opening weekend, and where did James Wan go? What was Marshall up to next?

This all started to pan out within the next 3 years.

James Wan reappeared with the terrible Dead Silence, hoping the audiences fear of creepy dolls was enough to garner another Saw caliber success. I would love to see where that $20 million budget went. Then, it seems like he decided the horror factor wasnt what made Saw successful, but that it was the violence, and jumped straight into Death Sentence, which performed so poorly that I cant even find the produciton budget.

Roth really should have paid attention to the audiences reaction of Hostel instead of looking at the numbers, or moving forward despite critics outcries, because Hostel II was a huge disappointment compared to the first. HII received ratings much lower than the first and numbers were also drastically lower, despite the studios and producers optimistism towards its release. I dont think anyone in that camp was paying attention.

Zombie combined the deadly formula of his white trashism and remakes for the Halloween reboot, which was subsequently slammed by what seemed like everyone. The numbers might have been decent, but I credit 90% of it to the fact that its a remake of what is probably the greatest slasher of all time. If they had found someone better to helm it, and moved the release date to, oh, say Halloween, I bet the numbers would have been much higher. But, I’m also betting they were scared to go up against the reigning halloween champion.

Saw III and IV have come and gone, now we’re up to Saw V. But, WF, why are audiences still clammoring to the Saw movies if everyone hates torture porn? (Im sure you’re asking.) Well, its pretty simple. They slipped into the Halloween spot and have hogged it for the past 5 years, much to my dismay. Everyone wants to see a horror movie on halloween, and Lionsgate is banking on it. Nevermind the fact that the ratings have slipped slightly each year, everyone hates torture porn, Saw isnt a halloween type movie, or that horror fans in general despise the franchise, as long as people keep going, they’ll keep milking. Bousman was clinging on until he was able to move ahead with his own project.

Marshall, the crowd favorite, somehow got $30 million for his mish mash homage of classic post-apocolyptic films, making back only 1/3rd of its budget. Ouch!

McLean followed up with his sophomore effort, Rogue, which ran into some distribution problems eventually resulting in a tiny theatrical release and was dumped to dvd. The movie wasnt that bad once it got going, and the cgi was actually pretty good. The project fell into the hole though from the beginning when McLean resorted back to another story from his homeland, which happened to be about a killer croc. I dont think he took the success of the killer croc sub-genre into account when he made his decision.

After it seems like they all took major hits, where are they now?

Leigh Whannell did manage to stay involved with the Saw franchise, and still is, in fact, as an executive producer. However, he is currently trying to branch out with an acting career, starring in the upcoming Dying Breed. It might not turn out that bad, but it doesnt have anything special going on for it.

James Wan doesnt have anything coming up listed on his IMDB or his Wikipedia.

Bousman has Repo! coming out soon for a limited release. I was so excited for it, the cast looks great, the plot is crazy, and its a musical in the vein of Rocky Horror, until I watched the promotional clip for it. Now I fear for Bousman’s career, lol. *Update: As I was prepping this article, Bousman posted a reply to the clip’s reaction on his blog, trying to justify why it looks bad. *sigh* He has the Scanners remake lined up, but we’ll see how that deal holds up after Repo! is released.

Zombie is at it yet again with his white trash theme, on the upcoming “Tyrannosaurus Rex.” If he had stuck with Niles to flesh out the story of The Nail, which I believe this is based on, and brought Niles in on the project, this would have had alot of promise. As it is now, this is too much of a wild card to make any predictions. I can say though, that after Halloween, he is definitely on a slippery slope.

McLean doesnt have anything coming up either. With the death of the cinematographer from both his films, and the failure of Rogue, it seems his career is on a downturn.

Aja’s Mirrors just made its lackluster theatrical run. Luckily, he was already well into development on Piranha 3-D, so the success of Mirrors might not effect his next project, but I havent see news on it either way. I’ve got my fingers crossed that he’ll bring all of the best aspects of his career together to deliver something spectacular.

Marshall has opted for some classic career damage control, it seems, and is playing it safe for his next project by returning to his best entry yet with the sequel, The Descent 2.

Which, leaves us with Eli Roth, as my pick for the win. Between everyone in the splat pack, to me, Roth is the only one with the talent, drive, and imagination to set himself apart. Even with the way Hostel II turned out, the numbers it put up were still considered successful. Again, as much as I dislike all of his films so far, I believe that as he matures as a filmmaker, he will really become capable of delivering something amazing that will win over critics and audiences alike. IF he can stop writing films around a solitary plot device based on ideas he stumbles across, and if he puts his career as a super model on hold long enough to do so. Right now, he’s playing it smart by directing Stephen King’s next feature, which has the odds in its favor since The Mist was a huge success.

There you have it. As our wait for fresh, genuine, and sustainable talent continues, that was the brief history of the group of filmmakers known as the Splat Pack, and why it seems like horror might be dead for the time being. Stay tuned for Part 3 of my Is Horror Dead? follow-up where I will take a look at some of the best horror films of the modern era and find out why the filmmakers behind great films such as those are not contributing to the genre anymore.

- Wes Fierce