December 21, 2008 · 1 comment 

Back in the day, when I wrote reviews for general cinema, I felt that pre-existing rating systems didnt give me to ability to gauge the quality of movies as accurately as I wanted. So, with this system, in addition to being able to rate how good a film is, I can also rate how bad a film is. The theme has been changed from stars to apples to match the site. Take a look:

5 Good Apples – One of the best movies of the year

4 Good Apples – Better than the average theatrical release, but not good enough to be best of the year

3 Good Apples – Average theatrical release

2 Good Apples – Better than just an entertaining direct-to-video release, but not good enough for theaters

1 Good Apple – An entertaining direct-to-video release

1 Bad Apple – Can’t give a good rating to with a clear conscience

2 Bad Apples – For completists only, or if you’re out of options

3 Bad Apples – Generic DTV that was most likely made strictly to profit from unsuspecting viewers, just ignore

4 Bad Apples – Avoid at all costs, but not the worst ever made

5 Bad Apples – One of the worst movies of the year

Undecided – The staff reserves the right to withhold an official rating

Rating System Criteria:

While we all love certain elements of movies that cause us to list them as one of our favorites, HFM tries to remain as objective as possible. When giving a movie an official rating, we try to keep every quality in mind, such as -Story, Dialogue, Progression, Effects, Cinematography, Direction, Acting, Score, Soundtrack, Editing, Audio Design, Set Production, Picture, Composition, Framing, Visual Style, Scope / Scale, etc.

Update- 2/26/09:

Recently, questions were brought up about how Friday the 13th ‘09 could get such a bad review, yet receive a rating of 3 good apples. So, to expand upon the ideology of the rating system, I would like to offer this explaination- Take Friday the 13th ‘09, for example. it was full of flaws, but I left out a lot of parts that I liked. Even though I had issues with those flaws, others seemed to like them. I try to stay objective about reviews, so I dont penalize the movie because of my opinion of it. Therefore, taking everything else into consideration (as stated in the above paragraph about production quality, and even further aspects such as entertainment value) the film was still just as good as the average movie released in theaters, but nothing special beyond that.

To give you an even better idea of how the rating system works, here are some examples. Typically, a 5 star rating would be reserved for films like Lord of the Rings ROTK, etc. But considering the genre, we have to lower the bar slightly to 5 good apples:

The Ring ‘02 – 5 Good Apples
Amityville Horror ‘05 – 4 Good Apples
Slither – 3 Good Apples
Ginger Snaps – 2 Good Apples
The Roost – 1 Good Apple
Drive Thru – 1 Bad Apple
Miners Massacre – 2 Bad Apples
Savage Island – 3 Bad Apples
Gutterballs – 4 Bad Apples
Dark Harvest – 5 Bad Apples

One Response to “Official HFM Rating System”

1. Alison Says:
   January 6th, 2010 at 11:19 pm

   @will I’d giv it an 8/10