When you watch as many bad movies as I do, you begin to pick
up on little things that they have in common.
There are trends throughout bad movies that, though not necessarily the
thing that makes the movie bad, may signal to you that you are watching a bad
movie. They are small story beats,
camera tricks, or thematic similarities that are frequent in the bad movie portion
of the film landscape. I’ve noticed a
few of them through watching bad movies, and thought that I’d focus on one
specific trend in this post.
For this week’s post, I watched a movie called Ghost
Storm. This 2011 movie told the story of
Hal Miller (Carlos Bernard), a sheriff on a small island who, along with his
wife Ashley (Crystal Allen) and daughter Daisy (Cindy Busby), must stop an
attack by a giant cloud of ghosts. The
ghosts are those of a group of former residents of the island who committed
suicide a couple of generations previous.
With bad effects and some decently cheesy performances, the movie is
quite entertaining to watch.
What really stands out in the movie, however, is the
camerawork. And that’s where we get into
the trend that is apparent throughout Ghost Storm. How the movie looks, in terms of colours, is
pretty great. It’s a treat on the eyes,
really. I wasn’t expecting the colours
to pop like they do. But there is one
major setback in the camerawork that stands out over everything else. That is the use of Dutch Angles.
Most of you should know what a Dutch angle is by now. I say this because most of the people that
read the blog come from my posting links to it on Twitter. The people that follow me on Twitter are all
into movies and probably know what a Dutch angle is. I’m still going to explain the camera
technique though, because there may be someone reading through blogs
someday. They’ll stumble upon this post and
think to themselves “Dutch angle? What’s
that?” A Dutch angle is when the camera
is tilted on an angle while filming something in order to give a disorienting
look to the shot. It’s as simple as
that. The angles vary, but there is always
an angle present in a Dutch angle.
That’s why angle is in the phrase.
The Dutch Angle is overused in bad movies. I don’t know the reasons why, exactly. I’m still going to give my thoughts on why I
think Dutch angles are overused. It all
comes down to the director and the cinematographer. They think that a Dutch angle looks
cool. Instead of finding a moment in
which this style of filming can be put to good use and give an eerie feeling,
they instead throw it in anywhere that they want an interesting visual. It essentially becomes a quantity over
quality case as they care more about their movie being stylistic than having
the camerawork make sense. The use of
these techniques ends up taking away from the movie.
There is great craftsmanship in using a Dutch Angle if it is
used properly. Many filmmakers use this
style of camera positioning to signify madness, possession, or anything that
sets a character off of their normal, sane mindset. There are actual thematic reasons that a good
director or cinematographer would use the technique in a movie. When any thematic reasoning for the technique
is taken away in favor of a cool looking shot, it removes the good qualities
from the use of it. Instead, it makes
looking at the movie a little more irritating.
The more the technique is misused, the more annoying the look of the
movie gets.
Ghost Storm uses a lot of Dutch angles throughout its
runtime. About half of the time, they
are put to good use. The technique is
used in the movie to signal the frenzy of trying to escape the storm. The glaring issues were when it wasn’t used
as part of the action. In those moments,
the use of Dutch angles simply stood out as a frustrating use of the camera. It didn’t take too much away from the dumb
fun of the movie. It simply felt out of
place and ugly.
The Dutch angle is just one of many techniques and tropes
that are commonly used in bad movies. It
is also one of the most apparent because it is in front of the audience’s eyes
the entire time. There are many others
that stand out as well: news broadcasts, montages, the director starring in the
movie, ninjas, etc. These are the things
you notice when you watch a lot of the lesser movies that are released. They are the things you remember because you
have seen them so often. And I watch bad
movies often, so I recognize the familiarities.
Are you familiar with my notes yet? Here are more notes:
- Ghost Storm was suggested by @erincandy, who previously suggested Glitter.
- One of the earliest common traits I covered in bad movies was the use of the word “robot” in a title when I watched the movie Robot Jox.
- Crystal Allen played Ashley in Ghost Storm. She was also in the final two Anaconda films.
- She wasn’t the only actor in Ghost Storm who has been in other Sunday “Bad” Movies. Steve Bacic played Carl in Ghost Storm. He was previously in The Marine 3: Homefront and Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.
- What other bad movies have Dutch angles in them? Do you like or dislike Dutch angles? Do you agree with anything I wrote? Do you disagree with all of it? Have you seen Ghost Storm? You can answer these questions in the comments or comment about anything you like.
- If you want to suggest a movie for me to watch for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, you can either contact me on Twitter or leave the suggestion in the comments.
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