30 Nights of Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2013)
One such parody is the long-windedly titled 30 Nights of
Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. For the remainder of the review, in order to
make it less terrible to read, the movie will be referred to as 30 Nights. 30 Nights was directed by Craig Moss. It stars Kathryn Fiore, Flip Shultz, and
Olivia Alexander, with a notable appearance by French Stewart who, yes, is
still around somewhere. The basic plot
of the movie is a mash-up of the Paranormal Activity and The Devil Inside with
hints of many other films, and references to many other things. It’s a modern parody movie.
Normally, I would say that the better parody movies are the
ones that stick to a main storyline and try to riff off of one, two, maybe
three movies. There are always
exceptions to the rule. 30 Nights is one
of those exceptions. Though consistently
sticking to the plotline of the two movies I mentioned, something is off with
this movie. The blame would fall mostly
upon the shoulders of the jokes. None of
the jokes are funny. There were no
laughs to be had throughout the movie.
This made for an extremely painful hour and a half. The plot consists mostly of the two movies
being combined. However, attempts at
comedic portrayals of characters from other movies are also thrown into the
mix. These characters include the
daughter (the titular Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), the neighbour (Abe
Lincoln), and two paranormal investigators (riffing off of the two in
Insidious). These characters add to how
forced the movie feels and only take away from what could have been an okay
premise. I can appreciate a parody movie
when it is simply heightening a movie for comedy’s sake. In this case, there were too many ingredients
thrown into the pot which turned the stew rancid.
The main problem with modern parody films is that they get
too bogged down in pop culture and making as many references as possible. 30 Nights suffers from this issue a little
bit. Whereas older parodies like
Spaceballs or Airplane took an existing movie and flipped the genre into a
comedy, the newer movies do that but also try to throw more and more current
fads and popular culture at the screen.
Airplane took the story of a plane on which everyone was getting sick
and/or dying, and created the comedy around that. It seems that the parodies of the last decade
seem to be going about it in the opposite direction. They think about what they find funny, then
choose a story to fit it into. It feels
unnatural. 30 Nights has a similar
feeling to the newer parodies. Every
reference feels unnatural to the story.
The movie is primarily based on Paranormal Activity and The Devil
Inside. Why did it need to have the
daughter be a direct reference to Lisbeth Salander? There was nothing in the movie that benefited
from this choice. It did not further the
plot or the comedy in any way. It seemed
like they decided what they wanted in their movie before deciding what movie to
frame it with.
I’ve harped on long enough about parodies and the jokes in
30 Nights. This is easily an early
contender for my worst movie of 2013.
Nothing made me laugh throughout the movie. No performance stood out as a good
performance. Most of them were on par
with the material given to them. This is
one of the few times that I have ever failed to find a redeeming quality to a
movie. Take that as you will. Whatever you do, do not seek this movie
out. It is a waste of an hour and a half
of your life. You will deeply regret not
spending that time with your loved ones.
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| This is what watching this movie felt like. It felt like a wedgie. |
There is one note that I would like to make:
- To suggest a movie for a future Sunday "Bad" Movie, you can message me on Twitter or leave a comment below.
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