Looking back on the late 90s and early 2000s, it wasn’t exactly the best time for the horror genre, and you’d be hard pressed to argue that anything released at the time was a classic. Because they weren’t. That’s not to say that we didn’t get any ‘cult’ classic titles that have stood the test of time because of elements other than the quality of the movie. 1999s The Blair Witch Project had a genius marketing campaign that sold the movie as a scary, true life tale, while the press made out that it was so terrifying, people were being sick in cinemas. The truth is, it’s an average horror movie and it was the shaky camerawork that more than likely made people nauseous. It’s still regarded as a cult classic, however, but what about the rest of the content from the time? Well, we did get some fun sequels such as Bride of Chucky from 1998, as well as the hairy shenanigans in Ginger Snaps from 2000. My point is, the horror genre wasn’t exactly thriving when it came to producing exciting, genre defining movies, but by the time 2002 rolled around we were at least starting to get some nastier flicks. The Ring was a slick remake of the Japanese original, 28 Days Later was a cracking Zombie feature, and I’ve got a lot of time for Neil Marshall’s gut-spilling Dog Soldiers. So, with the horror marketplace beginning to show some gory signs of life, it meant that the lower budgeted, more independent features were being left in the shadows. Which brings us nicely to the movie we’re focusing on in today’s video; Robert Harman’s They. The movie was met with a mixed reception when it first appeared in 2002, but with a big name executive producer onboard in Wes Craven, and a decent concept, does it hold up more than twenty years later? Well, look out for those dreaded night terrors as we take a trip back to some childhood trauma, here on WTF happened to They.
Before taking on the horror genre with They, director Robert Harmon already had some very interesting projects as part of his growing resume. His first feature saw him tackle the psychological thriller genre with China Lake, starring the great Charles Napier as a deranged biker, who rides around on a motorbike “targeting” people that have offended him in some way. All set in and around the titular location of China Lake. After having some success with the movie, he directed what would go on to become a cult classic horror / thriller from 1986; The Hitcher. As I’m sure most viewers will know, the film follows Rutger Huaer in the title role, playing a murderous hitchhiker who stalks a young motorist across the highways of West Texas. It wasn’t necessarily met with a warm response from critics and its commercial success was limited, but the movie has gone on to have a massive following since. And rightly so. He followed up The Hitcher with Mr snake hips himself, John Travolta, in 1991’s Eyes of an Angel, then he tackled Van Damme actioner Nowhere to Run before helming a few TV features in the run up to the year 2000. Judging from the relative success he’d had so far, taking on another horror feature was certainly in his skillset.
The movie’s budget was around $17 million dollars, which is a fairly substantial amount, considering the movie didn’t have any A-listers in the cast, nor did the production seem to spend a great deal on marketing the movie. However, there was oneperson, synonymous with the horror genre, attached to the project, who’s name was used heavily to sell it – Wes Craven. The legendary, and sadly late, director of such awesome horror franchises such as A Nightmare on Elm St and Scream was brought on as one of the movie’s executive producers on the movie. Despite this though, Craven had no other part in the movie’s production, other than adding his name to the title. It was a wise move on behalf of production companies Focus Features, Radar Pictures and Dimension Films, as if there was one name guaranteed to whip up some excitement with horror fans at the time, Wes Craven was your guy.
The production team maybe didn’t have the budget or enough of an enticing concept to bag any big names for the movie, but during an interview with our very own John Fallon, AKA ‘The Arrow’ from February 2003, writer Brendan Hood describes how he had certain actors in his mind for some of the roles, saying that; “It’s funny, you always get a picture in your head of what the characters will look like and which actors will play them. For instance, I always thought of Paul as looking like Jared Leto. Additionally, I initially thought of Sarah Polley in the role of Julia. But that’s really just to help you envision the story while you’re writing it.” Casting would be key for They, so could the filmmakers find actors who could bring the spooky shenanigans to life?
In the end, the production cast some very talented and dependable actors in the movie. Paul was played by Marc Blucas who featured in the Mel Gibson war drama We Were Soldiers in 2002, plus a recurring part in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. His resume is loaded with TV and film roles, with the most prominent being the Tom Cruise action comedy Knight and Day from 2010, plus another decent TV part in Underground, which aired from 2016 to 2017. The other main protagonist, Julia, was played by Laura Regan who has form in the horror genre and who had a successful recurring role in the great Mad Men TV series that ran from 2007 to 2015. We also get Ethan Embry as Sam Burnside and Dagmara Dominczyk as Terry Alba, two characters who, like Julia, had night terrors when they were kids..
Another key aspect of the interview our man John Fallon did with writer Brendan Hood, is how he cites a divide between the writing team and the studio in terms of how the script development eventually panned out. Hood explains that, “the original screenplay that I wrote is my vision for the film, and what got made was really the vision of the producers. Those are two separate things. Personally, I’ve never been a huge fan of cheap scares or endless scenes of people sitting around and giving exposition that doesn’t advance the plot. Great horror films work because of four important components: a strong story structure, three-dimensional characters, original
concepts, and most importantly, tension.” He also goes on to discuss how the scriptwriting process was subsequently “haphazard” and that the script was constantly being tinkered with throughout production, ultimately harming the final product.
I went into my viewing of They with an open mind and some optimism for what I was hoping to be a tense, taut and well crafted thriller. Plus, with Wes Craven lending his name to the movie, surely it could provide some decent gore and engaging characters I could get behind, and not cheer about too much when they come to a spectacularly gory end. However, none of that happened and, unlike the inventive horror movies Craven is known for, They didn’t deliver enough scares or carnage for me to engage with. I know Craven’s name is only there to sell the movie and he had zero creative input into the movie, and despite the script development issues mentioned earlier, I was still clinging on to something, anything to elevate this one from being just another average thriller.
The movie’s plot gets underway with an opening scene in which a young boy, called Billy, wakes up from a nightmare and is assured by his mother that the monster he saw in the closet is all in his head. She kinda makes things worse, too, by ‘jokingly’ saying she’ll turn into a monster if he doesn’t go back to sleep. Cracking parenting that is! After she leaves the poor little fella, he’s soon whisked away by a dark apparition that emerges from the closet. The scene’s lighting is good and there’s some nice tension built up by the tight editing, but you could see what was coming a mile off.
The action fast forwards almost twenty years to 2002, where Billy meets up with his childhood friend Julia, played by Laura Regan, who also had night terrors when she was a kid. After warning her that they are back and to stay away from the dark, he commits suicide in front of her. Julia meets up with two friends of Billy at his funeral, Terry and Sam, who, yep, you guessed it, also had night terrors when they were kids and that they are not only experiencing terrifying visions themselves, but that they have been “marked” with a sore on their bodies that won’t heal.
The set-up is decent, but the subsequent action left me feeling not only short-changed, but frustrated that the filmmakers could have conjured up some more memorable arcs for the characters. They’re all fairly one dimensional and spend most of the movie’s run-time either screaming or hiding from the largely unseen monsters, and keeping them mostly in the shadows was a wise move given the fairly limited budget. CGI creatures in this type of smaller horror movie would most likely have looked awful.
There are some moments where the tension is built up effectively, such as when Terry investigates some freaky sounds, that seem to be lifted from Jurassic Park’s raptors, and hides away in a heating vent. There’s also a nice scene involving a swimming pool, but overall the mystique surrounding the monsters doesn’t pay off sufficiently. Not for this blood thirsty gore-hound anyway. Overall, the movie works more or less as a below average thriller, but there’s too many stretches of the plot that are too dull, or superfluous to the story for it to be anything more. It’s a shame as I was hoping for more from the director of The Hitcher, but alas this one won’t be giving me any night terrors, that’s for sure.
They had its US premiere on November 27, 2002 and over its opening weekend the movie grossed roughly $5.1 million. Its lifetime gross was $12.8 million in the US and $3.3 million overseas, making for a total worldwide gross of $16.1 million, which unfortunately is less than the reported budget of $17 million dollars.
Critically, They was met with a mixed response, but some of the more prominent reviewers at the time praised the film. It holds a 39% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 57 reviews, with an average rating of 4.5/10. The site’s consensus states: “They fails to sustain the level of creepiness necessary to rise above other movies in the horror genre.” The New York Times were critical of the script but also praised how scary they found it, saying, “Though you may share the characters’ skepticism about the reality of those nightmare creatures, and occasionally twitch with impatience at the movie’s clumsy dialogue and haphazard logic, you may also find yourself thoroughly terrified. I confess I was relieved when the movie ended and the lights came back on.”
It’s also interesting to note that the production shot two alternative endings that never made it into the finished product. The first in which Julia is released from a mental institution after convincing psychiatrists that she had regained her sanity, only for the monsters to appear in her apartment. The other also sees Julia in a mental institution but it all turns out to be a fabrication of her damaged mind. To be honest, I don’t think either would have added any weight to what is a fairly average thriller for this gore-hound, and while I appreciated some of the production values, I think the troubled scriptwriting process had lasting damage on the movie. However, as usual it’s YOUR opinion that matters the most to us here at JoBlo, so what’s your take on the film? Is They a worthy entry in the thriller / horror genre, or will you be having night terrors about the time you’ve wasted watching it? Let me know in the comments and I’ll see you wonderful gore-hounds next time. Thanks for watching!
A couple of the previous episodes of What Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!