Four Reasons for "Spoiler of the Day"

 If you've never seen a Four Reasons before, it's because I don't have a chance to do them that often. The Cap'n is usually so focused on doing a review that I rarely opt instead to focus on any four aspects of a film that build one case (the most recent entry was about how silly Tron Legacy was), and of all of the specialty columns, it gets the least coverage. Ironically, I've chosen to bring it back tonight to discuss something most of you can't see (yet).

 Over on my non-Cap'n Howdy social media site (which is not linked for various reasons), I've started doing what I call a "Spoiler of the Day*" a feature devoted to giving away the ending (or twist) of one movie every day. At first this might seem cruel, particularly when I try not to spoil endings of newer movies on the Blogorium. In fact, despite not answering the question of how John Carpenter's The Ward ended - and instead hinting it was similar to another movie (Identity) I knew people hadn't seen - The Ward and Identity were two of the first SotD.

 I do have four very good reasons why I'm doing this, and I thought I'd share them here before I integrate the Spoiler of the Day to the Blogorium as a supplemental post next week.

 1. Chances are, You Won't be Seeing These Movies Anyway - While it won't always be the case, you can look at SotD as an extension of the "So You Won't Have To" reviews. I'm going to try to spoil all different kinds of movies, but the bulk of them will be ones I know people didn't see but might enjoy knowing what happened at the end. How do I know this? Because Blogorium favorite The Happening generated all kinds of disbelief when I explained what's killing people. Sometimes all you need to know is the premise of a movie you didn't see to appreciate how stupid it gets, and I guess most of the world didn't know that (SPOILER) plants conspiring to wipe out the northeastern U.S. was what The Happening was about. If that's a service I can provide, then I'll happily share the dumbest twists to the dumbest movies.

 2. The Obvious Choices Aren't on My List - Look, spoiling Psycho or Citizen Kane or Soylent Green or Planet of the Apes isn't any fun. Even if you haven't seen them, you know what happens. I'd much rather throw a curveball and spoil Murder By Death completely out of context in the hope that it sends someone to the movie with a desire to figure out how what happens, well, happens. Because they won't always be "bad" movies, I might leave out certain plot details and just cover the ending in order to generate interest in the film itself. The spoilers won't always be in context, in part because of my next reason...

 3. I'm going to have fun with it - This isn't just another Moviepooper situation where I simply recap the film for people who don't know whether they want to invest time in it or not. There will be cases of misdirection or occasionally misleading facts. For example, when I spoiled The Boogens, I went a step further and implied the movie was somehow tied to C.H.U.D.? Why? Slight resemblance in the monsters. And it made me chuckle. I don't want this to be a dry recap of what happened in a movie - I want it to be as entertaining as anything else on the Blogorium.

 4. Down the Line, It's Going to Be Interactive - After I've been doing this for a while, both with movies I've seen and ones I happen to know the ending of, I'm going to bring back the poll on the right hand of the screen. I'll ask you what you want to see Spoiled, what you've always wanted to know the ending of but can't be bothered to watch or find yourself online (and Moviepooper, while handy, is far from comprehensive). For example, want to know what happened at the end of Blues Brothers 2000? Me neither, but someone out there might! I'll find out for you (I think I know, actually) and post it. If you have one that you'd like to share, I can arrange that too.

So there are my reasons for arbitrarily spoiling the endings, twists, and unexpected turns in a movie every day. It started as a lark, but when you've sat through as many movies as I have that nobody is ever going to watch, it's best to find some way to put that trivia to use. Look for the feature on Monday, when I'll be spoiling... let's save that as a surprise.



* I'm seriously debating switching it to Spoiler FOR the Day, just because there's something grammatically troubling about Spoiler Of the Day that I can't quite put my finger on.