Are Critics Embracing Camp?

It's not unusual for a studio to pass on critics' screenings prior to a film's release. The tactic usually means the studio has little faith in its product. In layman's terms. It's a clunker.

Recent movies like Killers and Vampires Suck bypassed critics, but the critical mass savaged them all the same laterl.

But something unusual happened when Dimension Films released Piranha 3D sans traditional review screenings.

The critics caught up with the film on their own - and many of them loved it. The Associated Press's Christy Lemire practically begged audiences to see it, and the film‘s Rottentomatoes.com "fresh" rating is hovering in the low 80s.

Did Dimension Films make a mistake in not letting critics screen their movie prior to its opening? And could those positive reviews have helped the film's anemic $10 million box office haul?

Who would have guessed critics would respond favorably to a film soaked in gore and eager to cram nudity into every possible frame?

Besides, aren't critics supposed to turn their collective noses up at such genre fare?

Jeremy Parsons, "Hollywood Dailies" correspondent and frequent host of Reelzchannel's "Spotlight" show, says today's critics are much more culturally aware than their predecessors.

"I'm not surprised mainstream critics are loving the movie. It's very blatantly owning up to what it is," Parsons says. "It has a sense of itself. People respond well to that."

The raves might not have been so effusive had the film come out 20 years ago, he suspects.

"We didn't have enough space between the genre establishing itself," he says. "The whole camp classic category is something that's sort of new."

Today's critics also may feel the pressure from their online peers as well as the force exhibited by events like Comic Con which bring a geeky sensibility to the films made in Hollywood. Trashing a movie like Piranha 3D, which audiences may see as a good guilty pleasure, will render them outside the mainstream.

Stephen Garrett, founder of Kinetic Trailers, says modern critics grew up watching genre films on VHS and are sympathetic to guilty pleasures like Piranha 3D.

Dimension could have considered that factor in setting up possible critics screenings, Garrett says. Or, the studio could have shown the movie to more sympathetic critics, like those who oversee genre or geek-friendly sites.

That said, the critic's influence is waning all the same.

"It's harder and harder for them to have an impact regardless of what they love and loathe," he says.

Either way, Parsons says studios would be wise to consider that audiences, and even critics, don't mind a little cheese in their movie diet.

"There's very definitely an appetite for the intentionally bad cinema, and studios should use that to their benefit," he says.

Parsons says other studios will be looking at how Piranha 3D fares in its theatrical run while assessing their own marketing plans for genre films.

"If it ends up doing well in the weeks to come, other studios will look at the philosophy behind it," he says.