At a time when there are no sure things in Hollywood, the one constant over the past few years has been horror. It’s a formula that studios certainly love; the movies are often made on the cheap, and when they earn big box office, the return on investment can often be bigger than what they’d get on a much more expensive blockbuster film. We’ve seen modest movies like “The Conjuring” and “The Purge” explode into franchises, with sequels and spinoffs, but what we haven’t seen from the horror world lately is a truly iconic, mainstream recognized villain (one that everyone from your Dad to hardcore horror buffs would recognize). But Mario Bello thinks there’s one character that’ll be capturing the pulse of the zeitgeist soon enough.
The actress stars in the upcoming, James Wan-produced scare flick “Lights Out,” and at the premiere of the movie on Wednesday, she told Variety she felt confident that the film’s CGI baddie, Diana, was going to inspire some serious cosplay.
“I think people at Comic-Con will be dressed up as Diana next year. Just the way she moved her hands and shoulders I think created an entire beast. I think her creature will transcend time and will be like a Freddy Krueger or a Jason,” Bello said.
“She’s a classic horror film woman, it’s very scary,” she also said.
That kind of confidence is nice to see, but you can’t manufacture fan approval (see Captain Phasma in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” as a character clearly created to be a Boba Fett-esque cult fave, and missing the mark). Still Bello’s words, if anything, will give audiences another reason to play close attention to the character when they see the movie this weekend. But let’s face it, even after eight movies, I doubt anybody is showing up to SDCC this year dressed up as Jigsaw from “Saw.” So good luck to Diana, but that’ll be a tough hill to climb.
