Horror Show

[Ayailla]

I'll have to keep an eye out for the original, for sure. It's one of the movies I've never actually seen. I love Subtitled movies.

Akira was an excellent film. A lot of Asian films are brilliant works. Maybe I should start a new thread for the Asian Film Appreciation Society.

[RivkahChaya]

I agree that Japanese horror movies over the last couple of decades have been great, and I'd say in general, Japanese films are underrated, because for a long time, the only ones Americans ever saw were badly dubbed giant monsters (Mothra, Rodan, etc.) and badly dubbed kung-fu movies. The last couple of decades, we've had the opportunity to see subtitled films. Also, in college, I got to see things like Akira Kurusawa's films, and those are fantastic.

This may sound crazy, but if you ever get a chance to see Godzilla (a big clue is that it will be called "Gojira") in the original Japanese release edit, without the Perry Mason scenes, and subtitled, not dubbed, you'll be surprised, because it's a very good movie. I cried at the end. It's not even really a horror movie in the conventional sense, it's about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and how, for the Japanese civilians who survived the attack, it was like being attacked out of nowhere by a huge monster. Yeah, it sounds goofy when I put it that way, in 2012, but the film came out in Japan in 1954, and a lot of the audience knew exactly what they were watching.

[Ayailla]

I really enjoy horror movies, but I've become disenchanted with western ones. They annoy me. Too many jump scares, relying too much on the gore, and once the movie is over, you forget it. I like horror movies that get you psychologically and stick with you. Films that don't scare you at the time but, when you wake up in the middle of the night, it suddenly hits you. That's why I prefer Asian horror movies.

Films like Ju-On (The Grudge) and Ringu (The Ring) are good ones to go for if you're a first time J-horror watcher. There's also Chakushin Ari (One Missed Call) which is good. The Korean film Pon (Phone) is very good too. The problem with a lot of asian horror is that America takes them and messes them up. With The Ring and The Grudge, they relied too much on special effects to get the 'scare' factor they wanted.

If you watch the American clip of the ghost crawling down the stairs in The Grudge, they use weird camera angles, loud music, and the main characters are screaming. It's too over the top. Compare that to the Japanese clip of the ghost crawling down the stairs. The girl is sat at the bottom, making barely any sound. All you can hear for most of the clip is the thump of her coming down, the horrible noise she is making, and a little bit of music in the background (which is creepy, not dramatic). Not too many shot switches as she crawls down towards the girl. In the American one, it doesn't register as real. In the Japanese one, you can tell that the actress playing the ghost is actually doing that. It makes it much more scary. The most annoying part is that they used the same actress for the ghost in both movies.

In case anybody is interested:

American clip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WWdim-OLok
Japanese clip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJpooPuCUT0

[Magpie]

Speaking of horror classics, I just started a "Phantasm" marathon. I picked up all four movies. From what I remember, the first one scared the living bejeezus out of everyone I knew when it can out. I also remember that number 4 was so monumentally lame that it took me about 3 days to watch it, just so I could say I'd seen them all.

[Cogidubnus]

I'm sorry, but to many right-ponders the "Blair Witch" reference can only relate to the horrific Cherie Booth...ugh...

Sorry

Dave

[RivkahChaya]

We lived in a small house in the woods for several years, and I could watch other horror movies and be just fine, and yet, BWP still managed to creep me out when I lived in a major city.

My husband still teases me every so often, by quoting the movie, and his favorite is when we take a wrong turn some place, to point to something, and say "It's the same [effing] 'McDonald's' (or whatever)." It's more a comment on how ubiquitous whatever "it" is, is, like McDonald's, and I guess you have to be there, but I still laugh, after 14 years, or whatever.

They should have been folklore students, instead of film students, though. The filming is too amateurish for real film students.

[Scorpio]

Has anone else read Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, the book The Haunting is based on? That book scared me silly, and I read most of it on a nice, sunny day, with lots of other people around. I know people who have lost sleep by reading, for example, Helter Skelter, alone, at night, while housesitting in a strange house. I have learned not to read any book about Jack the Ripper after dark, even when I'm not alone. I had to swear off true crime altogether the year my husband was in Iraq. But there were no outside forces conspiring to make The Haunting of Hill House extra creepy, it just was-- it was that unnerving.

The movie disappointed me, because it didn't live up to the book, but I don't think anything could have.

The movie that scared me the most when I was an adult was The Blair Witch Project, in that I was checking my closets, and making sure all my doors and windows were locked before I went to bed.

Something else that used to creep the hell out of me on a weekly basis, in a "check the closets, and all the locks" way, was the TV show Twin Peaks [IMDb link for UKers who don't know it]. I was only 23 when it was on, and living in a sort of crummy 3rd floor walk-up, but I knew all my neighbors, and we used to watch it together. Still creeped me out. I haven't seen it since it was first on, so I don't know how much it would scare me now, 23 years (which is to say, half my life) later.

I must admit that my first viewing of the Blair Witch project did get under my skin. I was living in a rural locale at that time and had a three mile walk to work
at six AM along some desolate unlit roads; this resulted in looking over my shoulder for a week afterwards and paying more attention to shadows than i normally would. I have not suffered such a reaction to a piece of fiction since childhood after watching A nightmare on Elm St on video when my parents were away.

[RivkahChaya]

One of the reasons "The Haunting" was such an effective film was that it avoided images and concentrated instead on sounds, which left more space for the imagination. Or take this chilling line from that film : "Then who was that holding my hand?" I think Christopher Lee once said that there is nothing so frightening as a half-open door.

Has anone else read Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, the book The Haunting is based on? That book scared me silly, and I read most of it on a nice, sunny day, with lots of other people around. I know people who have lost sleep by reading, for example, Helter Skelter, alone, at night, while housesitting in a strange house. I have learned not to read any book about Jack the Ripper after dark, even when I'm not alone. I had to swear off true crime altogether the year my husband was in Iraq. But there were no outside forces conspiring to make The Haunting of Hill House extra creepy, it just was-- it was that unnerving.

The movie disappointed me, because it didn't live up to the book, but I don't think anything could have.

The movie that scared me the most when I was an adult was The Blair Witch Project, in that I was checking my closets, and making sure all my doors and windows were locked before I went to bed.

Something else that used to creep the hell out of me on a weekly basis, in a "check the closets, and all the locks" way, was the TV show Twin Peaks [IMDb link for UKers who don't know it]. I was only 23 when it was on, and living in a sort of crummy 3rd floor walk-up, but I knew all my neighbors, and we used to watch it together. Still creeped me out. I haven't seen it since it was first on, so I don't know how much it would scare me now, 23 years (which is to say, half my life) later.

[RivkahChaya]

Candyman stood out that the time because it was a serious supernatural horror movie at a time when trend was either campy horror movies or cheesy slasher flicks. Haven't seen it in years--I wonder how it's aged.

Pretty well, because the actor who plays Candyman manages to be so threatening. He has supernatural powers, but even if he didn't, he looks like he'd be the toughest thug in the toughest gang in the neighborhood. I've seen the actor in other stuff, and he's not always like that, but he's really good in that movie. There's also lots of daylight in the movie, and it's still scary.

[RivkahChaya]

We all laugh when the guy sprains his ankle slipping on a banana peel.

I have a ton to say about horror movies, but no one wants to read my "TL" post. I'll just try to be content with "it used to be a lot of fun to see how realistic the special effects in the slasher films could get, and from a narrative standpoint, they were so unrealistic, that they weren't as scary as a documentary on a real crime that didn't show much; however, now that everything is CGI, it's no fun, because there's no mystery about where the rabbit is hidden, so to speak."

A word-- OK, words-- on the banana peel: I happen to know the origin of this gag, just because my grandfather was a journalist with an interest in the history of heater, and he liked vaudeville.

During set changes between the main numbers, performers who didn't travel, but were employed by the theater came out and told jokes, or did very short sight gags under a spotlight. One sight gag was eating a banana. If you don't think eating a banana can be funny, you haven't seen a professional comedian do it. It got very popular, and there were all sorts of variations on it. One was a couple coming out and playing a tender love scene, it what looked like the beginning of an actual number, then a guy coming out and sitting on a nearby bench, and conspicuously eating a banana.

Anyway, someone at some point came up with a "topper" for the banana routine, by having the guy eating the banana toss away the peel, and then having someone dressed as a stage hand walk across the set, and trip on it. Eventually, the gag got to be all about someone tripping on the peel, and less about funny ways to eat it. It would get left on the set for an entire routine, and people would start to walk toward it, then something would cause them to turn around, or sidestep it, unwittingly. The audience would roar with laughter. The banana peel was a farcical twist on Chekhov's gun.

So, the history of the gag isn't really about laughing at someone talking a fall, even though that's how it has come down to us.

[Magpie]

Has anyone seen Candyman?. I thought that it started well and worked upto a decent crescendo, but the final act quickly deflated. I suppose this is a common complaint amongst horror movies.

Candyman stood out that the time because it was a serious supernatural horror movie at a time when trend was either campy horror movies or cheesy slasher flicks. Haven't seen it in years--I wonder how it's aged.

[Scorpio]

Has anyone seen Candyman?. I thought that it started well and worked upto a decent crescendo, but the final act quickly deflated. I suppose this is a common complaint amongst horror movies.

[Magpie]

A clone?,its not the first slasher then; that must be Psycho or Halloween.
I believe John Carpenter is a Hitchcock fan.

HG Lewis is the father of all modern slasher flicks.

Friday The 13th came out the year before The Burning, but the same year as Friday the 13th part 2 (which is the true template of the franchise) and they are virtually interchangeable.

[Scorpio]

A clone?,its not the first slasher then; that must be Psycho or Halloween.
I believe John Carpenter is a Hitchcock fan.

[Magpie]

Has anyone seen a film called the " The burning " ?. It is supposed to be better than Friday 13th.

I have it in my vcd collection somewhere.

It is a Friday 13th clone, but I would agree that it's not quite as contrived. It features a very young Jason Alexander in the cast.