Horror Show

[Chris Scott]

As a lifelong lover of horror films I must leap to their defence! For a start I am convinced that many of the critics who deride horror pics are intellectual snobs who look down on horror (and most sci fi) as it is not "high art." There is a place for art films, such as the endless film noir Scandinavian type branch, and horror films. Film critics are exactly the sort of people who will criticise something just because it is popular.
That is not to say that I have no gripes with modern horror movies. One of my abiding criticisms is the lack of originality which takes two forms:-
1) The inordinate number of remakes. Some of the horror classics (mostly from books) such as Dracula and Frankenstein are powerful enough stories to stand almost any number of remakes. But some are just cashing in.
2) Similar to (1) is the over milking of a franchise. The Freddy films, the series of Friday 13th, Halloween, Hellraiser etc etc just go on for ever and generally get progressively worse. But this is not exclusive to horror films - just think of Rocky, Police Academy and so on
Some of the more mindless and undemanding horrors films are among my favourites! There is a place for a movie you can just stick on and tune out to:-)
Favourite horror movies? Impossible to choose but would have to include the original King Kong, the first Jeepers Creepers, Gary Oldman Dracula, original Alien, and so many more...
Most frightening? A very personal thing, obviously. There is a stable of horror classics most of whom came into film in the 1930s - Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, Phantom of the Opera etc. It is one of these that scared me witless even into my teens (and later if I'm honest) -m and that is the Mummy. Not the jokey wisecracking Brendan Fraiser film - which I did enjoy nonethless. No, it is the shambling, mindless, slow but relentless figure in bandages that still can give me the shudders. The Boris Karloff Mummy movie is not too bad as he is only in bandages for the first scene when he is reanimated - one of THE great scenes in cinema. The worst for me was the Hammer Christopher Lee Mummy - those eyes! (see below) I saw this as a teenager and for weeks had nightmares! Rewatched it recently and still had shudder or two.
And, finally, for some unknown reason another film which recently gave me the shudders was the first Silent Hill movie - very atmospheric and chilling.
Chris

[sdreid]

No doubt that Halloween was great and so was the first Friday the 13th despite all the howling from critics. If fact at least, the first three Friday the 13th movies were good, something that can't be said regarding the first two Halloween sequels.

[Scorpio]

Does gore work ?. I mean as dramatic device that serves a story rather replacing it?.
Here are a couple of scenes for consideration:

Scanners: Michael Ironside explodes someones head by telekineses.
Theatre of blood: Arthur Lowes severed head falls of and rolls across the floor.
The Shining: Hotel hall turns into blood rapids.

I think the weakest is The Shining. Kubrick looks uncomfortable in a horror movie; the hallway scene is artfully impressive but essentially pointless.

[Magpie]

Does gore work ?. I mean as dramatic device that serves a story rather replacing it?.

It certainly can work. I've seen a few gore movies where it wasn't "gratuitous" despite being very graphic.

The Japanese excel at this. They have a tendency to have movies that are very measures, almost pastoral for the first 2/3rd, before unleashing scenes that make me cringe (and that takes a lot).

There are also several movies that use graphic gore as a humour device--the violence and gore is so over the top that it forces the watcher to either laugh or hurl. Movies like Shaun Of The Dead, Versus, Black Sheep are all good examples of this.

[Magpie]

I think it was David Pirie who said that "Horrer Movie" is a misnomer--the should more correctly be called "Terror Movies", since their goal is (or should be) to evoke fear and tension rather than revulsion. Critics used "horror" as an attempt to marginalize and dismiss the genre, but this has backfired because fans have happily adopted the term have changed its meaning over time.

[martin wilson]

Brain Dead, one of Peter Jacksons' earlier films has insane gore,so much so that it pushes the film into comedy horror territory,which was its intent I'm sure, The Loved Ones also ups the gore content, although imho it is trying too hard to be a cult film.
It's a fine line I think, if it's too over the top it can drag you out of the film and make you wonder how they did it, whilst a lot of directors use actors almost in a disposable way,forgetting that the audience is most terrified when characters we like and care about are put into danger.
Realism can work, the Japanese film Audition has a scene that is nigh on unwatchable because the violence is convincing, but a film like Funny Games
has too much realism I think,even though it is a film about film, it's a tough watch.
Maybe mummy fans would like Bubba Ho Tep, a film made for about $10,not all of which is on the screen, but it does have wonderful performances from Bruce Campbell as Elvis,and the late,great Ossie Davis as JFK.
All the best.

[Scorpio]

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

[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.

[Scorpio]

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

[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]

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]

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.

[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.

[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]

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.