Horror Show

[Scorpio]

You'll have to give me an example. There was lot of violence, and "adult themes" in silent movies, because people assumed no one would be taking children to them, since the intertitles had to be read, and we written for an adult vocabulary and reading ability. There was nudity, lopping off of heads in battle scenes (both the "Fall of Babylon" sequence in Intolerance, and the battle sequences in Birth of a Nation), the horrific chariot race in Ben Hur, homicides, suicides, rapes, some things in Lon Chaney films that were just bizarre (The Unknown is quite unsettling), and lots of female breasts, although some of them got edited out in rereleases, so we just have stills.

The reason the Hays' Code came about in 1933 was that sound films meant people started taking children to them.

Have you seen Hitchcock's early films? He made a film version of The Lodger, which is awfully good, and some suspense films that can blow your mind when you are watching them. Hitchcock never introduced supernatural elements, and by the time the films were resolved, the scary stuff had usually beat a retreat, but when you are in the middle of the film, and don't know where it's going, pretty creepy.

I guess i am referring to a horror sub-genre which began with ' Peeping Tom ' and ' Psycho ' . It's a genre that owes little to the supernatural, but had more contemporary themes. I think Wes Cravens early stuff and John Carpenters ' Halloween ' seemed to be informed by these movies.

[Robert]

"The Birds" is a kind of horror film. You don't expect sparrows and suchlike to suddenly turn on you.

[Scorpio]

Would like to give a nod to one special sub-genre of horror films, the "killer animal" movie. There are so many of them, and I would venture to say that only rarely has it been done really well without any level of cheesiness. Two that spring to mind are "Jaws" (of course, but none of its sequels), and "The Ghost and the Darkness" with Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas, which is a true story about two maneating African lions. "Jaws" is a true classic that was nominated for the best picture Oscar despite its mechanical shark that barely worked and looked just scary enough for that time, and though many would place it in the "thriller" or even "drama" category I do usually see it in the horror section in the video store. There were just seconds of real shark footage included in the movie. In "The Ghost and the Darkness" we get to see plenty of footage of real lions, which are of course much more trainable than sharks, and it is mixed with animatronics for some of the extreme close-ups that are almost indistinguishable. Plenty of great suspense in both films, and both end with right up to the last second confrontations between man and beast where either could end up the winner.

One of my guilty pleasures is perhaps the first big "Jaws" rip-off movie, "GRIZZLY," which is of course about an impossibly large maneating bear terrorizing a national park. I first saw it when I was about 10 and I'll always be proud of the fact that my best friend at the time who was with me bailed even before the half way point, while I stayed until the end. It starred Christopher George, Andrew Prine, and Richard Jaeckel. Picture idyllic scenes of people enjoying the great outdoors that are SUDDENLY cut short by horrendous roars, quick shots of a clawed paw swinging through the air, and human bodies coming apart and gushing blood in various ways. It also featured a horse being beheaded by that same paw swipe, with a straight cut that looked like the head had been removed with a saw. Yep, I sat through that at the tender age of 10. The acting by the three stars- who are a reflection of the three men in "Jaws"- is actually quite good, but surrounded by extreme cheese. The ads for the movie described the bear as "18 feet of maneating, gut-crunching terror," but in the movie he is described as being only 15 feet tall, and when we finally get to see him portrayed by a real trained bear rather than just the fake swinging paw on a stick, he looks- surprise surprise- about the size of a regular grizzly. I don't know how many bullets the bear absorbs throughout the movie but it is many. Why won't he die? Just because he's big? It's wonderfully silly, and he is finally blown to smithereens with a rocket launcher, and how forest rangers come to be in posession of one of those is anyone's guess. Aaaaah, "Grizzly." My favorite guilty pleasure.

And I'd like to give honorable mention to the movie "Orca," which came out at around the same time. The cast had real clout- Richard Harris and Charlotte Rampling were the stars of this killer whale adventure. Bo Derek played Harris' daughter and got her leg bitten off. Harris played a fisherman who tried to capture a killer whale alive but ended up accidentally killing a pregnant female, which resulted in its mate vowing revenge against him. It's a classic case of "Gee, if I change careers and just stay off the ocean for the rest of my life this will cease to be a problem, but of course I can't do that." Pretty good flick though in my opinion. My favorite scene is where Harris goes to speak with a priest, and in wonderful Irish accents they have this exchange:

"Father, is it possible to commit a sin against an animal?"
"Oh, my son, it is possible to commit a sin even against a blade of grass."

And it's old enough and obscure enough that I don't mind giving a spoiler: The whale wins.

I particularly remember ' Zoltan:Hound of Dracula ' and ' Night of the Lepus '
( mutant rabbits ) making an impression.

[kensei]

Would like to give a nod to one special sub-genre of horror films, the "killer animal" movie. There are so many of them, and I would venture to say that only rarely has it been done really well without any level of cheesiness. Two that spring to mind are "Jaws" (of course, but none of its sequels), and "The Ghost and the Darkness" with Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas, which is a true story about two maneating African lions. "Jaws" is a true classic that was nominated for the best picture Oscar despite its mechanical shark that barely worked and looked just scary enough for that time, and though many would place it in the "thriller" or even "drama" category I do usually see it in the horror section in the video store. There were just seconds of real shark footage included in the movie. In "The Ghost and the Darkness" we get to see plenty of footage of real lions, which are of course much more trainable than sharks, and it is mixed with animatronics for some of the extreme close-ups that are almost indistinguishable. Plenty of great suspense in both films, and both end with right up to the last second confrontations between man and beast where either could end up the winner.

One of my guilty pleasures is perhaps the first big "Jaws" rip-off movie, "GRIZZLY," which is of course about an impossibly large maneating bear terrorizing a national park. I first saw it when I was about 10 and I'll always be proud of the fact that my best friend at the time who was with me bailed even before the half way point, while I stayed until the end. It starred Christopher George, Andrew Prine, and Richard Jaeckel. Picture idyllic scenes of people enjoying the great outdoors that are SUDDENLY cut short by horrendous roars, quick shots of a clawed paw swinging through the air, and human bodies coming apart and gushing blood in various ways. It also featured a horse being beheaded by that same paw swipe, with a straight cut that looked like the head had been removed with a saw. Yep, I sat through that at the tender age of 10. The acting by the three stars- who are a reflection of the three men in "Jaws"- is actually quite good, but surrounded by extreme cheese. The ads for the movie described the bear as "18 feet of maneating, gut-crunching terror," but in the movie he is described as being only 15 feet tall, and when we finally get to see him portrayed by a real trained bear rather than just the fake swinging paw on a stick, he looks- surprise surprise- about the size of a regular grizzly. I don't know how many bullets the bear absorbs throughout the movie but it is many. Why won't he die? Just because he's big? It's wonderfully silly, and he is finally blown to smithereens with a rocket launcher, and how forest rangers come to be in posession of one of those is anyone's guess. Aaaaah, "Grizzly." My favorite guilty pleasure.

And I'd like to give honorable mention to the movie "Orca," which came out at around the same time. The cast had real clout- Richard Harris and Charlotte Rampling were the stars of this killer whale adventure. Bo Derek played Harris' daughter and got her leg bitten off. Harris played a fisherman who tried to capture a killer whale alive but ended up accidentally killing a pregnant female, which resulted in its mate vowing revenge against him. It's a classic case of "Gee, if I change careers and just stay off the ocean for the rest of my life this will cease to be a problem, but of course I can't do that." Pretty good flick though in my opinion. My favorite scene is where Harris goes to speak with a priest, and in wonderful Irish accents they have this exchange:

"Father, is it possible to commit a sin against an animal?"
"Oh, my son, it is possible to commit a sin even against a blade of grass."

And it's old enough and obscure enough that I don't mind giving a spoiler: The whale wins.

[RivkahChaya]

I don't think the horror movie, as i would recognise it, existed in 1945. With the exception of the Frederic March version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, I mean horror movies that were linked to the permissive society in there depiction of violence and adult themes.

You'll have to give me an example. There was lot of violence, and "adult themes" in silent movies, because people assumed no one would be taking children to them, since the intertitles had to be read, and we written for an adult vocabulary and reading ability. There was nudity, lopping off of heads in battle scenes (both the "Fall of Babylon" sequence in Intolerance, and the battle sequences in Birth of a Nation), the horrific chariot race in Ben Hur, homicides, suicides, rapes, some things in Lon Chaney films that were just bizarre (The Unknown is quite unsettling), and lots of female breasts, although some of them got edited out in rereleases, so we just have stills.

The reason the Hays' Code came about in 1933 was that sound films meant people started taking children to them.

Have you seen Hitchcock's early films? He made a film version of The Lodger, which is awfully good, and some suspense films that can blow your mind when you are watching them. Hitchcock never introduced supernatural elements, and by the time the films were resolved, the scary stuff had usually beat a retreat, but when you are in the middle of the film, and don't know where it's going, pretty creepy.

[Scorpio]

One of my favourites............

I don't think the horror movie, as i would recognise it, existed in 1945. With the exception of the Frederic March version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, I mean horror movies that were linked to the permissive society in there depiction of violence and adult themes.

[Steve S]

Dead of Night (1945) is an excellent film, and a little creepy and unnerving, but I wouldn't call it really scary. It's absolutely a great watch, though, and I highly recommend it.

Don't confuse it with a later film of the same name.

One of my favourites............

[RivkahChaya]

Dead of Night (1945) is an excellent film, and a little creepy and unnerving, but I wouldn't call it really scary. It's absolutely a great watch, though, and I highly recommend it.

Don't confuse it with a later film of the same name.

[Scorpio]

A movie called ' Dead of night ' is supposed to be quite scary. It's black and white,British; and it was made in the 30's or 40's.
Has anyone seen it?.

[RivkahChaya]

Difficult isn't it?..............Then you've got "supernatural" stuff involving twinkly Vampires which are only horrific in their plots/acting.........

+1


characters

[Steve S]

Difficult isn't it?..............Then you've got "supernatural" stuff involving twinkly Vampires which are only horrific in their plots/acting.........

[RivkahChaya]

Personal feeling..To me,"Horror" involves the Supernatural...others are Sci-Fi,Thrillers etc with extra-bloody bits...........

While I understand what you mean, Alien was one of the scariest movies I ever saw (I saw it in the theater when it was first released, an experience that can't be recreated), and while it's fair to call it sci-fi, I have no problem with it being shown at a horror movie fest.

There are lots of movies that walk the line: Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Jeff Goldblum version of The Fly-- "horror" and "sci-fi" are just crossover genre, with some films belonging to both.

I can't think of one off the top of my head, but there are certainly films that belong to the "mystery/suspense" genre, and also the "horror" genre, just like there is lots of crossover between "mystery/suspense" and "crime/detective."

The Uninvited, for example, is a supernatural film, but it isn't sci-fi, and it isn't horror, and you can't classify it as anything but "mystery/suspense," unless you have a separate "supernatural/paranormal" category, but don't put the straight up sci-fi there, because most of it genuinely doesn't belong (Metropolis), and the ones that you could squeeze in, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, you really shouldn't, because the target audience is different.

Other than a film like The Blair Witch Project, in which [SPOILER*], I can't think of a horror film that is only horror, and not something else as well.


*the question of supernatural involvement is never resolved

[Steve S]

Cross-genre is always a personal thing..hammy 'tho it is.I love "Witchfinder General"...but..Horror?Historical?.........

[Robert]

Yes, I suppose for supernatural read "uncanny." Such stories have a definite feel to them.

However, that said, some of the old Twilight Zone stories could be pretty creepy even when they were about science fiction subjects e.g. wandering into a parallel universe and then finding yourself gradually becoming less real
on account of not belonging there. Or falling into a time loop where you only get ten minutes to plot a means of escape, before the whole thing starts again from scratch.

[Steve S]

Personal feeling..To me,"Horror" involves the Supernatural...others are Sci-Fi,Thrillers etc with extra-bloody bits...........