Horror Show

[Scorpio]

SPOILERS...SPOILERS...SPOILERS...SPOILERS!!!


Did you see this in the theater when it first came out? I did, and something very clever happened that made the ending almost unbearably tense, and isn't repeatable-- you just can't experience it anymore.

That actors died in reverse order of their degree of bankability. That's totally counter to what normally happens in a Hollywood (yes, I know this was a British co-production) film. Usually the most famous person is alive at the end, if anyone is, and the unknowns are red-shirted. If the star dies before the end, you can pretty much count on everyone dying.

In 1979, John Hurt was hugely famous. He'd been popular in Britain for years, and was a hit in the US with I, Claudius. Tom Skerritt had been working for almost two decades, and had just been in a hit film with Shirley MacLaine & Anne Bancroft. Veronica Cartwright had been acting since childhood. She'd had a recurring role on Leave It to Beaver, and had been in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. Sigourney Weaver, no one had heard of. She'd had one line in a Woody Allen movie, and a part in a TV mini-series, and that was pretty much it. The ink was still damp on her SAG card.

So, first of all, it's a shock when John Hurt dies at all, because your expectation is that Ripley (Weaver) is the throw-away character, and that either Dallas (Skerritt) or Kane (Hurt) will be alive at the end, if anyone is. Once both of them are dead, you're sort of ready for an outer-space disaster movie, where everyone dies-- another thing to know is that it isn't entirely clear from the commercials and previews exactly what the Nostromo encounters, and there had been a fad for disaster movies, like The Towering Inferno, & The Poseidon Adventure, which were sort of "who's going to die?-- maybe everyone" suspense movies; Alien came at the end of this fad.

So, really, when the ship is counting down, you aren't expecting Ripley to make it. When she and the cat are asleep, you stay to watch the credits roll, still expecting a surprise. It isn't until the screen goes black, that you are really sure she made it.

It's still an awesome movie, but there's no way to see it now, without knowing that Sigourney Weaver is a huge star, and famous for playing tough women, and maybe getting young Tom Skerritt confused with Kris Kristofferson.

I was to young to see the movie in theaters, but i have vague memories of an elder family friend enthusiastically describing John Hurt's demise.
' oooohhhhmmmyyyygggod'.

[Scorpio]

The serial killer has provided a rich harvest for the horror genre, but do any of these movies portray the phenomena with any fidelity?.
Here are some of my nominations:
10 Rillington Place ( John Christie )
Citizen X ( The Rostov Ripper )
Henry, Portrait of a serial killer ( Henry Lee Lucas )
Casebook fans, can you think of any to add to the list ?.

[kensei]

The serial killer has provided a rich harvest for the horror genre, but do any of these movies portray the phenomena with any fidelity?.
Here are some of my nominations:
10 Rillington Place ( John Christie )
Citizen X ( The Rostov Ripper )
Henry, Portrait of a serial killer ( Henry Lee Lucas )
Casebook fans, can you think of any to add to the list ?.

Hannibal Lecter, the genius gentleman serial killer, is not likely to be realistic. But for consideration, Ralph Fiennes in "Red Dragon" and the Phantom in the embellished true story "The Town that Dreaded Sundown" were both interesting. They both put a ton of effort into their grim hobby.

[Scorpio]

Robert Ressler, the FBI profiling pioneer, has stated that Hannibal Lector is not an accurate depiction of a serial killer in his opinion.
Ressler feels that Lector is a combination of organized and disorganized elements that he has never encountered in his professional life.
No organized killer who is able to maintain a profession requiring highly developed social skills and sophisticated judgement in so many arena's has ever practiced cannabalism.

[Penhalion]

I've always found "The Fog" to be deliciously creepy.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080749/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

[Scorpio]

I've always found "The Fog" to be deliciously creepy.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080749/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

There aren't enough supernatural revenge movies.

[kensei]

Robert Ressler, the FBI profiling pioneer, has stated that Hannibal Lector is not an accurate depiction of a serial killer in his opinion.
Ressler feels that Lector is a combination of organized and disorganized elements that he has never encountered in his professional life.
No organized killer who is able to maintain a profession requiring highly developed social skills and sophisticated judgement in so many arena's has ever practiced cannabalism.

I never saw anything disorganized about Hannibal. Even his cannibalism was carried out with the finest kitchen utensils, even side dishes like some fava beans and a nice chianti.

[RivkahChaya]

I never saw anything disorganized about Hannibal. Even his cannibalism was carried out with the finest kitchen utensils, even side dishes like some fava beans and a nice chianti.

I think the point is that cannibalism itself is a disorganized trait when it's practiced by a serial killer (in a society where it's taboo, I'm assuming; there are societies that practice it as part of religious of funerary rites). It's kind of like there are lots of crossover features of cats and dogs, but there are some things that they will never share. Dogs will never be able to retract their claws, and cats will never be able to dig holes bigger than they are. Even cat-sized dogs, like Chihuahuas, can dig Chihuahua-sized holes in a matter of minutes.

[Scorpio]

Two of the best known cannibals of modern times,Geoffrey Dahmer and Andrei chikittillo, provide a good example of what Ressler was getting at.
The cannibalism in both cases was pathological; The desire was rooted in deep seated in psycho sexual problems that are closely associated with other behavioral problems which combined would be difficult to conceal from the world. An inability to conceal ones strangeness from the world is a disorganised characteristic.

[kensei]

I don't know how many people saw "Hannibal Rising." It wasn't nearly as big a hit as the movies with Anthony Hopkins, but it did portray what went into the making of him as a serial killer. His cannibalism stems from the fact that Nazis occupying his family's house during a snowstorm killed and ate his little sister. I guess I'm not sure if that's considered part of his official canon or not.

[Scorpio]

Thomas Harris wrote that book, so it is canon.

[RivkahChaya]

I never saw Hannibal Rising, but I did see Silence of the Lambs. I thought there was an "Eff society and the mores it rode in on" motivation to Hannibal's cannibalism, which is a legitimate choice for a literary character, however much it might be impossible (from a psychiatric standpoint) in a real person. Cannibalism is a huge taboo in the US and Canada, and from what I understand, in Europe, and, ironically, in most Catholic countries (like S. American countries, if Alive is any gauge), so violating it can be the action of an iconoclast.

It isn't seen that way, though, at least when it really happens. That's the way Hannibal Lecter was seen, but not the way Jeffrey Dahmer (who, if you ever saw a post-conviction interview with him, came across as startlingly mundane) was seen. Of course, it's not the way Jeffrey Dahmer presented himself, either. He was ashamed of himself, and as much as the media tried to portray him as a monster, he mostly gave it silence, at least before his trial. Silence can be menacing, and that the angle the press took ("He must be hiding even worse secrets than the things we know about"), but the fact was that he was lonely and pathetic. If he'd been caught stealing sex toys, trying to build a sex robot, or raping animals, people would have been laughing at him, but all those things come from the same kind of desperation. Dahmer also was a necrophiliac, and an alcoholic who could get drunk, and then have a mental disconnect, where other people didn't have needs apart from his own, and that's what made him dangerous.

Things like alcohol and desperation are the difference between a fictional monster like Lecter, and a real threat, like Dahmer.

[Scorpio]

Buffalo Bill aka Jaime Gumb is a much more convincing killer and an interesting character.
Harris partly based his MO on Ted Bundy,who used a cast on his arm to illicit sympathy, and Gary Heidnik,who imprisoned women in a hole in his backyard.
The signature bares resemblance to Ed Gein who fashioned various garments from human skin.

[Scorpio]

Has anyone seen ' Paranormal activity' ?. For an investment of ninety minutes, i received one minutes worth of mild scare. The reviews were very good, but i was not getting that terrifying vibe.Perhaps because i watched it on my laptop, i may have lost something of the big screen's ability to sell this kind of thing.
Not a terrible movie, but an inert one.

[pinkmoon]

films that have really scared me

The following films that have really scared me the omen,jaws,alien,schindlers list and last and not least my own wedding video.