Horror Show

[Scorpio]

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[Robert]

"Ghost and demon movies- hard to do with things that are usually invisible"

Kensei, I think that perhaps film isn't the ideal medium for such stories. It depends on what's wanted. What is "horror"? One can get plenty of horror simply from reading history books, or even the daily newspapers. Anyone can make a film showing, say, people having their limbs hacked off. This is horror, and even disgust. Then there is another meaning of "horror" which has more to do with the uncanny. I think the uncanny is a very important element in ghost/horror stories, and often it's better imagined than described or filmed. 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.

Of course, inbetween the slasher stuff and the uncanny there is a whole spectrum. And people don't always read/watch horror material to be frightened. Like most good literature it will succeed on more than one level.

[kensei]

I LOVE HORROR MOVIES! It is one of my favorite genres. My mother remembers me as a very small child seeing Hitchcock's "The Birds" on tv and then being afraid to go outside afterwards. I don't remember that, but it was probably a couple of years later that I saw a campy old afternoon movie on tv called "The Vulture" that I remember very clearly, about a half man-half bird creature with some kind of vendetta against some family. Lots of scenes of people being lured out on to balconies at night, then ominous wing-flapping and dark talons coming down on their shoulders and carrying them away. I was probably eight years old or so and I was terrified! I'm sure I'd laugh if I saw it again today.

I've watched several of the old black and white classics, and compared them to their more modern counterparts. I understand that the old ones were considered scary as hell in their day and I do enjoy them in that way, but if you compare them to now they almost seem silly. Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolf Man had sharp teeth and claws, yet he tended to strangle his victims and shed not a single drop of blood. The blood-soaked remake a few years ago with Benicio Del Toro had no such problem with squeamishness. And how many of you have seen the original "Dracula" with Bela Lugosi? It has its high points, but the ending is absolutely anti-climactic and not scary at all. My favorite Dracula movie is "Bram Stoker's Dracula" with Gary Oldman, which actually stuck closer to the book than any other Dracula movie before or since (even though it also took many liberties).

Ghost and demon movies- hard to do with things that are usually invisible. "The Exorcist" is absolutely number one. With ghosts, would you call "The Sixth Sense" a horror movie? Maybe, maybe not, but it was SO GOOD. "The Blair Witch Project" and the "Paranormal Activity" series are examples that people tend to either love or hate, with no middle ground. I personally loved them. Their home video-reality approach was a truly new innovation.

Slasher movies, it can't be denied, did cheapen the genre for a while. "Psycho" was the first. But who can deny that the original "Halloween" is a great, great horror film? After repeated viewings, it still gives me chills.

There have been monster movies aplenty- monsters from nature, monsters from outer space, monsters spawned by magic or radiation or pollution, etc. etc. etc. But I will tell you my very favorite line in any monster movie or indeed in any horror movie I've ever seen. It was spoken by a child, Carrie Henn, playing a little girl named Newt in "Aliens," the second and best of the "Alien" series, to Sigourney Weaver.

"My mommy always told me there were no monsters, no real ones, but there are. Why do they tell little kids that?"

[sleekviper]

I also love the horror vein, but no matter how well any are made, it suffers two problems; we are taught as small kids that there are no such things as monsters to give us piece of mind, and humans absolutely hate the thought of not being top dog. A bad marriage, spouse cheats, the underdog wins, we relate and feel for those, while feeling scared or frightened drifts back to childhood when it is stupid to feel that way for something that is not real. "Alien" was brilliant, That chest bursting scene of Hurt was real reaction of those involved. Scott told them with that scene it would be coming from Hurt like in the script, but when things started flying out, that is real actors reactions. Miles ahead of it's time, miles behind on proper credit.
In any horror film something is going to be better than the average person, and we hate that. Could have understood that in "Jaws" people were invading his turf, would not matter, it still was beating humans, so scared or not, it is not on equal level of what it could be as a film. Secretly we like what they do as a guilty pleasure; if they didn't sell tickets, there would be more Woody Allen knock-offs, but outwardly they get trashed for going against the grain. Ju-on, American version The Grudge, Dog Soldiers, Pan's Labyrinth, The Feast, 30 Days of Night,Full Eclipse, Curse of The Demon, and either version of The Thing are enjoyable.

[Scorpio]

I love horror films, ghost films, etc. I don't like the slash and gore stuff, though I did watch the Freddie Kruger ones.

I don't believe in over-analysing such things, so I'll just say to anyone who scoffs at horror films, take a look at the first Frankenstein.

I enjoyed the first half of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST. Freddies homicidal Incubus ,as i think of him, was genuinely bracing and original.

[Robert]

I love horror films, ghost films, etc. I don't like the slash and gore stuff, though I did watch the Freddie Kruger ones.

I don't believe in over-analysing such things, so I'll just say to anyone who scoffs at horror films, take a look at the first Frankenstein.

[martin wilson]

Stephen Kings' Danse Macabre is a fun,non bollocks spouting read on subtextual themes in horror movies, I tend to the view that thesauras bothering dissertations are more about the writer than the subject but thats a personal view.
If Psycho is a horror film,why not Silence of the Lambs?, did Psycho have the benefit of the shock of the new? whereas by the time SOTL came along,the serial killer genre was well established?, I dunno, I know that Anthony Hopkins Oscar winning turn cant hold a candle to Anthony Perkins (funny about the names isn't it?) terrifying stare into the camera in the final 'wouldn't hurt a fly' scene, the cold grip of fear stayed with you for some time afterwards because you were now aware there were some very strange people in the world and if you were unlucky enough you might meet one of them down a dark alley somewhere............
Thats horror for me, Jaws could be classed a horror film as afterwards you were a little bit nervous about going for a paddle at thev seaside.
Which is not to say I dont enjoy a dumb monster movie, but I find them almost comforting in a way, the only surprise in them is waiting to see what inventive method the writers have come up with for killing the bikini clad females this time.
All the best.

[Magpie]

Sure they have validity.

Nobody questions the validity of comedy because of, say, the Porky's movies, or that westerns have no validity because of some of the cheesier spaghetti westerns out there. It's easy for people who don't like horror movies to find examples of trash to support their opinion, but that doesn't mean they're right.

Directors like Argento, Cronenberg, Romero, or Hooper have had scholarly articles and books written about them just like "important" directors like Kurosawa, Truffaut, or Welles. Theories of horror films abound in academic circles, including catharsis, social commentary, sexual politics, economic uncertainty and pure escapism etc. etc. A lot of it's pure bollocks, of course, but then a lot of the stuff they write about "real" filmmakers is pure bollocks too.

[Bailey]

Aside from arguing that any art has some value, of course horror films have validity. They get trashed for being, well, trashy, and oversimplified, but that's satisfying a basic need that goes back to the earliest intelligence - I think every culture has monster myths that are serving the same inherent purpose, from Medusa, the minotaur, etc, through to Jonah and the whale, and Grimm's fairy tales. Bottom line is that we love a good scare - it's a thrill, a taste of potential mortality that makes us feel alive (same concept as the thrill and safe "risk" we get when we go on rollercoasters) and helps us deal with the concept of mortality. Indeed, tho many would scoff and argue, it's this innate appeal that even draws us to the likes of the Ripper case - after all, it's just another scary story, even scarier because not only is it true, but there's not even the happy ending of knowing the baddie got his just desserts.

So, yes, while the majority of horror flicks are mindless trash - which could also easily be argued is the case for the majority of action and comedy films, and if you don't agree with me, go watch anything starring Adam Sandler or the high quality 1980s work of Stallone and Arnie - there are film in the genre that seek to be something more to varying degrees of success.

Psycho, Silence Of The Lambs and Seven all deserve mention and are great films (possibly not Psycho, which has a wonderful first half but is less impressive post-shower) but despite horror elements, are really more thrillers than horror flicks. Genuine horror flicks that I think qualify as actual art, with something valid to say as opposed to merely being a rollercoaster ride are fewer and far between, but they're out there - Night Of The Living Dead (and to a lesser degree its sequels) has some very clever observations to make about us for example, no doubt if I was a little wider awake (it's very early in the morning here in NZ right now) I would come up with a few more.

However, when it comes to the horror film as powerful art making taking a serious look at the human condition while still scaring six kinds of poo out of you, I have but two words for y'all - The Exorcist.

B.