FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH, TWENTY-OH-NINE
November 12th 2009 23:50
The genre of horror in the history of cinema began in Germany, during the Expressionist Movement, and arguably was heralded – and still championed - with the release of Robert Weine’s oneiric tale of a crazed doctor and his somnambulist killer, the feature The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919).
The best nightmare movies (as I like to call the wider dark circle that is represented here) are influenced in some form or fashion by Expressionism, or by dream logic, or by the phantasmogorical realm of the unknown. “Is all that we see or seem, but a dream within a dream” asked Edger Allen Poe, and is the quote I have on my Horrorphile profile banner.
I greatly admire the history of horror cinema through the decades, but being the age that I am, I am particularly enamoured with the modern horror movie the era which is widely regarded to have started with the released of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968), the year I was born. It is from this point on that horror movies became all the more visceral, reckless, subversive, abstract, transgressive, intense, and sometimes, downright reprehensible.
Occasionally a voice howled from the Darkness with originality and vitality, but these were rare beasts. It wasn’t until well into the new millennium and into a frighteningly pedestrian resurgence in the trend of the modern horror movie that the Europeans (and a scattering of English, Americans and Antipodeans) and Asians took the scythe and ran with it, devouring the innocent with a ferocious new bloodlust, and taking no prisoners.
Roman Polanski in describing the most important element of a movie simply used one word: “Atmosphere”. Too many horror movies released in the past fifteen years possess no atmosphere at all. It’s not an easy thing to realise on screen; atmosphere is a combination of several things that have melded beautifully together: lighting, mise-en-scene, soundtrack, editing.
Five modern nightmare movies from the Scarlet Age that possess brilliant atmosphere are: Suspiria (1977), Halloween (1978), Alien (1979), Nosferatu (1979), and Videodrome (1982).
Five modern horror movies of the past decade that possess superb atmosphere are: Ringu (1998), The Blair Witch Project (1999), Ju-on: The Grudge (2003), The Descent (2005), and Ils (2006).
Despite my vigorous championing of horror movies from the 70s and 80s, I do have numerous favourites from the two recent decades, and although I’ve joked that the modern horror movie is a dying art form I firmly believe the desire for audiences to purge themselves; to embrace their worst fears and allow themselves to be mortified within the safe parameters of the cinematic make-believe will always be strong. There is a fundamental and primal urge to remove ourselves from our comfort zones in order to appreciate the joy of life. That is why sex and death are often placed in the same context; they are juxtaposed, yet intrinsically linked.
The Darkness will always be with us, and the high art and deep trash will always mingle freely. Long live the new flesh!
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
In an analytical mood today are we?
I think that foreign films from Germany, Japan and Spain have contributed largely to the top tier horror of recent. There is still innovation occurring and the unfamiliar social amores and settings add to the unnerving.
Fun read as always.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by Cinema is Truth
Cinema is Truth
Cinema is Truth
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
yes, great suspense is a cinema technique only truly mastered by a few.
I'm a gorehound and a terrorfreak. I love my special effects make-up, but my fave horrors are movies that probably rely more on suspense.
So what are your favourite horror movies then? Are you able to provide me with a definitive faves list of ten or so?
Comment by Cinema is Truth
Cinema is Truth
Cinema is Truth
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by cheap laptop