My FEROCIOUS appetite for the ARTifice of HORROR
January 16th 2009 01:27
Okay, so I’ve got my severed tongue probing in my cheek a little there. Let’s get down to brass rusted tacks, huh? Her question is something I’ve tackled in an early Horrorphile post which I spotlighted: Why DO I love the blood and thunder? But I thought it best to revisit the topic, as it is an intriguing one, and I thought I should bring it to fresh (kill) attention.
I’ve been a cinephile for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories of the cinema-going experience is with my late Opa (German for grandfather). I was about six or seven. We went to see Disney’s The Island at the Top of the World (1974). It was a strange, fantastical movie filled with phantasmogorical creatures and human peril. Afterward Opa treated me to the Pancake Parlour.
A nasty surprise in Alien
JoBeth Williams gets a serious fright in Poltergeist
Within the same year or so I saw John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) at the movies (my friend and I coerced his dad to join us to guarantee we got in since it had an R16 rating). Rob Bottin’s special effects makeup blew me away. I was gobsmacked at the grotesque beauty of it all; the sheer ingeniousness of how he’d designed created and engineered all the gory prosthetics and outlandish animatronic effects. My undying love for the artifice of horror and the pleasure of nightmares was now full-blown. The Thing and Alien had captured a brilliant melding of terror and horror, saturated in atmosphere and utterly convincing in the illusionary magic.
Kurt Russell in John Carpenter's brilliant white darkness
It is this illusionary conceit that I so admire. The conjuring of the dark horrific extreme, yet it isn’t real. For me CGI, although often brilliantly achieved and incredibly effective, takes the illusion too far. I’m an old school purist I guess. I prefer, and admire more, the illusion created in front of the camera, on-location or on-set, rather than added in later in an effects studio on a computer.
Neurosurgery taken a little too far in Day of the Dead
The grotesque beauty of the nightmare
The horror movie genre is always been treated with contempt by the so-called highbrow critics and audiences. But it’s always been a popular genre. It reached it’s zenith during what I call the Scarlet Age of Modern Horror (mid-to-late 70s to the mid-to-late 80s). In the last decade it has become incredibly popular (and arguably more commercially successful than ever before) again, but the hit-to-miss ratio is more extreme (far more crap being produced now than ever before).
Opportunist filmmakers think it’s easy to make a horror movie. On the contrary it’s probably the hardest genre to get right. Some go for the shock horror approach, and generally fail miserably because they haven’t got the budget or ingenuity. Others go for the bloodless terror approach, but struggle to marry the delicate balance of sound, music, performance and direction. To put it more bluntly, they all fail to capture a horror atmosphere. Although he has made all sorts of genre movies, Roman Polanski nailed it on the head when he said “The atmosphere of a movie is the most important thing.”
Alien, Halloween, Day of the Dead, The Thing, Phantasm (1978), Deep Red (1975), Videodrome (1982), An American Werewolf in London (1981), The Evil Dead (1982), Suspiria (1977), Eraserhead (1976), Possession (1981) … these are some of my favourite horror movies, and they are drenched in atmosphere.
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Comment by Kleonaptra
Kalikapsychosis
Vampires became my favourite thing, and I had to rely on books more so cos I couldnt afford movies. But I remember the first 'scream' with high affection - skeet did wonderfully at psycho killer. So much suspense.
Im not sure what the attraction is for me. I like the suspense element, and seeing how people think themselves out of bad situations. My boyfriend got me 'Tremors' for chrissie this year, an all time fave for me. I love Kevin Bacon at the end - "I got a goddamn plan!" and the scenes where people should be but arent - mucho creepy! Luckily, my man shares my obsession. We are always saying, "If that was me I would have done this..."
Cos, yanno, you can just think so clearly in these situations....Oh the humanity!
People used to ask me why I want to watch it. Its true, I dont like violence for its own sake - I dont find Private Ryan entertainment at all, but I loved 'We were soldiers' with Mel Gibson. Suspense. Action. Death and violence as a result of action, not just blood for nothing. Likewise parts of house of a thousand corpses did nothing for me. Its really hard to define, whats entertainment, and whats not.
I can say, I dont like violence for its own sake...But theres this scene in 'Lexx' where a kid falls out of the moth and visibly splats...I laughed my goddamn arse off.
Really, the deep dark reason is - I see bad images in my head, feel bloodthirsty urges that I believe come from humans being a prime predator. Seeing the amount of film and books related to it comforts me - as I know Im not alone. And as you say, the 'facing fears' part is huge too. We believe we can condition ourselves somewhat - if we can be casual seeing people ripped apart by Alien, then maybe blood wont scare us in real life. To a degree, it works well. Im not nervous in the dark anymore, though I was once. Its like a synthetic way of evening out your nerves perhaps?
Maybe we are thinking to hard about it. Maybe we were just hunters in a previous life, and now we need the action and suspense to feel whole. Or maybe...
Its just fun to freak people out!
Comment by Damo
Why do we enjoy what we fear the most?
I have always wondered where the answer is more primal than intellectual.
Thousands of years ago were were living in jungles fighting to survive and dodging all sorts of wild beasts. We were all geared up the smash a few heads and eat the raw flesh of what we killed. Blood soaked from head to foot as social orders continued we even created ceremonial sacrifices.
Now as we sit in clean offices with neat surroundings perhaps that primal desire to be wild still lingers.
Yet the only place we can actually experience it is in the realm of fantasy or in films.
Comment by _CIA
But what is horror? What defines the genre? What separates it from thriller or other genre....we could say super-natural events, and exclude movies like Silence of the lambs. Or, perhaps it is just that it 'horrifies' me, in which case half of the crap on TV would qualify....Anyway, be interested in your ideas.
By the way, have you seen 'Mum and Dad(Britain,December 2008)'- it is awesome!
_CIA
Comment by Natalie 2
My Life My Muse
Beta Girl Blog
On the weekends, I would stay over at a friend's house, and we'd always rent movies. Somehow, I was always drawn to the horror section, but her dad would never let us rent. I would go browse the section anyway, catching a cheap thrill just from looking at the cover art on the VHS tapes. One that always appealed to me was "Suspiria".
Luckily for me, my folks were not quite as strict, and I as soon as we bought a VCR, I convinced my dad to let me rent some horror movies, "Suspiria" being the first one I grabbed.
I remember being horrified and thrilled! I was enchanted by the beautiful music and scenery in that film. I was an Argento fan for life!
My favorite genre of horror is supernatural. I prefer it to a straight up slasher film. To this day, I still have a sick fascination with any film that deals with the occult. Some of my other early faves were "Burnt Offerings", "The Ammityville Horror" and "Rosemary's Baby".
Roman Polanski is genius. I love his older stuff, but I also love the campy beauty of "The Ninth Gate". Again, a soundtrack can do wonders for a film, and that movie is no exception.
I am so disgusted with what passes for most modern horror films. I get so excited when a new haunted house film is made, and I am usually disappointed. I am looking forward to "The Haunting in Connecticut". I'm familiar with the true story, and have high hopes for that one.
Sorry to keep going on, but your post brought back memories for me.
The funniest part is that even after watching all of this horror as a kid, the only thing I was really afraid of was vampires. I had the most irrational fear of them, and I'd actually lay in bed at night with my covers over my head imagining that my blanket was covered in cucifixes! Isn't that funny!? Ofcourse, my heritage is Romanian/Hungarian, and my great-grandmother told some vampire stories that were strictly non fiction, as far as she was concerned. No wonder I was traumatized! Strangely, I now love those blood suckers!
Great post, Bryn. Thanks for the walk down memory lane.
Comment by Norm
Consumption Malfunction
Equal and Opposite
Arses and Elbows
Footy Power
Comment by _CIA
_CIA
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
CIA, I'm curious, did you watch Day of the Dead because I raved about it ...?
Comment by _CIA
_CIA
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by Drunk Rant
Also,I love watching Movies that make me feel like, "crap I'm so glad that's not me". I loved that point from you.
So of course I have to end with.. the drink of choice for Night breed will have to be Canadain Mist with a splash of Coke.
Drunk Rant
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by Jake 5
Cinema Voir
Drunk Rant
The first Horror movie I remember really liking was Night Breed. Not sure why but It kept me going for more.
Also,I love watching Movies that make me feel like, "crap I'm so glad that's not me". I loved that point from you.
So of course I have to end with.. the drink of choice for Night breed will have to be Canadain Mist with a splash of Coke.
Drunk Rant
And:
Drunk, Canadian Mist? Is that like a poor man's Canadian Club?
Damn It! I was posting wrong and have not got post. Anyway, Idk, It was my gandmas, we would watch horror movies in her house and drink her liquor then kinda fill it back up with water. suck for her
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile