BLOG 4 Part 1 - It's Halloween, So Let's Talk About Horror Movies

In honor of Halloween, I figured I’d ramble on a bit about horror movies. I love watching movies. I’m a Netflix member and I get stuff sent to my house all the time. Right now I have Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief at home. I watch movies so often that I do crazy stuff like view all of Fellini’s films in chronological order. Years of doing this sort of the thing has turned me into a proud movie snob while at the same time dulled my social skills. However, when it comes to horror films I can’t think of too many I like, probably because of my movie snobness. Most in my opinion are complete crap.

I grew up on Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, two films clearly influenced by John Carpenter’s Halloween. Now, I’m not a big Halloween fan but I do give it credit for creating the whole genre of 80’s slasher films that followed. In the 80’s they stuck to the simple formula that John Carpenter used in Halloween, blood and boobs, which was pretty much what every horror film was about then. Then if the film was successful they would create sequel after sequel doubling the amount of blood and boobs in each one until there was no where left to go, except maybe to make the next film in 3-D (so you could have the blood and boobs on your lap). When all of these gimmicks had been exhausted and the studio had successfully drained every last cent out of their products the films usually at that point had gone from something scary to just plain stupid. So, in other words I grew up on a steady diet of crap.

Some people look back upon these crappy horror films with fondness. And while some people enjoy them for their crappiness - I don’t. They’ll say that these films bring back a simpler time or other such nonsense. Not me a crappy movie is a crappy movie. And when it comes to the horror genre there is no shortage of bad. I’m not a big fan of gore and sort of lean towards less is more. I feel nobody can scare me more than myself and whatever I can imagine is on that screen while I’m covering my eyes is far scarier then what actually is. Take for example the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, people will insist that it’s one of the goriest films ever made when in fact it’s not that graphic. Mostly everything is implied and enhanced with the awful sound of Leatherface’s chainsaw. Also, if you scare them big in the beginning the audience is going to psych themselves out by expecting it just to get worse.

Now, when it comes to the kids today and what they are watching I don’t have a clue. I don’t see as many sequels out there but I do see a lot of crap. And for the record to all you people that like Saw, I hate to break it to you but it’s not a good film so get over it. In my opinion, the three best horror films are William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, Stanly Kubrick’s The Shinning, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. The fact that none of these films were released after 1980 goes to show you that I’m either out of touch or horror films haven’t done anything special in almost thirty years.

Japan though is on to something. The Japanese really know how to scare people and they really like to go after single women with kids, Ringu and Honogurai Mizu No Soko (which translated means…well,I have no idea what it means but it’s the original Japanese version of Dark Water) are just two examples. Hollywood has taken notice of Japanese success and has made a slew of poorly made remakes of their films as well as some of their own that goes after single moms and kids (The Others anyone). It’s a formula that works and it does sound a bit more intelligent than boobs and blood.

Of course a new generation of film makers raised on the crap of Friday The 13th has attempted to bring back 80’s gore, Eli Roth with the dreadful Cabin Fever and then his follow up Hostel (which I haven’t seen due to hating Cabin Fever so much). Rob Zombie is another one influenced by 80’s horror even remaking Halloween. In fairness to Zombie I haven’t seen any of his films so I can’t comment on whether they are good or not.

So, what does all this mean? I guess it means I’m not a big horror fan. But its Halloween time so if I was going to watch a Horror film here is what I’d watch:

See next blog