In Defense of the Horror Film (Part IV)

Part IV: Final Thoughts

Or, As For Me and My House, We Will Serve the Horror

I've been mentally composing this piece for about two years. How I would start it, how I would finish it, what points I would make... then, as so often happens when I sit down at the keyboard, the writing took over. I never suspected the turns this piece would take, or the length to which it would grow. I've been satisfied - it's just interesting to look at all four sections together and see how everything compares to my original intention.

How to sum everything up? I won't win any converts, and I can't say that was my intention. I simply wanted to give voice to a genre which I felt was unfairly represented and criticized, and to offer insight into my own maturation and appreciation, considering I too once believed the horror genre to be a complete waste of time.

How wrong I was! Okay, fine - a majority of the titles are a waste of time, but can't that be said of the majority of all movies of all genres? Jim Emerson recently estimated that only about 20% of all movies are worth watching, and sadly that's a pretty generous figure.

So what is the point, then, if you're not trying to convert people, and you're admitting that the genre is full of garbage? In a nutshell, what I've been trying to do over this past week is simply level the playing field, to offer perhaps a different way of looking at the genre. I know a lot of people - smart, reasonable, normal people - who all but refuse to watch horror movies. There are a few people in that mix who will watch "classics," or will occasionally venture out if a specific title receives high praise, but otherwise they simply ignore the genre.

We stand at an interesting crossroads in media consumption. In some ways, the horror genre has never been stronger. Just look at the financial, cultural, and critical success of television series like The Walking Dead or True Blood; horror series such as Saw and Paranormal Activity have become annual financial powerhouses; vampires have become chic with the success of the Twilight novel series. Despite this, however, there remains a stigma - a pervading thought that "Okay, dabble in this if you want some cheap laughs, but horror movies are not good for you!" People look down their noses at you when you say you like horror movies.

That's something that drives me crazy, and that's just the sort of unfair prejudice against the genre I'm talking about. When people talk about the horror genre, they always seem to have those annoying, invisible quote marks in the air: "It's great for a horror film," "Good for what it is," "A decent horror movie." Why all the qualifiers? It's like people are ashamed. The stereotype is that horror movies are stupid, carnal - something a sophisticated person could not enjoy. That attitude is stupid! Great movies are great movies. Drop the pretense.

In Defense of the Horror Film (Part III)

Part III - Learning to Enjoy the Fear

Or, How I Found that Lovin' Feelin'

The following statement is true: for every truly great horror movie I've seen (and I have seen a lot over the past few years), I have only seen about two or three bad ones, most of them being more mediocre than bad. (Although, to be fair, bad horror films tend to be really bad.) That's a pretty good ratio - better than my ratio for good dramas and comedies; and it blows the pants off my good action movie ratio. Granted, I tend to go off of recommendations or "Best of..." lists, so my criteria simply for watching a horror film are a little more selective than they are for other genres; even then, though, clearly these movies are doing something right. Some of the best filmic experiences I've ever had were watching horror films.

I find this to be the case for a number of reasons. First of all, more often than not watching a horror film is just as much about the experience as it is about the actual characters or story. Take Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, for instance. A pretty good movie, but not exceptional. It's Romero's basic story (a few lowly survivors of a zombie infection hide out in a mall) with a lot more money, better special effects, and a heavy emphasis on gritty realism over slapstick. I think Romero's movie is better overall, though Snyder's is very entertaining in its own right. But the experience? Amazing. The single best audience I've ever watched a movie with. Laughter, gasps, screams, jolts - the movie delivered in exactly the way it should have, and the audience reacted better than Snyder could have hoped (and, frankly, better than he probably deserved - the rest of his career has tried to capture that same "wow" factor).

That's what a horror movie does better than any other type of film - it hits you. How ever they may do it - suspense, surprise, gore - horror movies evoke a much more visceral reaction than any other medium, and that's why I like them so much. A great horror movie utilizes all the weapons in a filmmaker's arsenal: without good acting, we wouldn't believe or invest in what's going on; without good filmmaking (building tension, arousing curiosity, appropriate pacing), we would not be affected in the first place; and without good music or sound, there would be no atmosphere. In short, a great horror film requires more from its filmmakers than other genres, and in my view it delivers more than other genres.

That last paragraph, I imagine, will draw some disagreement. What's so wrong about what I'm saying, though? When you think great dramas or comedies, you think great acting first and foremost; when you think great action, you think great technique and effects; great horror simply combines all those. Surely some think I'm being unfair, biased, simplistic, and perhaps I am to prove my point, but I also genuinely have a stronger visceral response to the horror genre than I do to any other genre. The great ones tap into something deep within you, exploiting fears and desires, conjuring up uneasiness and anxiety - and yet they entertain as well! (If you left feeling all morose and defeated, do you think people would go back year after year?) It's a tough balancing act; tougher than many are willing to admit.

Take a film like Audition - the scariest movie I've ever seen, without question: people will talk about the ending because that's the shocking payoff, but look at the film as a whole... Half of it is a dramedy! The first half - the entire set-up for the terror that follows - is a romantic comedy with tinges of drama... Where it goes from there, of course, is so dark, twisted, sick, and disturbingly plausible that by the time the film finally ends you feel like you have some sort of illness - something that has infected you and left you in a funk, and the only way to overcome it is to take a walk, get your bearings, and remind yourself that it's all just a movie. (Or at least, that's how I felt after. I seriously had to walk it off - nothing has ever affected me so much.) That kind of reaction doesn't come from cheap thrills or careless filmmaking; that comes only from careful execution, planning, and perfect work from all departments. It is a masterpiece, plain and simple.

In Defense of the Horror Film (Part II)

Part II - The Dark Room Effect:

Or, How to Watch a Horror Movie When You have No Friends

I feel like this is a good time to go back a little bit, to get a little more speculative and philosophical and let this piece breathe. Forgive my indulgence.

The origins of the horror story in popular culture are impossible to pinpoint, but in a cinematic context they were really informed by literature, as was often the case in early filmmaking. (Early films were treated much like plays, so they often drew from literary and/or theatrical sources.) Silent films dating as far back as the 1890s (Georges Melies's La Manoir du diable (The House of the Devil) is considered the first horror film) built upon the gothic horror literature of more than a century earlier which introduced such iconic characters as Dr Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and others. Quite lofty beginnings for a genre roundly criticized for being too crass and vulgar.

Now, more than two centuries after the first written horror stories, and a century after the first filmed horror stories, we've gone through nearly every conceivable iteration of these characters and situations... yet audiences keep coming back. Nearly every scenario has been done so many times that we've ventured past cliche into caricature... and all the while, people want more. Audiences continually seek out tales which could disturb and excite them, which could exploit their fears and palpitate their senses... Where does this desire come from? Why do human beings like to be scared?

In my view, our desire to be scared stems from a few intrinsic human qualities. One - our innate mixture of fear and curiosity when it comes to the Unknown, and especially the Unknowable. The idea of the Unknown, whether embodied or disembodied, drives all of drama. We are curious by nature, and we want answers for our questions. The answer can be simple or complex, innocent or foreboding, but we still want to know. In the context of the horror story, this innate desire can be skewed and exploited. Think of the classic cliche: the naive, unsuspecting hiker hears a strange sound in the darkness, and goes to investigate. "What's out there?" "Where did that come from?" A whole host of questions arises from this one simple event, and the multitude of answers yields limitless possibilities for terror. A great horror story takes this concept a step further, producing what I refer to as the Unknowable. How much more terrifying is it to know the answer but not understand it? A perfect example exists in the comparison of John Carpenter's and Rob Zombie's respective Halloweens: the Zombie version set to distinguish itself by trying to explain Michael Myers, to show how/why he became the evil psychopath we know and fear; Carpenter simply took it as a given. It didn't matter how or why he was the way he was, you just had to get away! Which is more effective? Exactly.

Two - great horror stories consistently exploit our social nature, a cinematic phenomenon I refer to as the "Dark Room Effect." Have you ever watched a movie in a crowded theater and thought it was a great movie, only to watch it months later at home and find yourself less than impressed? It's the same reasoning behind the term "infectious laughter": human beings are social creatures, and when in groups, our reactions tend to be heightened. This is precisely why there are so many loud, startling, "Gotcha!" moments in movies - filmmakers are counting on the few people genuinely scared/surprised to infect the rest into feeling scared or surprised. It's audience manipulation, but it works. (Really great movies, of course, do not rely on this phenomenon, but all movies utilize it to a certain degree.) In a horror context, the Effect is heightened even more because darkness by its very nature obscures reality and rouses our curiosity. This is why I love to see horror movies with an audience - they evoke a much more visceral, collective response.

Movie theaters will undoubtedly go by the wayside one distant day; and when they do, I imagine horror movies will not be far behind. It is near impossible to recreate the Dark Room Effect in the cozy confines of a familiar setting; the only effective way to enjoy collective thrills sans a crowded theater is through nothing short of a viewing party. The more people the better, the less familiar the better.

In short, to really enjoy the full horror experience, you need a big, dark, cavernous space full of strange people, pictures, and sounds.

In Defense of the Horror Film (Part I)

Excessive. Gory. Disgusting. Emetic. Carnographic. Stupid.

Think of any adjective - especially any negative adjective - and you can pretty much guarantee it has been used at some time or other to describe some horror film, if not the entire genre. And you know something? It's not without merit. On the whole, horror films are really bad. The plotlines are dull, uninspired, and predictable, the "style" is often excessive, flashy, more interested in guts than grit, and the "characters" are generally just one-dimensional means to increase the film's body count... so, really, I get the near complete critical disregard of the genre, I do.

And yet...

Year after year... after year after year... I am continually drawn back. Hoping to find something new, something interesting, something exciting to reinvigorate my opinion of the horror film. More often than not I leave dissatisfied. But every once in a while, I find something truly special and extraordinary, something which gives the genre hope.

It is this search and this yearning I want to explore in these next few posts.

Misnomers

I'm going to stop apologizing for delayed posts. For some reason I feel this overwhelming need to write something every day for this blog, but the fact is I don't need to. I have a fair amount of people who read this, but not so many that they're demanding new material every day... plus I'm just exhausted. It's physically hard to keep my eyes open and stay awake most of the time these days. I'm trying to get things done, but my body is rebelling against me. Anyway, new stuff is in the works, so if you've had ants in the pants regarding my lengthy between-post pauses, you will soon be sated.

Anyway, now that that's out of the way, I have many pet peeves. Many. I rarely voice them or make them apparent, but they're there. And one of the things that annoys me most is when a title or name gives a false impression. I find it misleading and unfair, and generally it is an intentional decision to try and gather more of an audience.


mis-no-mer: [mis-noh-mer] noun
1. a misapplied or inappropriate name or designation.
2. an error in naming a person or thing.


This week's movie releases are a perfect example: Paranormal Activity 3 and Three Musketeers. Paranormal Activity 3 is a prequel to the first film... how does that warrant a 3? Clearly this was not a planned trilogy, otherwise the first film would have been dubbed Paranormal Activity 2; that would have confused a lot of people, but at least it would have been consistent. This type of thing bugs me.

The misnomer of Three Musketeers is more subtle. First of all, everyone knows (or at least everyone should know) there are more than three musketeers, but that is neither here nor there. The real issue here is that this crosses from misnomer to just plain misappropriation. I read Three Musketeers back in high school, and I can guarantee you that this movie has almost nothing to do with that book, aside from the period and most of the names. The book is an adventure tale, but it's also quite political. Several plot details relate to class disparity, sexism, legal justice - the action scenes are an extension of the underlying political text.

This film just looks like a travesty. Milla Jovovich is, apparently, playing the part of Milady, whose role in the book is quite limited... how is she the star? Also, my memory may be a little fuzzy, but the whole "steampunk" element involving jewelry heists, air battles, and other ridiculous machinery is just plain not there. The story, really, is a coming-of-age tale: d'Artagnan coming into a situation naive and ill-prepared, but then discovering himself and his abilities through his encounter with the musketeers. That looks to be lacking in this version

I know, I know - it's just a movie. I get that. My point, though, is: why bother to make a film called "The Three Musketeers," the title of a well known piece of classic literature, if said film has nothing to do with aforementioned book? You could save yourself a whole lot of time and just name it something else altogether, then there would be no issue. You can't tell me studio execs are trying to capture the Literati by adapting a classic novel. When have films of this sort shown any interest in being literate, much less literary? And it's not as though they're trying to encourage the young audience to read by bringing a piece of French literature to the screen; if they were, they wouldn't have altered the plot so much.

So really the question is: who are they trying to fool?