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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.227.155
| | Posted on Sunday, July 06, 2008 - 07:04 pm: | |
There's an excellent short piece by Stephen King in this week's Entertainment Weekly (7/11/08, with Batman/Joker on the cover), about the state of horror in film now. He praises THE STRANGERS enough to make me want to go out and see it (as opposed to wait for dvd), and even heaps some praise on THE HAPPENING. But he waxes briefly upon horror in film; and, reading this with great enjoyment, I thought it deserved a thread all to its own....
I like the quote from King that EW decided to teaser it with: "Horror [in film] is an unknown actress, cowering in a cabin with a knife she'll never be able to use." Yes, and he uses many examples that fit this specific type of film horror... but the horror of (the original) THE HAUNTING, of THE INNOCENTS, of roughly half (i.e., the supernatural parts) of (Kubrick's) THE SHINING... not necessarily, Mr. King.
Maybe that term, "horror," is going through an evolution. Even with the master. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.2.139
| | Posted on Monday, July 07, 2008 - 04:07 pm: | |
Even more relevant, given the FUNNY GAMES thread....
ew.com/ew/article/0,,20210538,00.html |
Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.149.134.59
| | Posted on Monday, July 07, 2008 - 05:03 pm: | |
But Craig, aren't you reading that phrase rather literally? Even 'unknown actress' is potentially metaphorical, while 'a knife she'll never be able to use' is apt for most supernatural situations. It could be a very complex image about the confrontation of the human with the unknown. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.246.104
| | Posted on Monday, July 07, 2008 - 05:46 pm: | |
You're right probably, Joel. Except that in the article, he waxes on about the horror of THE STRANGERS, which is of the monster-chasing-heroine variety, to give it a name. That's a whole lot of movie's entire horror repertoire, and it's not bad... it's just not how to define horror in film....
He ticks off a list of films that scared him the most, and they include: CARNIVAL OF SOULS, HALLOWEEN, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. All of these are monster-chasing-heroine horror movies. The first is too, though I would contend the real horror comes from the sheer eeriness of it all; the last is too, though its pursuer/s are less tangible than the others.
But in the end, again, you're right Joel, he's mainly attacking the big Hollywood machine, that pumps lots of money into "horror" films that end up being less horrific by far than the smaller, indie movies. It's just his lingering emphasis upon one kind of horror in film, I guess, that I had focussed upon....
King seems to be here pushing the more visceral/nature's-reality horror, of being chased and caught. Not the quieter horror, the intellectual horror, the cloak-of-darkness-settling-around-your-shoulders horror, of movies like THE ORPHANAGE, or THE NAMELESS, or DON'T LOOK NOW, or PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK, or etc. |
Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 83.98.9.4
| | Posted on Monday, July 07, 2008 - 05:55 pm: | |
I didn't know there were so many films about drug addled monsters, that heroine addiction seems to be popular with shambling creatures of the night. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.16.76.182
| | Posted on Monday, July 07, 2008 - 07:16 pm: | |
Did I misspell "heroine"? I meant to write "diacetyl-morphine". |
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