Thinking About Horror Films

I've seen a few really good ones lately and I was thinking about them.

Specifically, I've seen these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHvSkTDWFfk







Two excellent films and one pretty good one (Severence). What distinguishes all of these films is that they are actual movies that use classical editing without lots of stupid ass jump cuts or gimmicks. They are all very much waaay over in the horror category (even though they are a diverse lot), but they aren't narrowly conceived "horror" films designed to satisfy the fanboys or such in teenagers who think that cinematic violence has just recently been invented, and that Saw is "like, really graphic."

Don't get me wrong. I'm a fanboy. I'll watch a really assinine film if it's assinine in a good way. And extreme violence is enough to get me interested. But god almighty, the horror genre has gotten really, well, generic lately. These three films really stand out as offering some kind hope for new directions in horror. They are all fairly traditional, conventional films that fall into fairly conventional horror film subgenres. You've got a classy exercise in gothic surrealism (The Orphanage), you've got a retro thriller (The House of the Devil. . .it's a cool movie because it's so meticulous about really staying true to the visual grammar of films from the early eighties, but the idea of making a "throwback" horror film is nothing new), and you've got a gory horror comedy (Severance). Each of these films, like most horror films, can be considered formal exercises, but they are sincere, not wanky self referential formal exercises. Each of these films is made by someone who really understands and respects the subgenre he has chosen to work in, and each of these films has themes that resonate beyond "hey, that was a cool version of this or that horror movie trope."

Horror is interesting because its SOOO generic. We go to genre films because we want a certain thing, and a genre film that doesn't deliver is, in some sense, a failure. A porn movie without anything arousing in it is not a good porn movie. A horror movie that does not pay attention to certain expectations is a failure. But so many horror movies are JUST about delivering upon those expectation. I think because horror is so consistently marketable (at least in its straight to video-DVD incarnations), and because it has a well defined cult audience, you can really just churn out product. It's kind of like generic music. "Hey! You like punk rock! Here's some more punk rock!" Nom nom nom. . . .

The generically of horror and has empowered generations of oddballs, kooks and geniuses to make films, but really, the point of having horror movies is to allow for the possibility for somebody to make a movie that really shakes you up somehow. That might include films that unsettle you because they are nihilistic and violent, that unsettle you because they are surreal and disruptive to your ordinary way of making sense of the world, etc. The best horror films often end up working as black comedy. I think that's because the best horror often serve as grostesque, funhouse mirror views of reality. "Dawn of the Dead" or "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" for example.

I've seen too many horror films lately that were just about being mean or nasty. "Deadgirl," for example. Suck suck suck. It was advertise to be a reflection on misogyny. It was basically a gross soap opera starring unpleasant and unrealistic people. Now, if it were a GOOD gross soap opera, that'd be one thing. Not everything has to be George Romero. But that shit was just tedious. If you're watching a movie about people fucking a corpse and you are bored, it's not a good movie.

Necromantic, now there's a good movie about corpse fucking.

I'm drifting away from my point.