Musing: Halfway to Halloween

Since we're halfway through the month of October, I decided now would be a good time to rip off /r/movies and post a list of movie suggestions for Halloween. Not that it's never a good time to indulge in horror movies.

So here's a list of movies broken down by sub-genre.

Halloween Themed: Trick 'r Treat
Supernatural: Paranormal Activity
Vampire: The Lost Boys
Werewolf: An American Werewolf in London
Zombie/Infection: Slither
Alien: The Thing
Creature Feature: The Host OR Arachnophobia
Witchcraft/Demons/Arcane: Hellraiser
Religion: The Prophecy OR Prince of Darkness
Slasher: Halloween
Homicidal People: Cure
Violence/Gore: The Hills Have Eyes
Comror (comedy-horror): Zombieland
Random Foreign Horror Movie: The Cottage (British comror)

Why I said what I did: I've tried to combine some current movies with what I consider to be horror classics. I've made an effort to list films that scared me/grossed me out/made an impression and tried to think of some titles that maybe don't get enough exposure.

Project: Do-Over Part 1 - The Re-Do

"If everything is terrible, then noting is."

I watch a lot of movies. Not all of them are worth remembering but still I'm plagued with persistent memories of films I didn't like. Inspired by Natsukashi, and in an effort to purge these movies from my system once and for all, I've decided revisit some of the worst offenders. Many of these films have been lauded by others--will I find, upon repeat viewing, the movie has improved with time?

That's not actually possible. A film can age poorly, but I don't think it can improve any the longer it sits on the shelf. No, the variable in this experiment is me. Have my tastes changed? Have I become less picky or more demanding of horror? Am I still afraid of the things that scared me years ago or have I come to fear something else? And does Eli Roth still piss me off?

I will do my absolute best to keep an open mind as I re-watch some of my most hated films. No mean feat, since I take great cathartic pleasure in subjective criticism. Calling upon my latent powers of objective observation, I'll judge each movie against itself and rate its quality based on competence in filmmaking and storytelling.

And then I'll decide whether or not the movie's actually any good.

Essay: Scary Stuff This Sex

The drill is his penis, get it?

Now I’m no prude, but I can’t help but feel that a lot of, indeed maybe too many modern horror movies are based in sex. It should come as no surprise that I blame the postmodern horror movement of the 80s and 90s for that one. Constant referrals to premarital sex in horror movies have inspired a generation of filmmakers to produce what essentially amounts to soft-core splatter porn. I fully acknowledge that sex sells and a good part of the horror industry is driven by this one simple fact, but there’s a whole other side to sex which I think is woefully under-exploited in modern, mainstream slashers: gender.

What I find most interesting is the fact that slashers in particular focus heavily on sex, while other genre films deal with sex and gender issues. Fatal Attraction, though it belongs to the nebulous suspense/thriller category, is about the fallout from a one night stand. Love Doll and Spiral are both about a man’s unrealized sexual desire for a female friend. And Teeth deals with repressed sexuality and uses sex as a weapon to defend against sexual predators. In these examples, sex helps to move the story forward, but gender is also addressed; men have a weakness for women, and women are fearful as the Other.

Wanted to plug this book. It's excellent.

Modern slashers have little to offer other than an eyeful of fake breasts. Admittedly I don’t watch these movies for intellectual stimulation, but the sheer amount of nudity in the new Friday the 13^th actually detracted from the film. Also the film’s treatment of the naked women was borderline offensive: recall Jason stabbing a topless woman and pulling her body from the water giving us one last look at her breasts before he disposed of her corpse. The original Friday the 13^th gave nakedness the same blasé treatment it gave smoking pot—as a matter of course. If modern films could somehow find a way to embrace the naturalness of nudity and sex, then their stories wouldn’t stall while characters abscond to the bedroom or the woods.

I’m not asking for anything intellectual or highfalutin. Indeed, all I want from a horror movie is for it not to be completely stupid and for it to have good effects. For me, everything takes a back seat to story, and unnecessary or crappy effects just piss me off. I’m not suggesting people cut the sex entirely from their movies, but if people would muse a bit less on tits and ass and a bit more on gender roles and gender differences, then maybe we can see a move away from tawdry remakes like Rob Zombie’s Halloween, and a move toward more original fare like Cherry Falls.

The worst offender.

Essay: Unsolicited Advice

If you can name everyone in this picture, then you're a bigger geek than I.

I have friends. And not all of them are into horror movies. But every now and again, one of them will show curiosity and I'll provide them with insights and suggestions, easing them into the genre. With encouraging words like "try it, you just might like it" and "don't be a pussy", I urge my friends to expand their cinematic horizons and indulge in a bit of inbred cannibalism or demon slaying or virgin killing.

And so, in the grand tradition of telling other people what to do, I've thought back on the advice I've doled out and come up with "The DM's list of 9 or 10 horror movies you should see because even if they're not the best, they're meaningful to the genre for reasons which I will explain".

Halloween (1978)

It might seem a bit of a cop-out to suggest Halloween. Frigging everyone wants you to watch Halloween. While technically not the first slasher, it was the first big successful slasher and woke people up to this new kind of horror movie. Halloween features a masked villain whose size, strength, and (relative) anonymity represents an unknowable evil, one that is both human and inhuman at once. Michael Myers is a man, but he's also a monster who stalks and kills for no reason we can understand. Halloween launched John Carpenter's career, and introduced Jamie Lee Curtis as the 80s' scream queen.

Scream (1996)

Another no-brainer. Scream introduced the world to self-reflexive horror cinema. Though it wasn't the first postmodern horror movie, it was by far the most successful. Scream's ironic set-up, in which the characters fail to understand they're living out a horror movie, ushered in a new sub-genre of horror and a lot of similar-style movies were made in the late 90s and early oughts. The film also brought Wes Craven back into the limelight. As a sidebar, Scream inspired a wave of horror spoofs.

The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

I do suggest seeing the original, but I'm advocating watching the remake. Most of the big horror movies of the 70s and 80s have been or will be remade, and most of those have done or will disappoint the audience in general and the original fanbase in particular. In spite of changes to the story, The Hills Have Eyes delivers the same gritty horror seen in the original and features one of the most hard-to-watch home invasions. Made by French filmmaker Alexandre Aya, the movie is a hard R, and when it premiered in 2006, nothing with the same quality or quantity of violence had been seen in theatres in a long while. All effects save one are physical effects.

Wrong Turn (2003)

Wrong Turn came out at a time when most horror movies were about mutated animals, supernatural killers, or pop culture. What this movie offered instead was a return to simpler times; Wrong Turn is a back-to-basics horror film in which a group of people must either outwit or outrun a family of inbred cannibals. That's it. The film makes no comment on society or culture, and the story is about as simple and straightforward as it gets.

It (1990)

A made for TV movie, It might not have the best effects or the biggest scares, but it did frighten a whole generation of kids. Tim Curry is absolutely terrifying as Pennywise, the penultimate evil clown. Though a large number of Stephen King stories have been adapted for the big screen, It was the second to be rewritten for TV, and it's success lead to more and more television gigs. Both the book and mini-series suffer from a disappointing ending, but it's really more about the journey than the destination. It was nominated for two Emmys and won one, and is being remade as an R-rated theatrical release.

Braindead a.k.a. Dead Alive (1992)

Long before he won a hundred Oscars for LOTR, Peter Jackson recieved money from the New Zealand government to make Braindead. Better known as Dead Alive in North America, Braindead won 13 assorted awards and holds the title of being the goriest movie ever made. Both funny and disgusting, this movie is referenced in Jackson's King Kong. It's cult, it's camp, and it's a staple of the genre.

Audition (1999)

I have seen exactly two Takashi Miike films, neither of which are Audition. Miike is perhaps the hardest working filmmaker today and his films run the gamut from children's fare to ultra-violent. Though a lot of his work is unknown to North American audiences, Audition is generally thought to be among his best and most accessible. Also, like most all his movies, it's violent, gory, and hard to watch at times. You won't find anything like him produced in America. Eli Roth doesn't even come close.

Ju-On (2002)

To be perfectly honest, I simply don't know enough about Asian horror to speak with any authority on the subject. I recommend Ju-On simply because it is the scariest movie I've ever seen. Granted, the circumstances under which I watched this film had a lot to do with me being scared shitless, but I'm pretty sure if you are a) open to non-traditional storytelling, and b) subtitles, then you'll probably enjoy Takashi Shimizu's original Grudge. Note, this movie features a long-haird ghost.

The Thing (1982) and/or Alien (1979)

Both these movies feature monsters from another world. Monsters which we do not and cannot understand. The movies don't wax philosophical on the nature of life and evil, though the humans in both films are fighting for survival. Perhaps more sci-fi than horror, these two movies deal with themes not unfamiliar to the horror genre. Paranoia, isolation, and betrayal underscore the fear that comes with having to face the Other. The Thing is perhaps John Carpenter's greatest achievement, though it wasn't very popular at the time. Alien is among Ridley Scott's best work, and one of his few genre entries.

If only!

Essay: Smoking Pot and Having Sex

I thought you had the beer.

When did it happen that smoking pot and having pre-marital sex would get you killed? Most everyone will tell you that Halloween was really the first to punish such morally reprehensible behaviours. Films like the Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th serieses, capitalize on a high body count, and teens get killed for engaging in smoking up, underage drinking, and having sex. But it wasn't really until Scream that these activities and their consequences were brought to the forfront of public perception. Scream's self-refelxsive premise introduced mainstream horror audiences to the fact that all genre films have certain things in common, death to anyone who behaves "inappropriately" being the most prevalent. Ironically, the notion of the virgin being the only person who can survive and defeat the killer is proven to be innacurate. Indeed, Lori Strode is, as Randy explains, the virginal final girl in Halloween, but Sidney begins Scream as a virign and both sleeps with and defeats Billy at the end of the movie. Additionaly, Alice, the lone survivor in Friday the 13th, is not a virgin but this is not mentioned, nor is any Jason movie referenced in Scream.

Alice, however, does not have sex in Friday, nor does she smoke up. But her dialogue and behaviour suggests that she has done both in the past. Lori, too, is not above getting high. Virgin she may be, but she smokes onsreen. And Syndey, who doesn't smoke pot or even talk about it, does have sex. It would seem then, that neither activity on it's own is enough to warrent death, but both together are a death sentence. But, confusingly, secondary and terriary characters in all movies are killed with impunity, regardless of thier actions.

I'd like two tickets to the merry-go-round.

The main factor in all these cases is beer. More so than drugs or sex, alcohol appears to be the common denominator in slasher movie deaths. Though drugs are always illegal, and sex is only frowned upon, alcohol occupies a middle-ground; fine for adults but not for teens. These kids, however, are caught up in an adult situation. They are being stalked and killed by a grownup and having to rely on their wits for survival as no one--no adult or authority--will come to save them. When considered further, the issue seems to be one of age. The is no legal age for drugs, but there is for sex and booze. A lot of horror movie characters are over sixteen, the legal age for sex, but are not yet twenty-one. They are stuck somewhere between childhood and adulthood, and therefore cannot be faulted for some decisions but are fully responsible for others.

So, when we again consider Lori, Alice, and Syndey, we can reasonably state their survival is more dependent on their abstinance from alcohol than anything else. Why then, is the emphasis on drugs and sex in post-modern horror? I think because, between the three, alcohol is the lesser evil. Drugs, regardless of kind, are bad. Teen sex, or pre-martial sex, is religiously immoral. Underage drinking, however, is forgivable. Indeed, many of us have enjoyed a drink at home with family while still technically underage.

The emphasis on drugs and sex, however, is only really present or prevalent in movies made after c.1995. Before that time, though everyone smoked pot and slept around, it was treated with a certain amount of innocence. Weed and sex was something that existed in every day life, accepted and expected. After Scream, films like Cabin Fever and Jason X, drew extra attention to pot and sex, elevating their status as deadly pursuits. The result is now a driving need to write drugs into horror movies, and increase sexual encounters (and nudity) as well as the consumption of alcohol. Doing so, however, causes the films to become unintentionally pseudo-self-referential, breaks the suspension of disbelief and somewhat distances the audience.

This is what happens when I drink and smoke up. Every goddamn time.

Do-Over

Here are links to the do-over films, the movie's I've decided to give another chance. That picture there is a book cover. I chose it for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that people seem to be riding the chairlift down the mountain.

Part 1 - Introduction
Part 2 - Event Horizon