![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I just finished watching The Grudge, again. Bought it previewed. And you know what?
((List of movies minorly spoiled: The Blair Witch Project, Boogeyman, Darkness Falls, The Grudge, The Haunting, House on Haunted Hill, Jaws, Jeepers Creepers, Jurassic Park, Psycho, Scream, Se7en, Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense. Several others mentioned.))
I have seen scarier movies. I have seen movies that affected me horribly for days or even weeks on end. I have seen movies that made me jump higher, clutch harder, and sit up in bed late at night staring wide-eyed down the dark hallway after a day of thinking I'm not afraid at all. The Grudge did none of those things to any really noticeable degree.
But I still hold that it is one of the best horror films out there.
The premise is so frightening, the organization of the movie so well-done, and the very IDEA so out of the norm for American horror, that it stays with you, like the very first campfire story that kept you up all night, shaking in your sleeping bag. It comes back not as a horror in the dark, but rather as a persistent, niggling dread of that which we do not understand, of our inescapable fates, should we wander into something beyond our faculties to control.
The unique aspects of the movie can be attributed not only to fabulously talented directing, but also to the fact that The Grudge is actually the American counterpart to a movie called Ju-On, which came out earlier in Japan.
I have been feeling rather morose concerning horror lately, because much of what comes out of Hollywood is not scary, or is just a total rehash of an overdone theme, or just... not in the spirit of true horror. There were a slew of American horror films that came out a few years ago wherein the first ten minutes of each was the scariest damn thing to ever hit the screen. But then the movie tanked in it's last four fifths. I think a great example of this is Darkness Falls. I was quaking after that opening sequence. Quaking. All I could think was, what have I gotten myself into? Alas, I was slated for disappointment, as the movie toppled into what is fast becoming a terrible horror movie plague: it showed too much of the monster.
Cases in point:
The Haunting, new version.
House on Haunted Hill, new version.
Boogeyman.
Jeepers Creepers (or so I hear; I have not seen the whole thing).
There seems to be this idea that the scarier the monster looks, the more you reveal of it, the more terrified the audience will be. Now, in cases like Jaws, this theory worked, but only because Steven Spielberg is a master -- a master -- of suspenseful editing. (I shall not go into Jurassic Park at this time, but anyone who is now scared of the word "raptor" knows exactly what I mean.) But the thing is, horror is not about what you can see. It's often about what you CAN'T see. I can still remember the scariest part of Scream for me: towards the end, when Sydney escapes from the news van where she just watched the cameraman take a knife through the back. She gets halfway up the front walkway of the house, then stops abruptly, turns around... and realizes she has lost track of where the murderer is. That was fucking SCARY. When you can't see what's chasing you... that's when the horror kicks in.
There are many theories about what is scary, and I daresay that for everyone, it is different. First off, the theory concerning remakes. Psycho, The Haunting, and The House on Haunted Hill were all botched remakes of old, supremely successful horror movies. It seems that some people think we have to go back to the oldies to get the goodies. Possibly true; those movies packed a punch. But we need not be faithless to what actually MADE them scary in the first place: the surprises of Psycho (completely done away with by the word-for-word copy of the old script), the unseen of The Haunting (absolutely killed at the end when the ghost actually comes down the stairs in all its glory), and the jumps and intriguing side plots of HoHH (nearly retained, but ultimately ruined by the ending sequence). There are still original scary ideas out there. They just have to be sought out.
(And let's just give the remake of Dawn of the Dead its own category, shall we? Category is: remakes that failed to capture the original point, but have a point all of their own to make, regardless. The remake of Night of the Living Dead is the better remake of the two, I say, as it retains the horror of its predecessor in a slightly different package. But if you REALLY want good horror... SEE THE GEORGE ROMERO ORIGINALS.)
Another theory is the one about violence equaling horror. Now, this one is much more successful than the first in many respects. The entire American subgenre of slasher movies is based upon it. And no one can say that all slasher movies sucked. Scream certainly did not suck. Neither did Friday the 13th, nor Nightmare on Elm Street. Halloween is one of the scariest movies I have ever seen. Texas Chainsaw Massacre did not suck. I Know What You Did Last Summer would have been good, if only it hadn't become the butt of so many jokes so quickly. There is a new entry into this category from France (High Tension) which I have not yet seen, but from the look of things, it's a humdinger. Cherry Falls was less successful, I think, and Urban Legend was okay for slasher fare, as slasher fare goes. But violence does not always make with the scary. You've got to be pretty creative nowadays to hit the audience with violence that is actually scary and not just... well, violent. And even the best slasher films don't flip out and go overboard, believe it or not.
Then there's the suspense subgenre. Movies like The Others, The Sixth Sense, The Blair Witch Project, and What Lies Beneath capitalized on this aspect of horror, and were quite successful. And please, please do not comment trying to convince me of how stupid you thought the Blair Witch Project was because I do not agree AT ALL. I think it was a wonderfully clever exploration of the point of all these horror films: what we do to ourselves to make ourselves scared. It's fear at its most raw, and it works.
Like all of these movies, The Grudge falls more into the suspense category than any other. And like all of these movies, The Grudge is a ghost story. Coincidence? Hmmm. Not sure. But there is definitely something to be said for the effect of the restless dead on the human psyche. It's a pure trip into the supernatural, into a realm that we have NO CONTROL over. None. The Grudge is the essence of what a ghost is: ghosts are often thought to relive their lives (and deaths) over and over again, sometimes oblivious to the living people around them (The Sixth Sense: "They only see what they want to see."). Their world intersects with ours on so many different levels, temporal as well as physical. They are often portrayed as seeking revenge for wrongs done to them in life. And perhaps the most important...
They look like us. But they are not like us.
I'm going to mention the darling Doctor Freud here, and his theory of the "unheimlich," or that which is mostly recognizable, but which has been twisted or changed in some way as to make it unrecognizable. Hence, the demonic child, or the evil Santa Claus, or even something as basic as a vampire or werewolf. We see what it is and everything tells us it should be safe... yet it is not. It's a cute child, but it's actually Linda Blair. Or... it's a pale man with charm, but he's actually Lestat de Lioncourt. The Grudge works on much the same principle, and even though we are allowed to see quite a bit of the "monster," it is even scarier because of what the monster is and is not.
The Grudge frightens me because of how well it builds, how the mystery is compounded bit by bit, how the story is so simple and so, so, SO spine-tingling that it not only rejuvenates the ghost story; it also rewrites it, to an extent. This is not a win-lose situation, like much American horror-fodder. This is an unstoppable force that is so far beyond the control of the mortal realm that just the IDEA is terrifying, and coming into contact with it is much, much worse.
Did you know that there were almost no special effects in that movie? Yeah, that lady was a contortionist. Yeah, that kid is that good of an actor.
The thing is, with horror nowadays, you almost have to go to non-American films to get at something that genuinely frightens. The Japanese concept of what is scary is so different from the American concept. Other things play into it: cultural differences, directing styles, acting styles... This is not to say that American horror blows because it DOES NOT. Some of my favorite horror films are American in origin. But while Hollywood may have the tightest grip on the movie market, it does not often give us fresh, new horror... things that scare us because we have never encountered them before. Movies like The Grudge/Ju-On, Audition (Japanese), 28 Days Later (British), Perfect Blue (Japanese anime), Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le Pacte des Loup, French), and The Ring (Ringu, Japanese) have elements that don't pop up much in American movies. This is of course partly due to the individual directors, but also to the cultural backgrounds that produced the movies.
As you can see, I lean somewhat toward the supernatural element for my horror. But that is not to say that movies require a ghost to be horror. Something older, like Frankenstein, comes to mind: a severe critique on science and its pitfalls. Also, one of the newer waves of suspense-horror: the "real life" horror film. By this I mean movies that deal mostly in the human element. Silence of the Lambs is probably the most well-known of these, but Se7en, and recently, Saw, have banked on this aspect of what is scary. I have a friend who can watch ghost movies and barely bat an eyelash. But give her Hannibal Lector or Kevin Spacey interpreting the Bible, and she is up all night.
*looks back* Wow. This started as a comment on The Grudge being eerily frightening, and turned into a treatise on the failure and success of modern horror. I hope you got this far into it; this is a subject I care a great deal about, mostly because the horror genre, like the fantasy genre, is often overlooked or dismissed as being "silly, melodramatic, or unrealistic." Oddly, I have found both of these storytelling mediums to be the absolute BEST at societal commentary.
Hmmm. Horror haters, take note. I suggest you start with the American movies of the 50s, where you can practially taste the apprehension about where the world was headed. (Them, Invasion of the Body-Snatchers, etc.)
What are your thoughts?
((List of movies minorly spoiled: The Blair Witch Project, Boogeyman, Darkness Falls, The Grudge, The Haunting, House on Haunted Hill, Jaws, Jeepers Creepers, Jurassic Park, Psycho, Scream, Se7en, Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense. Several others mentioned.))
I have seen scarier movies. I have seen movies that affected me horribly for days or even weeks on end. I have seen movies that made me jump higher, clutch harder, and sit up in bed late at night staring wide-eyed down the dark hallway after a day of thinking I'm not afraid at all. The Grudge did none of those things to any really noticeable degree.
But I still hold that it is one of the best horror films out there.
The premise is so frightening, the organization of the movie so well-done, and the very IDEA so out of the norm for American horror, that it stays with you, like the very first campfire story that kept you up all night, shaking in your sleeping bag. It comes back not as a horror in the dark, but rather as a persistent, niggling dread of that which we do not understand, of our inescapable fates, should we wander into something beyond our faculties to control.
The unique aspects of the movie can be attributed not only to fabulously talented directing, but also to the fact that The Grudge is actually the American counterpart to a movie called Ju-On, which came out earlier in Japan.
I have been feeling rather morose concerning horror lately, because much of what comes out of Hollywood is not scary, or is just a total rehash of an overdone theme, or just... not in the spirit of true horror. There were a slew of American horror films that came out a few years ago wherein the first ten minutes of each was the scariest damn thing to ever hit the screen. But then the movie tanked in it's last four fifths. I think a great example of this is Darkness Falls. I was quaking after that opening sequence. Quaking. All I could think was, what have I gotten myself into? Alas, I was slated for disappointment, as the movie toppled into what is fast becoming a terrible horror movie plague: it showed too much of the monster.
Cases in point:
The Haunting, new version.
House on Haunted Hill, new version.
Boogeyman.
Jeepers Creepers (or so I hear; I have not seen the whole thing).
There seems to be this idea that the scarier the monster looks, the more you reveal of it, the more terrified the audience will be. Now, in cases like Jaws, this theory worked, but only because Steven Spielberg is a master -- a master -- of suspenseful editing. (I shall not go into Jurassic Park at this time, but anyone who is now scared of the word "raptor" knows exactly what I mean.) But the thing is, horror is not about what you can see. It's often about what you CAN'T see. I can still remember the scariest part of Scream for me: towards the end, when Sydney escapes from the news van where she just watched the cameraman take a knife through the back. She gets halfway up the front walkway of the house, then stops abruptly, turns around... and realizes she has lost track of where the murderer is. That was fucking SCARY. When you can't see what's chasing you... that's when the horror kicks in.
There are many theories about what is scary, and I daresay that for everyone, it is different. First off, the theory concerning remakes. Psycho, The Haunting, and The House on Haunted Hill were all botched remakes of old, supremely successful horror movies. It seems that some people think we have to go back to the oldies to get the goodies. Possibly true; those movies packed a punch. But we need not be faithless to what actually MADE them scary in the first place: the surprises of Psycho (completely done away with by the word-for-word copy of the old script), the unseen of The Haunting (absolutely killed at the end when the ghost actually comes down the stairs in all its glory), and the jumps and intriguing side plots of HoHH (nearly retained, but ultimately ruined by the ending sequence). There are still original scary ideas out there. They just have to be sought out.
(And let's just give the remake of Dawn of the Dead its own category, shall we? Category is: remakes that failed to capture the original point, but have a point all of their own to make, regardless. The remake of Night of the Living Dead is the better remake of the two, I say, as it retains the horror of its predecessor in a slightly different package. But if you REALLY want good horror... SEE THE GEORGE ROMERO ORIGINALS.)
Another theory is the one about violence equaling horror. Now, this one is much more successful than the first in many respects. The entire American subgenre of slasher movies is based upon it. And no one can say that all slasher movies sucked. Scream certainly did not suck. Neither did Friday the 13th, nor Nightmare on Elm Street. Halloween is one of the scariest movies I have ever seen. Texas Chainsaw Massacre did not suck. I Know What You Did Last Summer would have been good, if only it hadn't become the butt of so many jokes so quickly. There is a new entry into this category from France (High Tension) which I have not yet seen, but from the look of things, it's a humdinger. Cherry Falls was less successful, I think, and Urban Legend was okay for slasher fare, as slasher fare goes. But violence does not always make with the scary. You've got to be pretty creative nowadays to hit the audience with violence that is actually scary and not just... well, violent. And even the best slasher films don't flip out and go overboard, believe it or not.
Then there's the suspense subgenre. Movies like The Others, The Sixth Sense, The Blair Witch Project, and What Lies Beneath capitalized on this aspect of horror, and were quite successful. And please, please do not comment trying to convince me of how stupid you thought the Blair Witch Project was because I do not agree AT ALL. I think it was a wonderfully clever exploration of the point of all these horror films: what we do to ourselves to make ourselves scared. It's fear at its most raw, and it works.
Like all of these movies, The Grudge falls more into the suspense category than any other. And like all of these movies, The Grudge is a ghost story. Coincidence? Hmmm. Not sure. But there is definitely something to be said for the effect of the restless dead on the human psyche. It's a pure trip into the supernatural, into a realm that we have NO CONTROL over. None. The Grudge is the essence of what a ghost is: ghosts are often thought to relive their lives (and deaths) over and over again, sometimes oblivious to the living people around them (The Sixth Sense: "They only see what they want to see."). Their world intersects with ours on so many different levels, temporal as well as physical. They are often portrayed as seeking revenge for wrongs done to them in life. And perhaps the most important...
They look like us. But they are not like us.
I'm going to mention the darling Doctor Freud here, and his theory of the "unheimlich," or that which is mostly recognizable, but which has been twisted or changed in some way as to make it unrecognizable. Hence, the demonic child, or the evil Santa Claus, or even something as basic as a vampire or werewolf. We see what it is and everything tells us it should be safe... yet it is not. It's a cute child, but it's actually Linda Blair. Or... it's a pale man with charm, but he's actually Lestat de Lioncourt. The Grudge works on much the same principle, and even though we are allowed to see quite a bit of the "monster," it is even scarier because of what the monster is and is not.
The Grudge frightens me because of how well it builds, how the mystery is compounded bit by bit, how the story is so simple and so, so, SO spine-tingling that it not only rejuvenates the ghost story; it also rewrites it, to an extent. This is not a win-lose situation, like much American horror-fodder. This is an unstoppable force that is so far beyond the control of the mortal realm that just the IDEA is terrifying, and coming into contact with it is much, much worse.
Did you know that there were almost no special effects in that movie? Yeah, that lady was a contortionist. Yeah, that kid is that good of an actor.
The thing is, with horror nowadays, you almost have to go to non-American films to get at something that genuinely frightens. The Japanese concept of what is scary is so different from the American concept. Other things play into it: cultural differences, directing styles, acting styles... This is not to say that American horror blows because it DOES NOT. Some of my favorite horror films are American in origin. But while Hollywood may have the tightest grip on the movie market, it does not often give us fresh, new horror... things that scare us because we have never encountered them before. Movies like The Grudge/Ju-On, Audition (Japanese), 28 Days Later (British), Perfect Blue (Japanese anime), Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le Pacte des Loup, French), and The Ring (Ringu, Japanese) have elements that don't pop up much in American movies. This is of course partly due to the individual directors, but also to the cultural backgrounds that produced the movies.
As you can see, I lean somewhat toward the supernatural element for my horror. But that is not to say that movies require a ghost to be horror. Something older, like Frankenstein, comes to mind: a severe critique on science and its pitfalls. Also, one of the newer waves of suspense-horror: the "real life" horror film. By this I mean movies that deal mostly in the human element. Silence of the Lambs is probably the most well-known of these, but Se7en, and recently, Saw, have banked on this aspect of what is scary. I have a friend who can watch ghost movies and barely bat an eyelash. But give her Hannibal Lector or Kevin Spacey interpreting the Bible, and she is up all night.
*looks back* Wow. This started as a comment on The Grudge being eerily frightening, and turned into a treatise on the failure and success of modern horror. I hope you got this far into it; this is a subject I care a great deal about, mostly because the horror genre, like the fantasy genre, is often overlooked or dismissed as being "silly, melodramatic, or unrealistic." Oddly, I have found both of these storytelling mediums to be the absolute BEST at societal commentary.
Hmmm. Horror haters, take note. I suggest you start with the American movies of the 50s, where you can practially taste the apprehension about where the world was headed. (Them, Invasion of the Body-Snatchers, etc.)
What are your thoughts?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-12-09 02:07 am (UTC)From:I'm not too much about slasher fics. I mean, yeah, the classics may be good. I swear, I thought Texas Chainsaw was hilarious when we watched it for HorrorLit. I laughed through it. Except that creepy eye close up.
And yes, what were the thinking with Dawn of the Dead. Viva le original! I love that, it's my favorite Romero.
Certain ghosts from 13 Ghosts were pretty frigthening, even if the rest of the movie kinda sucked. The girl with all the slashes. OOOOOh, she got me. I think I've mentioned this before.
From Hell I think is a good one to mention. It's a really well done movie, better then a lot of others out there. And I find it disturbing. I walk away creeped out. Oh, yeah, hmmm, I should be sleeping. Okay. Night again.
One more thing though. You want a scarrrry book? See if you can't find Christopher Pike's Seasons of Passage. It might be out of print, but if you ever find it, buy it, read it. It always scared me.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-09 03:38 am (UTC)From:Halfway through reading this entry something clicked in me and went 'Hey! What about Final Destination?' And yeah, the mortician scene with the Candyman? Ugh. However, I think it re-proved itself after that scene - nothing has ever quite got to me like "You can just drop. Fucking. Dead." *PWNED BY BUS* That was serious fucking cool, right there.
I want to mention Signs, because I was encouraged time and time again by my best friend to watch it - she claimed it scared the crap out of her. When I finally saw it, I got nothing from it, but I think what really, really put me off was how they *show* the alien in the end. Why? Why would you do that? That's the exact kind of instance in which the not-seeing is scarier than showing anything at all.
I definitely agree about the Japanese having the up on scary concepts, but I'll say that having seen both The Ring and the original Ringu, The Ring put a far deeper fear in me than Ringu did. I don't know whether that was due to all the effects they were able to add to The Ring, or whether it was just because blurred faces and green girls in closets are going to win me over every time, but The Ring fucking *scared* me. I remember hiring it on DVD after I'd seen at the movies three times already, and that first time on DVD I sat in the dark with my best friend and her boyfriend and we all watched it, and by the time Samantha decided to eat Martin Henderson's face, all three of us were literally on the edges of our seats, alternately crying and trying not to pee in fear. Anything that gets me that worked up is good horror, IMHO, because that is *exactly* the aim.
The Grudge I don't remember the plot of so well - I remember Sarah Michelle Gellar and a young (dead) Japanese boy and an attic/closet type thinger - I'm pretty sure I concluded by the end of the movie that the story hadn't been the most intriguing I'd ever seen. What I *do* remember is that ten minutes into the movie saw my friend Glenn and I *climbing into each others laps in a totally non-sexual way*, because fuck, we were terrified. It pulled off the suspense element so well, and that's something that absolutely works for me. You now have me wanting to go out and rent every horror movie ever *RIGHT NOW*, even though it is well past Halloween and there is no reason for me to want to scare myself into a puddle.
I was fully trying to contribute to this discussion and it became gibberish. Sorry!
no subject
Date: 2005-12-09 11:56 am (UTC)From:And I remember the bus scene as well. That was so sudden, so karmic, and so effective. The first half of that movie was great, no arguments from em on that count. It was the second half that frustrated me.
I own Ringu, but haven't watched it yet. I was waiting to see The Ring because I had heard it was the scarier of the two, but now that I have watched The Ring, I can watch Ringu. ^_^ The Ring, though, didn't particularly get me. I think it had been hyped up so much by the time I saw it that I thought it didn't live up to its press.
And gibberish is great.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-10 11:38 pm (UTC)From:Mortician: Oh yeah, duh, Death's after y'all cause you were supposed to have died on that plane. Sorry.
Like they and we hadn't already figured that out.
I'm a little afraid to watch Ringu because I saw a trailer with a hysterically screaming woman and instances of hysterical screaming in women have a tendency to make me laugh hysterically in reaction. Soooo.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-12 12:07 pm (UTC)From: (Anonymous)Haha, I never saw a trailer for Ringu.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-12 12:08 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2005-12-12 10:07 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2005-12-09 11:41 am (UTC)From:As for 13 Ghosts, I liked the cage head dude. Fucking scary. And slash girl. I also dug that Pilgrimess. But it's not really a good sign when you want the living characters to just bite it already. *snicker*
I will look and see if I can find the book, but I must tell you that I used to read Chris Pike and I really couldn't get into his style for some reason. Nonetheless, I loved the first few books in the Last Vampire arc.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-10 11:41 pm (UTC)From::-D
no subject
Date: 2005-12-09 09:44 am (UTC)From:I've always said that Alien was a horror movie. Definately a movie 'what's around the corner is it going to kill us?' and you don't see the monstor really until the end.
I really liked the Blair Witch Project. I saw it the 2nd day in the theatre and it scared the hell out of me. The ending is SO GOOD!!!
And The Ring - that really twisted me around. I have yet to see the JP version but would love too.
Jeepers Creepers actually did creap me out. My my
no subject
Date: 2005-12-09 11:48 am (UTC)From:And Alien is a wonderful horror movie. *LOVES ALIEN*
I still need to see the entire run of Jeepers Creepers.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-09 10:19 am (UTC)From:My favorite genre though is zombie horror. The old George Romero stuff was frightening. The newer stuff I think shouldn't be dismissed though. The whole reason I like zombie films, especially the newer ones including the Resident Evil movies, is that its horrifying not just as "creature" horror, but a glimpse into the idea of man taking science too far and the reprecussions of that.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-09 11:53 am (UTC)From:I was strangely unmoved by The Ring for the most part. I think part of it was that by the time I watched it, it had been so hyped as the scariest horror film ever that I just didn't think it met the standards set for it. It was definitely creepy. But not quite packing the punch of other films I'd seen, nor as "stay-with-you" as others.
Zombie films are marvelous, especially at social and scientific commentary, like you were saying. I don't dismiss the remakes, definitely. I just think the older ones had more poignant things to say about humanity and our consumer culture than the new ones, but the thing is, in 20 years, these new ones are going to be used in Horror Theory classes to discuss how the 90s and 2000s were viewed by movie makers, and how that view changed over the years betweent he originals and the remakes. It's ever changing, what horror has to say about people. I just think some manage it better than others.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-09 07:59 pm (UTC)From:*shudder*
Yeah, I think it was the clever premise. And the horrible sound effects. I think I'll stay away from "the Grugde".
no subject
Date: 2005-12-10 12:02 pm (UTC)From:And yeah, the sound the thing in the Grudge made was horrifying. I was so freaked out by it.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-09 09:43 pm (UTC)From:I think what I feared the most, also, is that once you encounter the house--step into it--you are Marked. And you can't escape the rage. In usual horror shows, once people escape the house or destroy whatever is haunting, they are free. But in this show, you aren't. Just merely walking through that doorway will cause those ghosts to come after you. The fact that you aren't safe really terrified me.
I usually like to encounter my fears and so I tried to watch the movie again alone. I just randomly switched to it and tried to watch for five minutes. But once the sister leaped into her bed...and I could the mother creeping up underneath her covers...I couldn't do it. I turned it off and just shook.
I hear all the time how people weren't affected by this movie at all. I think that this movie was probably my true fear then...that you can't escape something once it knows you exist.
As for other movies, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (new one) literally makes me ill to my stomach when I watch it. The sweat and blood from these people, the hot summer air with buzzing flies, the grotesque, twisted look of the people within this tiny community...and the way these teenagers suffered. I never forgot, through that entire show, that REAL people went through what these kids did. And that made me just sick watching it. I also thought that everyone died in the show, so I kept waiting for this girl to die. KNOWING that she was going to die any second kind up added the suspense to me, especially when she kept getting away so many times...I think that if a horror movie opened on the death of somebody, and then backtracking to the beginning, that might add a new element to the show.
Let's see, what else...Haha, zombie movies do nothing to me. 28 Days Later was pretty good, because WOW zombies can probably run, but I just liked the new take on it FINALLY. And Shaun of the Dead...OMG, have you seen that yet, Ru? You absolutely must...it's so funny. It's not like a stupid spoof, but it's the British/Scottish (whatever) take on what normal people would do if their country suddenly had Zombies. I mean...haha, I want to go watch it so bad now. XD
Anyway, yeah, I had more but I can't think anymore. Ending comment: Grudge scary! tears and sobs, yo.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-10 12:00 pm (UTC)From:I happen to know a particularly jaded 10-year-old who didn't think the Grudge was scary at all. And I have to say that bothers me quite a bit. Even if the ghosts didn't frighten her, even if the whole concept was not scary, the violence done to those people and the reason it was done should have appalled her. There's something so primal inside us that we have learned to switch off as members of scientific communities, of big cities, of a "forward thinking" species. And that's really disturbing to me.
I never forgot, through that entire show, that REAL people went through what these kids did.
You know, I actually think Tobe Hooper (the director of the original) made that up. In my horror films classes in college, we watched a documentary on the horror of the 60s and 70s, and Hooper said he was in a Home Depot or something, and it was really crowded and everyone was pushing and in a bad mood. He happened to be standing next to the chainsaw racks and he suddenly thought, "You know, I know a way to clear this place out in five seconds..." And thus the idea for the movie was born. Our professor said the "true story" thing was an advertising ploy, much like the Blair Witch Project scheme.
My favorite movie at this point is 28 Days Later, and though technically the Infected weren't really zombies, it is definitely a new twist on an old theme, and a very successful one as well. Mostly I like what that movie has to say about the real monster: people. I have seen Shaun of the Dead and loved it. And if you liked that one, may I direct you to the Australian version of the same theme? It's called "Undead" and it's absolutely kooky and hilarious. It pulls a lot from older 50s B films, and is quite successful at doing it. A real treat, once you get used to the initial "wtf?" response.
But I hold that the ultimate and best zombie movies are George Romero's original Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. They are fascinating critiques on our culture and society in every way. Even the campiness of the latter is saying a lot about consumerism. I think that NotLD is a terrifying movie because of the questions it raises.