I was pretty disappointed in the Hallowe’en horror film haul last night given the number of channels we have on cable. Even old standbys MGM and Turner Classic Movies had bugger all, so we were forced to make do with Scary Movieon one of the commercial channels. Funny, but not quite what I’d had in mind.
So when Amanda posted this seasonal piece about horror movies I couldn’t resist commenting at some length and as my energy is strictly limited at the moment I’m crossposting it here.
She took as her exemplar Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining:
[…]
More than anything, though, I dislike having the story shoved into the narrow metaphor-for-alcoholism box because I think that undercuts what to me is the real source of the horror, which is the unquestioned authority that Jack has over his little family. If anything in the movie, the alcoholism functions as an excuse for Jack?s sadistic hold on power
[….]
… the horror is always receding from view because the real question is what makes Jack sadistic, and how it?s related to whatever evil is lurking in the hotel. All attempts to name the horror fall flat, especially with all sorts of could-be red herrings floating around about debauched, party-like atmosphere that used to dominate the hotel. The best guess I can come up with is that evil is the result of power, and the debauchery is just the dressing, the playful atmosphere that gathers around unchecked sadism. And Jack, with no one around to check him, can torment his family without having booze as an excuse or stopping just at something like a broken arm. But that doesn?t answer the darkest question of all, which is why people get pleasure from the suffering of others.
So, Halloween night: What are some of your favorite horror movies and why?
The Shining– as so many of King’s books are – is indeed about the corrupting influence of patriarchal power and the seeking of it and long-term effects of it. A lot of King’s characters have familial, mostly spousal and/or fatherly, abuse somewhere in their background and their lifelong reactions to those experiences fuel the motors of any number of his plots.
Kubrick managed to strip the mammoth plot and massive backstory of this novel to their bare bones, revealing what’s truly horrific by merely sketching it out. The brooding tenseness, the walking on eggshells, the terrible isolation and the endless nerve-shredding dread, the sense of imminence, the unprovoked explosive violence barely held in check.
I don’t sense King’s approving of patriarchy at all, rather commenting on the damage it does. The primary women characters in his books may meet certain stereotypes in many ways, but they are at least survivors.
As to what my favourite horror films are, I can’t watch Nosferatu and be scared any more, not after the character was reinvented as a racing pundit on BBC comedy’s The Fast Show.
The Haunting is My favourite horror movie ever, bar none; a sixties movie that manages to pick up on the lesbian subtext of the relationship beteen the two main characters, albeit only by hints and allusion. Filmed in black and white, it has seriously scary nerve-twanging moments (to this day a bang on the door makes me my neck-hairs stand on end.). Not absolutely faithful to the book by Shirley Jackson, but still well done, though Rip Torn is horribly miscast..
I heartily recommend the book too, It” a of the also all Children of The Cornwas loosely based on it IIRC.
Speaking of gay-friendly horror movies, I just watched The Hunger again and wow what a stylish movie that is. Susan Sarandon is just utterly droolworthy and the clothes and art direction are stunning, just safely this side of cartoon Helmut Newton-ism. In light of current developments in horror movies, particularly vampire movies, it’s not overtly scary but it has an elegiac quality that’s very unsettling. The violence is comparatively low-key and intimate and thus the more shocking for it, and the famous Deneuve /Sarandon seduction scene very lipstick and glossy, but sufficiently believable nevertheless.
I’d second Don’t Look Now too, though I’d also say read the novel by Daphne Du Maurier as well. It doesn’t explain the film exactly but if you’ve read it it does gives the movie more texture and depth, especially about the emotional freight carried by Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie’s characters in their own notorious sex scene. (I’m sensing a trend here in my choices).
The photography of Venice, the use of light and shade and the art direction generally are gorgeous. Though I’m a bit fed up of the recent ironic hijacking, for all sorts of postmodern purposes, of the film’s ‘small girl in a red coat’ motif. Boring.
I loved the Alien movies but they’ve been done to death now. Those who liked them too might also like Pitch Black, which has everything a scary SF-ish movie needs- claustrophobia, endless alien night, plausible monsters and seat-jumping moments aplenty. For once wannabe-action-hero Vin Diesel isn’t miscast.
Also a couple of quick but very meritorious mentions for Dog Soldiers and 28 Days Later, both British movies and incredibly scary, and if you want a good laugh, try Sean of The Dead. Oh, yes, and Picnic At Hanging Rock. It doesn’t need to be all guts and gore to be terrifying.
Best scary TV series IMSHO has to be the late seventies’ BBC adaption of James’ The Turn of The Screw. Best scary novel to hide under a blanket on the sofa with, snuggling a a hot water bottle and nursing a cup of tea as the wind turns northeasterly and smells of snow – without a doubt, Ghost Story, by Peter Straub.
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