I sent my husband off to see PARANORMAL ACTIVITY by himself. I am generally not a fan of horror movies. It's not the blood and guts I fear. It's being startled. I hate that feeling. There are plenty of so-called horror movies I can watch. ROSEMARY'S BABY is one of them. I an tolerate THE SHINING. Ghosts don't usually bother me much. Or vampires sucking necks. Or zombies grabbing people.
It's Carrie's hand reaching out of the earth, I can't take. Am I alone in finding this aspect of horror movies the most distressing? Or is there something else for you. What are the elements you expect to find in a horror movie? Are you disappointed if they're not there?
33 comments:
When mechanical/electrical objects start working without human intervention, I get completely freaked out. I love "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," but the scene where all the battery-operated toys start up by themselves still scares me.
Boy, that's interesting. I think I assume such things might happen even under normal circumstances so it doesn't bother me much.
I think I watched Carrie too late. I couldn´t help laughing at the special effects which seemed rather crude to me.
Rosemary´s Baby makes a much larger impression on me, because I can´t help identifying with the poor mother.
And a film I wasn´t able to watch: Hitchcock´s The Birds.
Yes, I get startled like you, Patti. But it doesn't bother me afterward. "Scary" movies just don't scare me because I know it's not real. Unfortunately, that doesn't work for me with sad movies. I cry like a baby during films like TERMS OF ENDEARMENT.
Yes, if you see it too late (like I saw Psycho years later) it does have an impact.
Just that moment of being startled ruins it for me--and the anticipation of being startled again.
Medically related horror really gets to me. I remember a scene in The Ring (which otherwise wasn't particularly scary) where a character dies from pulminary emboli, or somesuch thing. When the protagonist opens a closet and finds her corpse inside, face contorted in terror, it brings the chills.
Oh, and drowning, too. Let the Right One In -- awesome, awesome, awesome film -- has a scene where the protagonist is faced with a choice: Stay underwater for three minutes or lose an eye to a switchblade.
I guess you didn't like Alien much, Patti, and I call that film science fiction, not horror. Whatever it's genre, it had some scary moments.
It's being startled that many people LIKE about scary movies.
But I don't like gore or uber sickness. I wouldn't watch "Saw" for instance, any of them.
Can't watch HOUSE. Anything with people getting spinal taps and such is off.
I have never seen more than bits and piece of ALIEN. Too bad because I know it's good but...
I get a bit squeamish during the blood and guts, but it doesn't bother me too much once I get over the initial shock. It's the tension beforehand that I can't stand. I also can't stand loud noises such as unexpected gun shots.
I've been startled by films. Something jumps out etc. But a horror movie has never scared me.
I'm the opposite. I have trouble watching Rosemary's Baby as I find it quite unsettling. I feel the same way about The Amityville Horror and The Exorcist.
I prefer the more suspenseful/startling "horror" films. The Final Destination movies have all been at least moderately entertaining for me (although the sequels have been increasingly worse than the original). I also enjoyed the first Urban Legend film and possibly one of my favorite horror films was/is Stir of Echoes. I also thoroughly enjoyed The Ring.
I also really liked Friday the 13th Part X. I found it to be the best in the series. It was more of a sci-fi comedy than a horror film as it lampooned the other films in the franchise. If it had been branded as a comedy I think it would have been more successful at the box office. The best part about it was that it didn't take itself at all seriously.
I'm not a fan of horror movies that are completely implausible and take themselves far too seriously.
Wow, David. It must be because real life is pretty scary for you.
THE EXORCIST had a lot of shocking moments.
True terror is in the plausible and possible. For that reason, PSYCHO remains the most frightening movie ever made. I think Norman Bates could have been my next door neighbor (or anyone's neighbor). Some people were so bothered by the film that they still refuse to take showers, which makes them extraordinarily malodorous but understood. And as for my phobia of taxidermy, motels, banks, ponds, knives, shower curtains, water in drains, steep staircases, swinging lightbulbs, and a hundred other things...don't get me started!
By the time I saw Psycho I was prepared for the shower scene, but the scene where he swings the chair around and you see the skeleton of his mother unhinged me. THE BIRDS was nearly as bad because the horror began immediately whereas in Psycho you have some back story to warm you up.
What bothers me is where what's "normal" gets turned on its head. In VIDEODROME an engineer finds of feed of sadomasochistic porn that he's having trouble tracing - he think's it's from Indonesia. Later, James Woods asks him about it. Indonesia? No, Pittsburg.
Also, suddenly switching contexts freaks me out. A serial killer movie in which the killer crawls upside-down across a ceiling to escape detection, for example. The surprise element of supernatural scared me.
But being startled doesn't really do it.
Word verificaiton: "reality". Creepy.
The scene in Psycho that scared me the most when I first saw it was when the detective went in the house and began walking up the stairs. He did not know what was going to happen but all of us did and we either screamed out a warning or covered our eyes. Now that was really scary.
For me, I'd say it's either the dread that's been built up in psychologically affecting horror film (THE INNOCENTS, THE HAUNTING, and the British TV film THE LADY IN BLACK), or the unexpected occurrence of something that shouldn't be scary, but is (see THE CHANGELING from 1980 and its off-putting use of a little red ball).
Great post, Patti. Thank you.
"Sixth Sense" freaked me out, especially when the dead people darted across the screen behind that poor little kid. No blood, no gore, no projectile pea soup; just an undercurrent of evil prickling your fears.
...
Sixth Sense was really scary-the growing realization of what was going on did it for me.
Yes, the anticipation of what he would find at the top of the stairs was scary-I'd forgotten that scene.
Graham-now that's scary, intuitive word verifications.
THE INNOCENTS was terribly eerie, wasn't it. How about PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK. We saw it with someone who was almost physically ill from fright.
Donnie Brasco. Will he get caught out? !! THAT was scary for me. Little horor these days. I OD in the early days of video where I saw EVERYTHING icky. When I was a kid, though, The Haunting and The Nanny.
I saw Donnie Brasco but am blanking on the horror. One man's horror is another's something else.
I get edgy with the slow build. Extended tension does it more for than a quick shock. One of my favorite observations by a film critic was Pauline Kael's review of the original Halloween in 1978 when she said, "You get so that you want someone to be killed so the film's rhythm will change." Such a great observation on what makes that film scary.
Is that ever a great line! And so true for earlier movies where the expectation/anticipation nearly made you crazy.
For me, I want the vict...characters to get fleshed out a bit. Make me care at least a little about them.
When dealing with the supernatural, the director needs to establish, if only for himself, rules as to what can and can not happen. Follow your own rules!
Fans of scary films should pick up TRICK 'R TREAT. It came out on DVD a couple of weeks ago.
Fun and scary.
I love the idea of following your own rules. I just wrote a story about an angel and did just that. Sorting out all the literature around was too arduous. And for a fictitious being...or maybe not.
HUGE fan of fright flicks. I have been since I was a kid. Cut my teeth on the Universal Pictures. Zombie movies, from Night of the Living Dead to Shawn of the Dead to 28 Days Later are my faves.
Things that jump out? Yeah, I like that. But torture like the Shaw franchise or Audition, that's what freaks me.
That's Saw franchise.
I watch different horror films for different reasons. I love what I call the coolness factor, the really neat gross outs, like the alien chest burster scene. I don't find those particularly scary. Most scary for me are the scenes that stiches goosebumps across my scalp or down my body. Like the scene in The Ring when the girl comes 'out' of the TV.
I don't bother much with horror movies, or movies in general. In reflecting on what did bother me with horror movies, the Stephen King movie about the vampire coming up through the floor boards did it for me...I had to leave the room and not watch for awhile.
I could never go near the SAW movies. Oh, The RING was very scary. Korean horror movies are truly chilling.
Some Korean horror films are, certainly (though the originial RING, RINGU, and its sequels are Japanese films). My favorite Korean film in the wake of RINGU is actually called PHONE, in English, at least.
Of course, Mister Lynch, directors don't make films by themselves, particularly when determining what is are the rules...unless the director is also the writer.
PSYCHO the novel, like THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE the novel (both published in 1959 and both the dominant novel for either writer's reputation, even though both also have a clangorous early short story that rather made their reputations), is better than the good movie made from it (much less the atrocious mid-90s remakes of the films), but that kind of mixture of slow builds and occasional jump shocks works much better than the kind of reliance on jump scares that, say, ALIEN (with its remarkably stupid back story and clumsy attempts at satire of corporate callousness) or the recent DRAG ME TO HELL. At least for me. And, by me, of course, DONNIE BRASCO and PSYCHO are suspense films (and PYSCHO's original a suspense novel), which is what Paul was getting at, I think.
That's it exactly! I don't like to be startled. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that I'll see you in Ann Arbor on Saturday. I know it probably won't work out, but I can still hope :)
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