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Why do you watch horror movies?
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
Hi everybody.
I'm doing a dissertatation on the progression of body horror in Japanese/asian cinema but I need to include some theories about why people are interested in horror movies and their appeal.
If you watch horror films, why do you watch them? What about them appeals to you? Is there anything specific you like about them?
Thanks.
I'm doing a dissertatation on the progression of body horror in Japanese/asian cinema but I need to include some theories about why people are interested in horror movies and their appeal.
If you watch horror films, why do you watch them? What about them appeals to you? Is there anything specific you like about them?
Thanks.
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
Post edited by JustV on
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I've seen hundreds of horror films that havent bothered me but if I saw it in real life I'd be traumatised!!
what kinds of horror are they? Are there any specific titles?
What to you would be classed as a scary film? Would you be able to sit through a film like Cannibal Holocaust?
Sorry if Im asking too many questions but I have to be thorough with my examples.
ahhh erm... havent heard of cannibal holocaust. films that are scary to me are those with torture scenes like saw and hostel. they get me everytime. oh and sympathy for lady vengence. a korean film. VERY hard to watch but i did it! threeee times
Ghost films scare me alot more but i guess it depends on the individual what they actually find scary
If you've seen some of the films (Elm street, Dusk Till Dawn) What made you want to watch them?
Really really gory films don't scare me though. Hostel part 2 just made me laugh most of the time (apart from the start with the girl *shiver*). Although the Descent scared the crap out of me but i love that film.
The ring was alright but i hated the bit with the horse in the boat! and i think its the second one with the dear? i hated that bit. The blair witch project is quite freaky too.
With me i think its more the psychological scary films that scare me. I think there is more for you to imagine from them ones. They seem to leave a longer effect after them than ones thats just gore. Like saw II, it took me ages to open the living room door after watching that. lol
but now, i kinda try not to watch things i know'll just freak me out for the sake of it, tho i do watch horror films that are interesting as well, like frontiers or silence of the lambs.
i watched a chinese film a while ago, about a couple who slashed people open and stole their kidneys, but it was with subtitles so i had to concentrate too much for it to be really scary, although the chinese people, got REALLY freaked out.
I'm with you there. I really love SOTL. Great film. But kinda the gory, psycho killer kinda ones creep me out. The ones that are well done that is.
Like the Ring does creep me out a bit. Silent Hill freaked me out the first time I watched it. The Shining scares the fuck out of me. I think it's the surreal part of it.
I watched Carrie for the first time the other day. Didn't scare me at all. Interesting though. The Birds and Psycho were more funny. Exorcist didn't scare me really (I was maybe 15 when I saw it). It more grossed me out (the knife scene. Sick shit).
Don't want to see Saw and Hostel. Too gruesome for my liking. American Psycho is mint cos it's also kind of funny.
Films like Halloween 2000 are hilarious, just because they're so crap.
I don't go out of my way to watch horror films, but I will watch them. I avoid the gory and gruesome ones though.
Some are fairly realistic such as 'Right To Die' where a wife in a coma, almost killed by her husband in a fire, haunts him to force him to save her life, and alot scarier than say 'Pelts' where a fur coat made from "holy" racoons forces everyone who comes into contact with it to kill themselves :S..... alot less scary since I know that thats ever going to happen
I'm a big fan of horror movies in general, I've spent my life watching films that would be called horror (though by now some would probably be considered more fantasy).
I think there's an inherent element to horror films that allows for the transgressive. Even before films horror novels seemed to take the place of the fairy tale in adult life - the option to explore feelings and situations that wouldn't be permissible directly but that could be implied.
Whether it's the sexual permissiveness of the Vampire myth or the maternal fears at the heart of Frankenstein - horror allowed readers to explore the uneasy or the hidden. I don't think it's a coincidence that film adaptations of those monsters came to be so significant in film making - or that they slowly drifted away during the late 60's.
What came to replace them, the horror movies about the destruction of everything safe in the American home during the times of upheaval and violence of America's Vietnam experience, shows to me how linked horror is at expressing inner turmoil. Science fiction tends to be discussed in the same way but, much as a love it, it's always seemed more allegorical and intellectual, whereas horror directly engages on a more emotional level.
I've always thought it's probably because horror is trying to always create a visceral impact that film makers often almost stumble upon defining social/emotional/psychological concerns. Horror that has an impact tends to be young film makers working on limited budgets exploring their own fears and concerns - after all you have to scare yourself to have a chance of scaring others.
Of course the market tends to them consume those key ideas in a series of cycles of ever decreasing value (so the expressionist German films, monster movies of the 40s and 50s, Hammer horror, the Corman Poe adaptations, the Wes Craven home invasion movies, the 70s Cronenburg led body horror of the US, the toture-porn of Hostel and Saw, the 70s revivals of Zombie, etc) but at their heart you've got people pushing boundaries with what they are making. I think it's almost impossible to really care about pushing people beyond where they may be comfortable without hitting fundamental social undercurrents or as Jung might have put it, the collective unconscious.
Now admittedly I love most transgressive film making, whether it's 60's transcendental art house movies, British 40s art film making, or 80s black and white low budget lesbian film making - sign me up for the lot of it. But art house and mainstream rarely cross over. The two are economically divided, preaching to their own individual markets, and where any movement between the two occurs it's usually within clearly defined parameters - so because a particular art house film has such great performance by an established actress, etc.
However horror always seems to be able to move between those lines with a great ease. It's really interesting for me how often it's horror that seems to cross national boundaries. I know people tend to say it's because horror is universal, but then again isn't love or anger or hope? No, for me, it's the way horror speaks to the subconscious and is permissive of the illicit, taboo or hidden. I mean how many people have seen Okuribito or The White Ribbon compared to The Ring or Let the Right One In?
It's worth noting that I don't think this makes horror inherently progressive or transitional. I think it can be at times but often it feels more reactionary. Even in horror films that have more progressive elements they are often bound by an exploration of far more reactionary feelings. I love Cronenburg's movies but for all you can take on an intellectual level from The Brood or Dead Ringers there are just as many troubling and difficult views and feelings being expressed.
But that's valid for me - to give those feelings and fears vent, a cathartic opportunity to explore what would be too painful or shameful to openly address. It's for other films to explore what horror can bring to light but fantasy and fear has a vital place in expressing what can't be said.
Some of those themes may slowly pass away, as I mentioned above, with sexual openess ending the value of Vampire tales for many (which is an interesting example in it's own right as the Vampire tale changes through Anne Rice and into the sparkly Twilight fuckers, focusing increasingly on a smaller demographic still addressing the same issues for the first time). Other themes seem to stay strong because they aren't going away - body horror is all about change and the body itself being transformed into something unknown - that's always going to appeal around puberty.
And the age horror first appeals is also interesting, thinking about that for a moment, because horror, like fairy tales always seems a little bit too scary for the main audience. Getting to see a horror film when you're a bit too young can be a window into adult fears and concerns presented in a dramatic and involving, if terrifying at times, way for when people either due to age, or because the issue is so buried and unconscious, wouldn't relate to a direct telling of the issues.
So, for me, horror is more than just about fear, it's about shaping and grasping for what those fears are. And in some cases is even more revealing than a film maker ever intended (consider Jeepers Creepers directed by convicted pedophile Victor Salva, in the context of the directors past convictions, for a truly disturbing perspective on the two films).*
btw, did you want to know any particular movies people would recommend or anything, or just general views on horror?
*And just to be clear, this is my view on great or at least significant horror movies - none of this applies to From Dusk till fucking Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter.
The idea was to find out out why people watch horror movies but my supervisor said "the responses were too tame." :grump:
My projects changed from talking exclusively about asian cinema to why horror has gotten so extreme in the past 10 years. The supervisor said pick the most extreme asian film you've seen and most extreme western film you've seen from the past decade.
For the extreme asian film I've chosen Visitor Q. I'm still kind of stuck for the western film but I'm leaning towards Hostel part 2.
Anyone have any suggestions or recommendations?
Not that Jim's given it much thought or anything
Personally I see a big difference between the quest for gore and the films which mess with my mind. It's the latter that makes me feel uncomfortable whilst the gore usually just makes me laugh.
Have to say that I'm not a huge fan of horror though.
Antichrist, perhaps? I haven't seen it yet, I've just heard.
And it's not technically a film, but you might talk about the who 2 Girls 1 Cup thing (which has now gone on to 2 Girls 1 Finger) in terms of people deliberately watching things they've heard will shock them.
For gore: Hostel part 1/2, some of the Saw films are pretty gory, parts 1/2/3 are the best.