This is about my relationships with scary movies.I might be culturally deprived, but I really can not see the point in making or watching a scary film. As far as I am concerned, I can not, have never, and never intend to watch a scary film ever in my entire life. Okay, the statement seems slightly hyperbolic, and it is. The question one might as well as ask me, is, if you have never watched a scary film, then how you know that you do not want to watch one.
That is because, my dear readers, I have tried to sit through films that have scary sequences, I have sat in the next room while my sister was on an endless horror serial watching trip, and I have felt myself shut my eyes tight and stuff my ears with cotton just to ward off the sound that comes from the next room.
So, I actually am not half as inexperienced as I would like people to believe, but that does not take away from the fact that I am really scared. It is not because I think that the stuff on tv will happen to me one day, or because I empathize with the grief and horror stricken characters on the screen, but because, I think, it is in me that the scary film gets its ideal viewer, the spectator who is absent.
I mean, what exactly is it that you are trying to achieve by making or in this case screening a scary film? To scare people right? So when a person is scared it can safely be assumed that the purpose has been served. And therefore, since I get scared in a movie hall with the first hint of anything remotely scary, or violent, or bloody, or gory, or reptile-y, then am I not the implied consumer? And if I am, and if horror films are too scary for me to ever go and try and watch another one of them, then why produce more horror films?
(And yes Mr. Tarantino, this applies to you too.)
with all you hyperboly, you forgot to mention the therapeutic effects of scaring one's self by viewing a horror flick. For some people, these films provide an avenue of stress relief. I am not a proponent of violence or gore, unless it is vital to the story line, i.e. Sin City.
ReplyDeletesin city is scary???? OMG!!
ReplyDeleteMedusa has a serious problem with the representation of violence, blood and gore on screen or in any kind of narrative, she can handle it is real life.
ReplyDeleteso u guys would better not make fun of her, it is a pathological condition.
hmmmph
One might say that the true subject of the horror genre is the struggle for recognition of all that our civilization represses and oppresses, i mean the supernatural, ghosts, spirits, bood, crosses etc. besides, the fact is that civilization itself is hideously fragile and there's not much between us and the horrors underneath, just about a coat of varnish.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy an adrenalin rush - parachute jumps, things like that - and a certain type of scary/action film gives me just that. Some though, just bore me silly, and some repulse.
ReplyDeleteI genuinely do wonder if the need for adrenalin is a man* thing - from early hunter days, where one might suddenly be faced with a sabre-tothed tiger, and need the adrenalin for fight-or-flight. Modern life doesn't give us that, so we seek it in other ways.
*I'm not being deliberately sexist - I just observe that it's mainly (not always, I know) men who look for these excitement binges; and we assume that men were (mainly) the early hunters.
The best kind of scary movies (in my opinion) are the ones without the gore. Hitchcock was the master at this. The technique he perfected is called cutting before the content curve, leaving just enough out so the audience will keep guessing. Psycholgically thrilling with just enough oomph to make you scream.
ReplyDeleteThe horror genre is questions our morals. It is concerned with human sin, death and sometimes the supernatural. There is ultimately a catharsis and the tension is relieved.
Thanks for posting on my blog :)
i know EXACTLY wot you mean!
ReplyDeletei have always hated scary movies, & i don't like the feel of adrenalin either. I, like you, relate too much with the victims. UGH!
ReplyDeleteu'r my favourite (and only) agony aunt! :D
ReplyDeleteI'm with Dave on this one. And Mizfit kinda nailed the idea on the head.
ReplyDeleteI have a problem getting scared. I need to watch a flick when no-one is around, in the dark, with my back facing a cooling breeze or open window.
Fellow adrenaline junkies, u know u want it. ;)