"It's not the monster in the closet, but the people whose house the closet is in..."
Halloween is a little bit like Christmas for me.
In the same way that other people get excited about Christmas specials and stop-motion puppet reindeer, I look forward to scary movies and travel shows to haunted castles and wildlife specials about the Mothman. It's like the world goes a little Lone Gunmen for a month, and my family bonds over discussions of creepies and crawlies.
Each of us has our own favorite seasonal viewing. Mom likes to revisit the classics and watch macho idiots try to find ghosts with a tape recorder. My sister and her husband hit the midnight movies for Italian gorefests. If my little essay on social commentary in horror didn't make it obvious, I lean toward the meta-discussion, from simple lists like Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments to in-depth genre discussion like the lovely gem Netflix just turned up, Nightmares in Red, White and Blue.
A bit that makes me squeeful, from a guy I don't recognize:
And of course, if you check IMDb, you'll find the obligatory complaints from horror fans--that mainstream movies are bad and they should have talked about indie splatterfests that only hardcore fans! know about (yes, let's discuss the genre as a whole by focusing on the fringe!), that some films were just exploitation flicks and therefore can't have meaning, and that there are too many "attempts to politicize the evolution of horror films."
Oy. I'm not saying it's wrong to just love the blood and guts and jumping cats. I'm saying that films speak to their social context. It was a big deal to a 1968 audience that Night of the Living Dead had a black hero, whereas to audiences in 1990 it may have been just an old-fashioned scary movie. There's a reason why filmmakers tried to re-invent Barbara in the remake, and why their terrible overhaul failed. (My take? They wrote their new ending for the "So there!" moment and failed to understand its parting impact in light of the overall--you know, I'm just going to shut up now.) It was meaningful that the '80s, the 'Stranger Danger' era of witch-hunts and child molester hysteria, produced Nightmare on Elm Street; it's not just about dreams and nightmares, but about facades and keeping secrets, even when it hurts. (Hello, Nancy's alcoholic mom!)
Horror movies are trying to push buttons. By putting the film into its social and temporal context, you see where those buttons were. Just by saying "Boo!", the movie is saying something about that era and its audience.
(Yes, I am so dorking out right now.)
In the same way that other people get excited about Christmas specials and stop-motion puppet reindeer, I look forward to scary movies and travel shows to haunted castles and wildlife specials about the Mothman. It's like the world goes a little Lone Gunmen for a month, and my family bonds over discussions of creepies and crawlies.
Each of us has our own favorite seasonal viewing. Mom likes to revisit the classics and watch macho idiots try to find ghosts with a tape recorder. My sister and her husband hit the midnight movies for Italian gorefests. If my little essay on social commentary in horror didn't make it obvious, I lean toward the meta-discussion, from simple lists like Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments to in-depth genre discussion like the lovely gem Netflix just turned up, Nightmares in Red, White and Blue.
A bit that makes me squeeful, from a guy I don't recognize:
"Those are actually films that discuss violence in a meaningful way. In our culture, we have made violence acceptable--that when we are attacked, we attack, that violence can be okay under certain conditions. The Charles Bronson Death Wish films, they say, 'Okay, you've attacked my family, you've murdered my family, you've raped my wife. Now I will kill you and it is justified.'I love it. People loved to gripe about the blood and guts in cheesy '80s horror movies, but the '70s certainly embraced violence, and across genres. Different eras, different genres, different takes...
What Last House on the Left says is that I have acted as violently as you have, my child is still dead, and now what am I left with? What these horror films do is they rip that decorum off killing. They show you the naked ugliness of violence."
And of course, if you check IMDb, you'll find the obligatory complaints from horror fans--that mainstream movies are bad and they should have talked about indie splatterfests that only hardcore fans! know about (yes, let's discuss the genre as a whole by focusing on the fringe!), that some films were just exploitation flicks and therefore can't have meaning, and that there are too many "attempts to politicize the evolution of horror films."
Oy. I'm not saying it's wrong to just love the blood and guts and jumping cats. I'm saying that films speak to their social context. It was a big deal to a 1968 audience that Night of the Living Dead had a black hero, whereas to audiences in 1990 it may have been just an old-fashioned scary movie. There's a reason why filmmakers tried to re-invent Barbara in the remake, and why their terrible overhaul failed. (My take? They wrote their new ending for the "So there!" moment and failed to understand its parting impact in light of the overall--you know, I'm just going to shut up now.) It was meaningful that the '80s, the 'Stranger Danger' era of witch-hunts and child molester hysteria, produced Nightmare on Elm Street; it's not just about dreams and nightmares, but about facades and keeping secrets, even when it hurts. (Hello, Nancy's alcoholic mom!)
Horror movies are trying to push buttons. By putting the film into its social and temporal context, you see where those buttons were. Just by saying "Boo!", the movie is saying something about that era and its audience.
(Yes, I am so dorking out right now.)