The horror, the horror!
Thursday, March 13th, 2008 01:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanGod help me, but I can’t get "Something Tells Me (Something’s Gonna Happen Tonight)" by Cilla Black out of my head.
It’s Wogan’s fault, he played it on the radio this morning and it’s bored its way into my skull and stuck until something equally catchy pops up to dislodge it. That will be some hours at best as I do not have my walkman with me today. I probably shouldn’t mention that I even looked (out of idle curiosity, thank you) on Play.com to see if they had any “Best of” albums.
And they do. For £12.99 I could own a collection that runs from 1963 to 1978 and features 80-odd singles. I’ve even heard of many of them. I feel old.
To break me of this, I see that today’s Times has listed their movie critic’s top ten scariest horror movies:
I have to confess that I have not seen either Ringu or Don’t Look Now. When I was 18, a heavily cut copy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre put me off ham sandwiches for over a year. I was a tender flower in those days.
A lot of these films have lost their shock value these days, though I think Psycho and Alien would still grab the first-time viewer by the entrails at the appropriate moments.
What should have been on that list and is missing, what is on that list that shouldn’t be?
Entertain me with lively debate: I am bored and I still have Cilla Black rattling around my head. Now there’s a horror movie.
Edited to add: Two films that I particularly like and one, certainly, is very creey are: The Haunting (1963, dir. Robert Wise) and Night of the Demon (1957, dir. Jacques Tourneur) - despite the latter's cheesy demon effect toward the end of the movie.
It’s Wogan’s fault, he played it on the radio this morning and it’s bored its way into my skull and stuck until something equally catchy pops up to dislodge it. That will be some hours at best as I do not have my walkman with me today. I probably shouldn’t mention that I even looked (out of idle curiosity, thank you) on Play.com to see if they had any “Best of” albums.
And they do. For £12.99 I could own a collection that runs from 1963 to 1978 and features 80-odd singles. I’ve even heard of many of them. I feel old.
To break me of this, I see that today’s Times has listed their movie critic’s top ten scariest horror movies:
The Exorcist (1973);
The Blair Witch Project (1999);
Psycho (1960);
Alien (1979);
Ringu (1998) – Nakata’s original, not the remake;
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974);
Hallowe’en (1978);
Dawn of the Dead (1978);
Don’t Look Now (1973);
The Sixth Sense (1999).
I have to confess that I have not seen either Ringu or Don’t Look Now. When I was 18, a heavily cut copy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre put me off ham sandwiches for over a year. I was a tender flower in those days.
A lot of these films have lost their shock value these days, though I think Psycho and Alien would still grab the first-time viewer by the entrails at the appropriate moments.
What should have been on that list and is missing, what is on that list that shouldn’t be?
Entertain me with lively debate: I am bored and I still have Cilla Black rattling around my head. Now there’s a horror movie.
Edited to add: Two films that I particularly like and one, certainly, is very creey are: The Haunting (1963, dir. Robert Wise) and Night of the Demon (1957, dir. Jacques Tourneur) - despite the latter's cheesy demon effect toward the end of the movie.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-13 03:01 pm (UTC)Haven't seen Psycho;
As for the others - Dawn of the Dead isn't that scary, I prefer Night of the Living Dead;
Sixth Sense is a nice film, but no-way is it scary.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre is very dated, and rather dull (aside from the farcical moment with grampaw trying to hold a hammer).
From what little I've seen of it, I quite like Nightmare on Elm St.
Blair Witch is a film that I feel is generally underrated (as well as being one of those 'Marmite' choices), but I like it.
As for what is scary - Curse of the Cat People, or other horror from the 1940s - sometime when the horror was with the mood and atmosphere rather than the sfx or red paint.
Mind you, define 'horror'?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-13 03:28 pm (UTC)Unease is when you hear that an axe-weilding maniac is loose in your town.
Foreboding is when you see a shadow on the front door, and you look but it is gone, and you sware that you didn't leave the backdoor open... you know something is wrong but you don't know what.
Horror is where you see the trail of blood on the carpet and follow it up the stairs...
Terror is when the blood-soacked axe-weilding maniac leaps out at you from behind the bedroom door.
So often movie makers, particually in the late 90s, forgot what Horror was and went for Terror instead. Terror is Horror's weaker cousin - in a way it's a release - you scream but then you are into the whole fight-or-flight thing. Terror is a punch in the face - over and done with - shocking and perhaps painful but ultimately a one-trick-pony, whereas Horror is a slow emotional thumbscrew - building and building until you just have to scream.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-13 03:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-13 03:45 pm (UTC)So often movie makers, particually in the late 90s, forgot what Horror was and went for Terror instead
You make some good points, but I think that Terror came in in a big way from the late 70s and through the 80s.
But there's also the issue of believability - I can imagine The Wicker Man happening, I can't say the same for Dawn of the Dead.