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Thread: Why is Horror Dis-respected So Much?

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    Default Why is Horror Dis-respected So Much?

    It seems to be that critics these days cannot judge a movie on what it tries to be, they instead walk into a cinema or sit on their comfortable sofa with a DVD and enter every single movie with a total blank canvas and judge it by what they see and not what is trying to be told.

    If any critic is going to sit and watch a typical slasher movie, and be judging it the same way they would judge say, American Beauty or Citizen Kane, then the movie has lost the battle before it has even had its opening credits.

    It sounds like a terribly patronising thing to say, but you really do have to lower your standards on horror movies. There are certain things that people are looking for in a standard slasher movie in order to enjoy it. You are going to look for creative kills, tension, lighting to set the mood, a memorable villain etc. Its not like you will be watching the movie, trying to see the point of it all, some sort of moral value, political under-tones or some character feeling of absolution by the end of the movie.

    The very original Halloween which got a nice fresh 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, is nothing more than a man in a man who seemingly cannot be killed, wandering town on Halloween and killing babysitters. The actual story didn't come around until the sequels, yet Halloween was praised for its tension, cinematography and so on. It was not the very first of its kind although arguably the most memorable at the time and to this day. It didn't have any morals or satire about its time, yet anything even similar to it these days will be slated for the exact reason that it has no meaning.

    Movies like Halloween 6 are praised by fans for having the best atmosphere since the original. Michael is more threatening than ever, lighting and sound are great, the death scenes are not disappointing, the soundtrack is perfectly decent and although a bit confusing for the average viewer, it took great balls to try and do something very different with the series. It's a risk that didn't really pay off, but it TRIED to make sense of a story that was basically going nowhere. How many times could we have Michael wandering around killing the friends of a family member only to survive at the end after he has apparently been destroyed for good.

    Take movies like Saw, although the sequels turned into over the top gore and a little bit of story and took the M. Night Shaymalan approach of throwing a contrived twist at the end of every movie...the original Saw was pretty good - the twist was good, the violence was actually not over the top and left a lot to your imagination. It had a story, yet once again critics bash the movie and I can't help but feel that this is simply because it is a horror movie which seems to be a joke in Hollywood these days. Yes you will get good horror movies from abroad. Yes, they are well made, look scary as hell and are very artistic, but you can tell that they had made the decision to make it an artistic horror and not just entertaining.

    Horror is getting too much disrespect these days, from critics, filmmakers and the general public. They do not seem to understand that without horror, the limitations of cinema would not be as good as they are. Without horror we would not be able to show a child die in a movie in such a way that Assault on Precinct 13 opened to us.

    We would not have a great amount of violence on screen at all, it would probably have followed the whole 'scream before the camera cuts away' thing. This kind of genre is a stepping stone in cinema censorship issues and had a very artistic opening for those who work with prosthetics and make-up. I do not think a lot of people will agree with me, and I'm sure, like myself, you will probably just make your own mind up about a movie. But a lot of people sadly do follow critics and their opinions and movies which are getting less than what they deserve in the first place are going to suffer for it.

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    The horror genre is always going to be a fairly "cult" genre if you will. But make a good film and you'll still get praise and accolades. John Carpenter is proof of that.

    The thing that probably gives a film like 'The Curse of Michael Meyers' a bad rap is that it's like the 5th movie with the same killer. And in my opinion, Halloween 4 and 5 were not good films. I have to be honest that I haven't seen this one, but my desire to see it is very low. I think 'Halloween II' will always be the end to me with the Michael Meyers character.

    You know the series is getting stale when they discontinue numbering the franchise - or else this would've been like Halloween 6.....and when Halloween H20 completely disregards the fact that Halloween 4, 5, and 6 ever happen....or when Jamie Lee Curtis gets killed off in Halloween Resurrection starring Busta Rhymes.

    *facepalm*

    What a shame the franchise turned into such a sellout/mess. It's like the 'Friday the 13th' movies. I think the 4th one was titled 'The Last Chapter' and then a year later there's another 'Friday the 13th' movie called 'The New Beginning' and they go on to make like 5 more movies. It's hialrious.
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    I'm going to have to disagree with you here.
    "Horror" as a genre is about more than the slasher movie and its ilk. It used to be something terribly alive; think of Nosferatu, Phantom of the Opera, or The Cabinet of Doctor Calgari. Then think of Dracula and Frankenstein. Think of the transition to psychological drama, camp, gore and sexuality in the colour films that followed: The Roger Corman Poe adaptations, the rise of Hammer Horror (whose earlier work ought to be taken more seriously than it is), Polanski's Rosemary's baby, The Exorcist (obviously), Witchfinder General, Night of the Living Dead. Every single one of these films added something new to Horror. Every one. Yes, Hammer got stuck in a rut and deteriorated into camp, but you know what happened then? Ultraviolence and shocker. Texas chainsaw massacre, and, yes, the remarkably novel (though hard to think of it that way now) Halloween. And Horror burned brightly again for, like, three whole days.
    Ask yourself this: if we were still making camp hammer horror films, would you be happy?
    So why should you be happy that we moved on one step and then got stuck in a permanent rut? When you're making a parody movie of a parody movie (I'm thinking of "Scary Movie" of course), you know that the thing has died.
    Look, I understand the argument from film censorship, but I could argue cheap ugly porn-romance films kept sexuality on screen or Guy Ritchie films kept bad language from hays code restrictions and sure, it's true. But that's not really cinema.
    I'm not saying there's nothing in Slasher any more, it could just need a subversion here, a novel idea there. But the genre is horribly stale right now, and I don't blame a critic for dismissing better executions of the work when that's all it is. Just a slicker presentation of the same thing. That is artistic death. There are some good horror films around (Cronenberg might come back to the medium, and I thought Let The Right One In was terrific), but if you mean to say slasher's in good shape, then no. Slasher is not.

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    Incidentally, I think that a major problem for horror films these days is that we have a culture obsessed with intentionality; that is, the inner psychology of people who do objectively evil things. This is good for several genres, but it is poison for horror as it was done in the 20th Century by just about anyone by Cronenburg, because they tend to rely on a villain with inhuman or unclear motivations. A)as mentioned, this has been done to death, and "stock" villains have appeared which lead to endless franchising B)Audiences want less of this because they're often interested in "believable" villains (and villains whose motivations you understand just aren't horror villains in the same way) C)If you genuinely took a controversial issue and presented it as horror, you'd be seen as being unsympathetic and superficial with the "villains", and disliked for it (Imagine a Raoul Moat Horror movie). Hence the popularity of zombies, who are mindless, and the predictably senseless killing machines which are both clichéd and lack any sort of contemporary verisimilitude.
    Essentially, horror needs a dramatic kick of originality up its arse, not critics to consider the execution of a plot alone, if you ask me.

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    There are still great horror films made every year, they're just almost exclusively foreign movies. Other than that Think has already said everything I would have said ITT.

    If you can, download the 3 part documentary series Mark Gatiss' History Of Horror. You'll probably find it interesting.
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    In fact, the first episode is on at 1.10 tonight on BBC4. So, in like an hour. Which means it will be on iplayer after that. You're Scottish so you have NO excuse.
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    guys dead snow was a good movie the nowegians/vikings made it
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    Also disrespected is a word. There's no need to hyphenate the prefix.
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    ok there is no need for us to nitpick the spelling and stuff just now :P

    yeah i did check the history of horror back when it first aired, it was really good

    i am just trying to think of something new that could be added to horror...the genre itself is so 'cult' and everybody seems to have made a horror that it just doesent seem like many idea still exist

    i wanted to make two specific movies, i wouldent be surprised if they are both already made but i havent checked yet

    1. A claymation horror movie...yes i mean it, set in england in the early 1900's following murders similar to jack the ripper

    2. a western horror, i was unsure to make it a slasher but i think it might be interesting to try and match the feel of a horror movie, but have the villains just use normal guns or objects...normal weapons like guns dont seem scary on screen anymore and it would be cool to try and make the thought of being shot on screen a scary thought once again

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    Name one horror movie where a gun was ever scary?

    Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit is the closest thing done to a claymation horror movie. Yes, it was obviously much lighter than a real horror movie but it does pay homage to many classic horror movies throughout and also uses tension and surprise in the same way actual horror films do. Either way, a claymation just-horror movie would never get made because the form really only lends itself to parody. Any claymation horror movie would have to almost be a spoof horror.

    The western is another genre that doesn't lend itself to horror. Westerns have very specific character archetypes, just like horrors do, and the two aren't easily compatible. I'm not saying it's impossible just very difficult and end result would probably end up not worth the effort.

    Oh, and this
    it just doesent seem like many idea still exist
    is the problem with movies in general, not just horror.
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    Well Mary and Max, although it was a light movie, had some genuinley unsettling moments, showing that it is indeed possible to create scary atmospheres with claymation.

    As for western, isnt it a bit unfair for people to complain that horror doesent try anything new, but then shun the idea of trying something a little more original?

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    Oh and i am not talking about making a WESTERN horror...i am meaning making a horror movie set in the old west, because its dark and gritty, if you ever watched Deadwood...none of this John Wayne charm stuff, its proper violence and grit

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    But Deadwood is a subversion of the Western genre so a horror western in thr vein of Deadwood would be a subversion of a subversion and, as has been mentioned, that's what kills off genres (see Scary Movie franchise).
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    and?...if you can pull it off properly without makingit seem like a campy, cheesy movie...which is difficult but not impossible...it could work.

    anyways being authentic is better than being original, id rather make something that i really want to make but is authentic. Than scatter my brain trying to think of an original idea and making it just because its original...just because somethign is original doesent mean its going to be good...its all about execution, the worst ideas could be great with perfect execution

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    @simonj: I don't think it's impossible to make a claymation horror movie. There was the children's claymation animation short that was incredibly unsettling, to me, which sets a precedent that something scary and disturbing can be made without necessarily being parody simply because it is claymation.

    the clip
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    That clip is an animated version of Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger and, while not quite parody, it still falls under the realm of satire. And, besides, it's only 5 minutes from a much longer kids film (although really quite out of step with the rest of the film) based on Twain's works. It's also not that disturbing if you're familiar with the source work.

    Really though, I never said it would be impossible to make a stop motion horror (or a western horror). I just pointed out that both ideas are very difficult to execute well (maybe there's a reason neither have been explored before?). If you think you can do it then, by all means, do it. I was just voicing an opinion.

    As a side note, there are some extremely creepy and scary short films which are stop motion animated. I think the real reason a feature length stop motion horror has never been explored is a) it would be difficult to sustain the tension and atmosphere required using the claymation form, and b) it's really fucking difficult and expensive and time-consuming to make any stop motion project at all.
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    Quote Originally Posted by simonj View Post
    I just pointed out that both ideas are very difficult to execute well.

    i guess Simon that hopefully we could both agree...that if you are familiar with the art of film-making in any shape or form...that ANY idea is very difficult to execute well...which is why hollywood shoots out around a 1/20 success rate of a well executed film, they have many good ideas but seem to pull them off in clumsy, forced or wimsical ways

    There Will Be Blood...the synopsis alone just sounds like a movie i would never think of watching...the story of a greedy oil driller...yet somehow i view it as a masterpiece because of its incredible execution

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    That movie should be called "There Will Be An Hour Where You'll Want To Fall Asleep"
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    i agree that There Will Be Blood had me so bored in the cinema...after watching it a second time, it rocketed from one of my most bored movies to one of my favourites of all time, the character study of Daniel Plainview is fantastic, topped with the performance from Daniel Day Lewis...the amazing soundtrack, masterful cinematography...and the first time i saw it...i was unaware of how the plot would unfold (the brother turning out to be a phoney, the growing rivalry between Eli and Plainview)...knowing with hindsight what was going on, somehow made it all so much better...i think a lot of people were heavily mis-led by the title of the movie at first...whereas its just the best drama about an oil driller i could imagine...and its a film i couldent imagine anybody being interested in seeing as i dont care about the business of oil, the church or the people who run it, the fact that i do enjoy it just shows to myself at least how well executed it actually was

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    I don't think horror in general is disrespected genre. Maybe slasher films.

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