have a dandy candy eve.
had a few conversations with friends about horror movies lately. new versus old, remakes versus originals, and the unfortunate trend of new ‘found footage’ ghost stories these days. don’t get me wrong, i like the slow boil. give me a great setup, and i’ll sit through it IF i know there’s gonna be a payoff, but when’s the last time you saw that?
seems like our suspension of disbelief has shifted, where these days we’re super skeptical of a creature that emerged from a swamp, but 40 minutes of slow camera pans with an occasional book falling off the shelf is unbelievably terrifying, and taken at face value. Godzilla was the product of unchecked radioactivity, but would seem cheesy today. however, the hulk gets a trilogy and joins up with captain star shield and a death metal guy with a hammer. no one blinked. where’s the line? and where are our terrifying monsters?
i actually don’t mind a little explanation, but, we tend to need alot of it. ghosts have motivations, we just assume that. why are there zombies? f**k you, that’s why. even vampires. they’ve always been there, you just didn’t see them. it’s all part of a shared horror culture. but a monster, with animal intelligence? no backstory, no interest. and that’s kinda sad.
where is this all coming from? well slow your roll, player… we’re getting there. it is Halloween after all. and i wanted to come up with a horror movie i could recommend, but most of the things i’ve seen lately, and liked, have all been more ‘torture’ movies. where you might have a psycho, who might act like a monster, but not really BE one. i think it’s easier to make that kind of movie. there’s the assumption of a backstory, even if we don’t get to see it. also, no creature design. set the guy up with a mask and a machete and you’re off to the races. maybe a ratty sweater and a fedora, if you’re feeling fancy.
i think it’s also worth noting, that most people would find it more horrifying to see a person inflict damage on another person than some animal doing it. we might actually wonder if the animal has some weird instinct to protect itself from the encroaching human population. and at that point, we’re just making some backhanded remark about the environment like they did with ‘Host’, or even how some zombie movies imply the ‘virus’ was man made. ‘they may be monsters, but remember, this is your fault too… you wanted cheaper lip gloss, now we have the undead. good job.’
but none of that applies here with ‘Feast’ (2005)
ok, i love this movie, and it’s for the very reason that it’s so mindless. it’s actually one of 3, and they take place within very short time.
and this kinda strikes upon what i was talking about earlier. they are monsters, they act like monsters, there’s no illusions that they might be good, or even not just terrible ‘things’. there’s no real backstory, it’s over the top, and just violent and senseless the whole way through.
i highly recommend watching them, all in a row, with very silly people. maybe even for candy night.
I’ll definitely try to catch that one! In the meantime, I’d love to see what you think of Netflix’s Black Mirror. It is a collection of short movies, but the subject matter is so dark and real it is actually painful to watch sometimes, with the added bonus of showing where technology may take us one day soon.
dang, you beat me to it. i was gonna mention black mirror this time around, but i though that, ya know, halloween and all….
yeah i’ve loved that series from the get go. watch the old episodes if you get a chance. i’m not sure if they’re on netflix, but there’s not really any bad ones. i love the fresh take on science fiction, and that each one has a great set up of its own.
charlie brooker, the main guy behind it did a great series called ‘how television ruined your life’. check it out. it’s a documentary style series on how we all got brought up in this tv age, and how it effected us and the world. very smart program.