Horror Is Dead
Its body propped up and dancing so no one will notice
A couple weeks ago after coming home from Sam Raimi’s latest gore-fest Drag Me to Hell, I was all excited and filled with ideas. I whipped out my notebook, jotted down my two-cents and even started a blog post that I’d finish later. It was going to be half-movie review/half-commentary on the greater course of the horror industry. I didn’t have every detail ironed out, but the first part would outline just how much fun Drag Me to Hell is, how it’s got it all: laughs, jumps, gross outs–how it’s the epitome of a good “summer popcorn flick.” Then the other part would go all topsy turvy, likening it to some kind of sad parade or funeral march, a bittersweet goodbye party for horror films the way we used to know them, filled with mood, and seriousness, and actual, you know…horror.
It was all going to be very clever. Because let’s just put all of our cards on the table: Sure, Drag Me to Hell may be bloody and about bad things like hell and curses and demons–and I loved it for all of those reasons–but one thing it’s not, really, seriously, is horrifying. And this is a distinction that more and more seems to be going the way of just about every horror film made in the last, what, 10, 20 years? Which is to say the ones that are now in the “middle” at Blockbuster, not the New Releases, not the Classics, but the ones no one could care less about anymore.
Somewhere down the line, the colors that paint separate genres were mixed. The stark, moonlit black of classic horror faded to a much lighter grey of “slasher,” a guy with a weapon, killing mischievous teens, them running and screaming, always smoking and having sex beforehand (in a way, we always know they kind of have it coming). The horror turns to “slasher,” the slasher to “thriller.” And just like that, there’s a formula in place, a color-by-numbers way to make people jump and plead with the characters on screen not to look in that last closet because if they do… oh God…a cat will jump out of it.
Movies like these–your Final Destinations and I Know What You Did Last Summers and really almost any other franchise horror–aren’t nightmares that we can enter into then shrink down from in our seats. They’re spectacles, hours of release, vehicles to make us laugh and jump and then laugh again. Part comedy, they always seem to be “evened out” with jokes and light-heartedness, as if no one’s willing to make the balls-to-the-wall horror anymore, relentless ones like The Exorcist or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Put all of their chips on the table and say, “I don’t want to give you relief from this. No jokes. No down time. This is my version of hell. And there’s no comic relief in hell.”
What ever happened to that feeling of genuine skin-crawling dread when I was little and had to cover my ears and close my eyes when I’d walk past the TV where my brother was watching The Shining, where Jack Nicholson was slowly losing it, lured into the forbidden room 237 to find a beautiful women bathing, one who gets up and kisses him only to turn into a rotting corpse in his arms, complete with peeling skin and green teeth?
What ever happened to horror films that are committed, and dark, and take seriously the fact that their characters are either going insane or about to die, and they’re scared, and after this, even if they do survive, their lives will never be the same again?
I’m two-sided on Drag Me to Hell and the kind of “scary” movies Sam Raimi makes. Even though I enjoyed his newest like crazy, I was never able to shake the idea that just by paying my money and enjoying the ride as much as I did, that I was somehow helping to welcome in this sensational approach to the genre that I have such an on-principle beef with, topped off with its admittedly silly scare tactics and same ol’, same ol’ plotlines. What Raimi does so right, though–and this isn’t the first time–is never hiding the fact that his movie isn’t about breaking new ground or toying with structures. It’s about having fun, plain and simple, popping eyeballs that break out from your dessert at your future-in-laws’ dinner table. He has no qualms about all that.
But sometimes I want more than fun. I want to be disturbed and shocked. I want to hear something and never see it, feel tension not through violin squeaks and crashes but by really getting to know characters and their world, then being shattered and surprised right along with them. I want to see more unnerving and unusual images, which nowadays seem to come most often in films that aren’t even marketed as “horror”–things like Frank the Bunny in Donnie Darko, or the the creepily over-happy old people in Mulholland Drive.
Yeah, I enjoy the over-the-top “funny” horror just as much as the next guy, the The Evil Dead IIs and Black Sheeps and Leprechauns. But these movies are safe now. Filmmakers know what to do to craft them: Take convention, spin it, make it ridiculous, and keep a straight face. Make sheep your murderer; kill someone with a pogo stick or Power Wheels; shoot blood from a fire hose instead of oozing or spraying it.
But real horror is instinctual and irrational, everything inside ourselves that we don’t understand. Either something’s scary, or it’s not. It’s that simple. It can be anything. A dark version of Hansel and Gretel could be scary. Alice in Wonderland could be scary. There’s no formula. And that’s why I think we see so many remakes and half-comedy horrors like Jason X or Freddy vs. Jason, or Alien vs. Predator, or almost any of the pre-Zombie Halloween sequels. Even with “Director of Spiderman” Sam Raimi’s name attached, Drag Me to Hell paled in box office sales compared to releases like The Hangover, Up or–oh God, forget about it–Transformers.
The blood genre just isn’t celebrated anymore like it used be. So in a way you can’t blame these companies for not taking chances on new ideas or these directors for not carefully crafting their atmospheres or thinking up weird and subtle ways to unnerve you. In the end it just pays to make another tongue-in-cheek 3-D slasher like My Bloody Valentine, or to fuse pieces of The Omen and The Bad Seed and bill it as the menacing one-word-title Orphan (7/14).
It still does happen, occasionally. Last year’s Let the Right One In ignored nearly all vampire lore and convention and made the genre relevant again; The Blair Witch Project and Open Water both took back-to-basics approaches that proved that no amount of red corn starch or special effects can make something frightening, only atmosphere can; even something more on the action side, like 28 Days Later, never winked at the camera or undermined its characters’ plight with comedic downtime. But those are few and far between.
Really, I think I’ll always love horror movies. There’s just something about them, and maybe part of it does have to do with the diamond-in-a-hay-stack factor of it. You have to wade through so much trash to find a good one. But when you finally do, it sticks with you–and then you can pass it on. Loving horror movies means being part of an almost arcane community. Find another fan and you’ll be arguing and making suggestions back and forth for hours. It’s got its charm.
But I just miss the days of the serious and inventive ones. In the ’70s and ’80s the genre really blew up, that’s where their boundaries were tested and it seemed that directors weren’t afraid of taking the chances they are now. But it’s also where they got their cancer, took to their bed and decided to relax–all in the span of, what, 10 years? The Exorcist, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, people liked these so much that studios just kept on pumping out sequels and tie-ins and play-offs rather than following the natural progression of thought and giving filmmakers space to be creative again.
Atmosphere, mystery and helplessness, those are the things of quality horror. You’ve got to figure, at the end of the day, horror is really built on two concepts: the unknown–not knowing what’s out there, not understanding–and, having the impossible to understand staring you right in the face, a huge tank of a man dressed in a woman’s wig and apron, lipstick over his flesh mask, serving dinner to his family and whimpering. With those boundaries you can do just about anything.
Just look at An American Werewolf in London. That’s a movie with humor all over it. But to me, it’s perfect. How do you make a monster, a creature without the luxury of appearing human like zombies, vampires or serial killers do, believable, even relatable? Well, if you’re John Landis you build a world where anything’s possible around it, where characters can talk to their dead best friend who gets more and more decayed every time he sees him, where you joke and are charming–but when the transformation comes, you don’t let up, and you use that rapport against us. Before you know it, your werewolf is more human and tragic than any of the dim-witted, heartless heroes of today’s slashers and “thrill-rides.”
After getting back from the theater and Drag Me to Hell, my blog post ended up on the back burner somehow. One thing lead to another and before I knew it, two weeks had past. So why even bother anymore, right?
Well, today I was compelled to pick it back up after I read on /Film that the Weinstein Co. just bought the rights to remake An American Werewolf in London. This is on top of already buying the rights to remake Hellraiser, and having their upcoming Rob Zombie sequel-to-the-remake H2: Hallowen 2 on the way (H2trailer).
Oh yeah, and a remake of Dario Argento’s Suspiria is planned to release next year written by indie poet turned Team Apatow player David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls, Pineapple Express). And Cloverfield director Matt Reeves will be Americanizing Let the Right One In around the same time, renaming it Let Me In.
Oh, and a Michael Bay-produced remake of Rosemary’s Baby was even in talks, too, but seems to have gotten squashed at the end of ‘08. (shucks…)
My take: No more mixed-genre horrors, no more tongue-in-cheek ones, no more remakes. For what it is, Drag Me to Hell is great–and Raimi’s already proven himself, so fine. But I almost literally can’t imagine a movie nowadays playing with colors or using such a direct and unusual soundtrack like Suspiria did. I can’t imagine one having the restraint and professional cinematography of something like 1961’s The Innocents. I want to believe that any one of these days horror is going to make it’s glorious resurgence, that it’s still got a second wind left in it and so many more surprises up its sleeve. But the way it looks from here, from the so few gems we get every couple of years, I really doubt it. And that sucks.
Because I just want to be scared again.
Check this out: The Woman in Black. It’s a 1989 mood-heavy British TV movie. Pretty hard to find, but if you can get your hands on it, I’m sure it’ll surprise you.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 2:40 pm and is filed under essay/social crit, film, whatever else. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
