If you're looking for any really deep thoughts, then you've come to the wrong place. However, if you're looking for simple opinions on ordinary, mundane things, then you've come to the right place.
Are you tired of seeing blood and guts flying all over the place? Of men and women being torn to pieces by huge monsters with a taste for human flesh and blood? Of people fleeing through dark tunnels and labyrinthine mazes while things intent on their death or destruction pursue them? Of helpless people turning and making a last stand and firing guns at point-blank range to no avail?
Well, I am. I'm tired of hearing about horror movies with that sort of story. If you think about it, these are also the stuff of science fiction movies like Alien or even Jurassic Park. I'm also tired of seeing movies labeled as horror but that involve killers chasing down and thoroughly mutilating their victims with claws, or axes, or chainsaws, or any number of similar tools. In my book that isn't horror, no matter how many nightmares it might cause. That's a slasher flick, and that definitely isn't horror. Sure, the killer might be some guy who can cut off his own leg and still go around killing people, not knowing when to die, but that's not horror. Nor is racking up a huge body count with blood and guts flying in every direction. If I wanted that I'd watch an action-adventure or sci-fi flick like Commando or Predator. When I say "horror", I want horror!
Okay, so what is "horror"?
In my book, horror is something so terrifying that I'll have bad dreams--not necessarily nightmares--for weeks to come. Sure, watching someone almost casually taking a chain saw to someone else's body is certain to cause me many uncomfortable nights, but there's a difference to the sensations involved. For example, watching a slasher flick is unsettling enough to make me dream about someone with an axe stalking me in the darkness. A good horror movie, however, will give me nightmares about someone standing over me while I sleep, not doing anything but more menacing than I ever imagined possible just by being there.
Still don't get what I mean? Well, let's try it this way.
What makes a horror movie a horror movie? I'll tell you what doesn't. You don't need to have a terribly high body count. You can get that in practically any action-adventure or sci-fi flick. Like I said earlier, Predator. You also don't need your characters immersed in a blood-bath with people dying left and right. You can get that in an action-adventure or sci-fi flick too, such as Event Horizon or, again, Predator or Predator 2. You don't need to have some psychotic individual with an axe to grind against some specific group of people as you do in the Friday the 13th movies.
What you could do, however, is introduce a believable plot that focuses on one particular aspect of humanity that doesn't require gouts and gouts of blood spattered across the walls to convey. Sure, "life" is something humans value, but there's certainly another way to emphasize this without tossing up dead bodies left and right. Oh, and simply focusing on a specific fear like Arachnophobia doesn't cut it. If you ask me, as terrifying as some of the scenes in that movie were, it was more an action-adventure flick than horror. No, there has to be something a little deeper than just worst fears of survival.
I guess what I want in a good horror movie is something where the human soul is at stake. That's why vampires hold such a terrific interest for me, I guess. Sure, they're endangering lives left and right, but there's something more at stake than just life itself. If you think about it, a good vampire flick is one where new vampires aren't simply made by someone being sucked dry. The best of these involves the vampire-to-be actually struggling to survive and being given the choice of dying a true death or surrendering to the vampire utterly and sacrificing his or her soul. Either that or succumbing to the vampire's fangs but struggling against the actual transformation. In this sense Lost Boys qualifies as a horror movie, and I usually consider it as such. Sure, there's a body count to contend with and blood spurting when Kiefer Sutherland and his boys go on the attack, but Jason Patric's struggle against becoming like them makes it a worthwhile horror movie.
You aren't necessarily confined to vampires to have a good horror movie. A good haunting will usually suffice, but be warned: just having a ghost or resurrected dead guy in the movie doesn't make it horror. If that were the case, the Ghost and Beetlejuice would count as horror, and in my book the one is a drama and the other a comedy. Poltergeist makes a decent horror movie, though it's been a while since I saw it. I suppose Pet Cemetery would be also, though I have reservations on that particular movie. Under Wraps and the three Casper movies are definitely not horror movies!
Having some sort of giant monster with a taste for human flesh or an animal on the rampage won't necessarily make it a horror movie either, though there are exceptions. I don't know who decided that Orca was a horror movie, but they should get their heads examined. I don't know what it is, but it isn't horror. The Relic, on the other hand, is horror because, despite the especial scientific aspect of it, the movie itself focuses on a purportedly prehistoric myth--namely the "Mbwun" and "Kothoga" story--and what effect it can have in the present. There's a body count and blood exploding all over, but the destruction of the human by becoming the Museum Beast makes it horror and not simply slasher or monster flick. Anaconda doesn't cut it, despite the giant snake who's stalking the humans, and neither does Peter Benchley's Creature. I haven't seen Cujo so I can't be sure, but I doubt it.
Witches and witchcraft usually make good subjects for horror movies, but of late there have been more positive, comic turns to it. That's good for the wicca but a disappointment to the horror movie fans. Hocus Pocus, as much as I enjoyed it, qualifies as a comedy with me, and certainly Sabrina, the Teenage Witch is more sitcom than horror. The Craft, however, would definitely be a horror movie.
I guess, however, that when I watch horror, I want vampires in it. I don't know why, except I have this thing for vampires. That's why Dracula is my favorite "classic" novel of all and Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla one of my favorite short stories of all (and I don't like many). There's the threat to life and the blood involved, but the danger to the soul is so present that I can't help enjoying all the vampire movies I can see. However, I should say that Buffy, the Vampire Slayer (the movie, not the series) and Bram Stoker's Dracula (the Francis Ford Coppola version) were big disappointments to me. Buffy was handled much too poorly to be wholly captivating, and in Dracula Mina didn't fight for her soul as desperately as she did in the book...she practically gave herself to him, in fact.
Since we're on the subject of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, I just have to say that the WB series is one of my favorites to watch. I enjoy watching Buffy and her friends struggling against the forces of darkness while battling the ever present dangers of teen angst and poor grades. The comedy inherent in the series is actually a good thing because it intensifies the threat to lives and souls. It didn't in the movie, which is probably why it was so poorly received in its first incarnation.
Okay, I guess I'm not as interested in being scared and terrified as I am in being captivated and interested. And I guess I'm arguing for better vampire movies rather than horror. But shall I tell you what my ideal vampire movie would be about? I'll tell you anyway. Male or female vampires alike prey upon innocent human beings without reference to gender. A male vampire might take blood from male mortals and a female vampire from female mortals with nothing like Anne Rice's innuendoes interfering in it. There might be a drive to kill the vampire, but there will also be those victims who must be torn between returning to a normal existence or protecting the vampire and, furthermore, willing serving him or her. Rather than have the male vampires looking all grotesque and ugly the way they do in the Subspecies movies or the female vampires as voluptuous and beautiful as in Bram Stoker's Dracula, they can be the reverse or simply ordinary. Movie makers would do well to look at the Forever Knight series for how vampires don't need to look so different from everyone else.
I haven't seen a good horror movie in a long time, at least not one that isn't based on something written and published. The Relic comes from The Relic the book. Bram Stoker's Dracula, despite its drawbacks as a horror movie, was nevertheless based upon the novel. Even House of Frankenstein 1997, a good horror movie no matter what anyone says, based itself loosely around novels. Hey, out there in movieland! Someday make a decent horror movie! Please?
I don't know if this has prompted any deep or interesting thoughts in you, but if you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to send me an e-mail. I'm generally up for any debate and maybe--just maybe--we can start some sort of regular exchange of thoughts.
Comments? Suggestions? E-mail me with your words of wisdom. I'm up for a hearty e-mail debate if you are!
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