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News & ArtsTuesday, September 8, 2009
Film Three More Thoughts on Scary Movies and Then I Am Done
Posted by Lindy West on Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 4:41 PM
- I DON'T LIKE CELLARS.
1. Death is important. It means something when people die. I do not find murder to be objectively entertaining.
2. At no point did I say we have to destroy all copies of all existing scary movies. In fact, please don't.
3. The reason I love Evil Dead is that its hilarious low-budget shittiness is so pure and sincere and weird. It's so funny because it's trying so hard, and failing so hard, to be the opposite of funny. (Also, tree rape.) Evil Dead 2 becomes aware that people loved/laughed at the shittiness of Evil Dead and hams it up, but manages to remain charming. But Army of Darkness is just ridiculous. It's trying too hard. It JUST BUGS THE SHIT OUT OF ME. The farther away the franchise gets from unintentional funniness, the more it gets mired in forced, unfunny, intentional funniness (camp, catchphrases, winkingness), which is no fun at all. I haven't spent this much time thinking about Evil Dead since high school (I used to think about it a lot). It has been fun! Goodbye.
2
Zombie movies are just about the only 'horror' subject I can take. even when they're the fast moving type, they're still bumbling idiots. what's not to love?!
3
The problem with horror movies is that they, with few notable exceptions, are incredibly boring. Eh, I kind find gore, real gore, on the internet, and no amount of silly effects are going to make up for crappy dialogue, nonsensical stories, and hamish acting.
5
I agree about Army of Darkness - too over-the-top. Though the sequence where he builds himself the chainsaw arm is a great set piece.
6
Oh, this is just too bad. Army of Darkness is great. Lindy, you have ruined my favor of you. (not that you need it, or care) - but reading this is like having a nice dinner and finding a pube in the soup.
9
Not on your list: discomfort? You're in the wrong business. Discomfort is part of what makes drama work.
I agree on your point, otherwise, though. The genre is tedious and commonly misogynist -- predictably so. That says something about the target demographic, I guess. The best "horror" film recently has got to be "Drag Me to Hell!", which is good mostly for its humor and genre-mocking, though, so maybe that doesn't count.
I agree on your point, otherwise, though. The genre is tedious and commonly misogynist -- predictably so. That says something about the target demographic, I guess. The best "horror" film recently has got to be "Drag Me to Hell!", which is good mostly for its humor and genre-mocking, though, so maybe that doesn't count.
10
The first point is the most perplexing. Does this mean that horror films usually ask us to accept murder and death as "entertainment"? Like Busby Berkeley entertainment? Usually not I would think. May I suggest that horror films ask us to see death and violence as, oh, I-don't-know, HORRYFYING! (Hence being a "horror" movie.) Wouldn't most mainstream action movies be more to blame for desensitizing us to violence as death. At least in horror each murder and each act of violence is meant to be traumatic to the viewer. (Of course there are complications to this view but overall I think it works.)
12
Shaun of the Dead was full of intentionally unintentinal funniness and it was great. Army of Darkness is great too.
Don't be so hard on them.
Don't be so hard on them.
13
There is kind of the implication that people who love horror movies love watching people get tortured, hurt, and killed. It's kind of worrisome putting it in that perspective.
14
First off, 90% of ALL MOVIES are misogynistic. Horror films, and, more specifically slashers, are a common targets for claims of misogyny because, in these films, violence against women is literalized in a way that it isn't in romantic comedies (of BOTH the Hollywood and "indie" varieties) dramas, etc. Would you rather A) get cut up by Michael Myers or B) have a film tell you that you'll be fulfilled if you can just find that one guy who embodies Tom Hanks with a bit of hipster man-childishness bordering on autism. I know that neither choice is very appealing, but the later is, in my opinion, more insulting in so far as it naturalizes what women supposedly desire -that is to fall for dorky and subtly misogynist men.
For all their violence against women, horror films are inherently and perhaps subversively cynical about capitalism, family values, normative heterosexuaity and standard gender roles. Male victims don't fair much better than female victims in these films, and while female victims DO tend to die more prolonged and torturous deaths, they also tend to be the ones who survive and fight back. Moreover the characters who abide by the most normative gender roles are the ones who generally die first. Look, the genre is formulaic but no more so than any other genre. (Is 500 Days of Summer REALLY that much different than Adam?) And those who accuse the horror of being TOO formulaic tend to be preoccupied with the scenes of sensational violence which are never the entirety of the film. If violence is all you're looking for, it's all you will find.
Again, I'm not saying that horror isn't misogynistic, but I am saying that the genre is more complicated than you're giving it credit for. We could also talk about how male and female viewers identify with killers and victims which, I'd suggest, isn't as simple as female viewers identifying with female victims and male viewers identifying with male killers. A few good books on the subject: Carol Clover's MEN WOMEN AND CHAIN SAWS and Judith (Jack) Halberstam's SKIN SHOWS.
More...
For all their violence against women, horror films are inherently and perhaps subversively cynical about capitalism, family values, normative heterosexuaity and standard gender roles. Male victims don't fair much better than female victims in these films, and while female victims DO tend to die more prolonged and torturous deaths, they also tend to be the ones who survive and fight back. Moreover the characters who abide by the most normative gender roles are the ones who generally die first. Look, the genre is formulaic but no more so than any other genre. (Is 500 Days of Summer REALLY that much different than Adam?) And those who accuse the horror of being TOO formulaic tend to be preoccupied with the scenes of sensational violence which are never the entirety of the film. If violence is all you're looking for, it's all you will find.
Again, I'm not saying that horror isn't misogynistic, but I am saying that the genre is more complicated than you're giving it credit for. We could also talk about how male and female viewers identify with killers and victims which, I'd suggest, isn't as simple as female viewers identifying with female victims and male viewers identifying with male killers. A few good books on the subject: Carol Clover's MEN WOMEN AND CHAIN SAWS and Judith (Jack) Halberstam's SKIN SHOWS.
15
I honestly can't think of a single smart person who would want to hear your stupid ramblings about the horror genre. You're a dope.
16
@15: "I honestly can't think of a single smart person..."
If you had just stopped there, you would have had a point.
If you had just stopped there, you would have had a point.
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