Why We Like Horror Movies!
There is not one single answer to "Why We like Horror Movies". Our passion for Horror stems from a combination of many things. Best-Horror-Movies.com shows the evidence of our passion by showcasing a series of articles that cover the why, the how and the "very cool" of horror movies and the genre that we love.
There is not one single answer to "Why We like Horror Movies". Our passion for Horror stems from a combination of many things. Best-Horror-Movies.com shows the evidence of our passion by showcasing a series of articles that cover the why, the how and the "very cool" of horror movies and the genre that we love.
Whether your interest lies in a academic description of why we like horror movies or in a particular element of horror that tickles the slasher bone, the BHM article bank has just what you are looking for. Or does it? If not then we NEED you!
This section of Best-Horror-Movies.com is a collection of horror-related articles, submitted and published by BHM contributors, guest writers and site visitors just like you! �Everything from the "highly heady" to the "stupid but fun" is fair game.
The year, 1959. I am five years old. Our neighbors are taking their kids (ages three and five) to see a Disney film and I am invited along. The movie is Snow White.
As the lights go down I am treated to the Evil Queen, the huntsman who is to cut Snow White's heart out, the creepy scary forest, the queen's transformation into a hag and the hag getting hit by lightning. Nice family fare. The three year old spent the majority of the film crying in the lobby. Frightened, but also getting an adrenalin rush, that was the beginning of wanting to be scared, and that escape from reality in the darkened theater.
My next adventure was seeing Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, still around the same age, left alone to watch TV. Back then, TV was considered to be 'good' for you. Here was my introduction to the Universal Movie Monsters - Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman and a non-appearance of the Invisible Man. Here begins the bad dreams and frightmares...a bonus side effect.
The early 60's had classic TV shows like Boris Karloff's Thriller, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Roald Dahl's Way Out. There were also a barrage of Sci-Fi horror TV shows hostd by Zacherly and Doctor Shock who were on in the Philadelphia area, later spoofed on SCTV's Monster Chiller Horror Theater with Count Floyd and a not scary film like Doctor Tongue's 3D House of Stewardesses.
I remember seeing the first Outer Limits episode entitled 'The Galaxy Being' that had me watching it from the safety of our kitchen. I also watched a lot of shows from the stairway, peering through the railings. There was no such thing as 'parental guidance' back then so my brothers (four and six years older than me) and I watched anything we wanted to.
Horror films became the staple, with me buying every issue of 'Famous Monsters' I could get my hands on. Model kits, 'Creepy', 'Eerie' and 'Vampirella' magazines followed. I was facinated by 'How did they do that?'
Any horror movie at the theaters were welcomed. Village of the Damned (1960) was a total freak-out. The bad films were fun too. No matter how bad, they were still entertaining.
There were the 'spook shows', the Saturday afternoon showing of several horror flicks and also 'See live on stage - Frankenstein and Dracula battle to the death!' Some shows had a magician with them as well as the obligatory glow-in-the dark skeleton that flew over your head scaring the chicken soup out of the younger set. Glow in the dark ghosts flew around the stage, and then there was part of the show where all the lights were turned out and everybody screamed their heads off. The last show like that I saw showed Tales of Terror (1962), The Bees and the highly laughable The Vulture (1967).
I was fifteen when Boris Karloff died and a local drive-in honored him with showing five of his his films. A station wagon full of kids and we saw Die, Monster, Die (1965), The Raven (1963), The Terror (1963), The Comedy of Terrors (1963) and Black Sabbath (1963).
As a teenager, triple bills at the drive-in's rocked. When Night of the Living Dead came out we saw it at the drive-in in the sweltering summer night heat in Pennsylvania. The film was set in Pennsylvania and it wasn't long before we had the windows rolled up and the doors locked, making it even hotter. What fun.
The Exorcist was a blast with lines of people wrapped around the block waiting to get in, the Catholic clergy protesting the film outside with picket signs and a medical team on hand to administer oxygen for those patrons who managed to pass out.
A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Dawn of the Dead were the ultimate horrorshows. I saw Dawn of the Dead twice in a row when it first came out. It was funny seeing people leaving the theater after the zombie getting his head blown off near the beginning. I saw the same reaction to The Fly (1958).
I went to most of the Friday matinees when the new movies came out and I had noticed an elderly man at the shows I'd go to. It took a while, but it sunk in that I would become like him in the future. Now that the future is here, 50 years later, I am him.
When I was in college, for my final English paper, I wrote an essay on the topic, 'Splatter Movies Are Good For You', focusing on the roller coaster adrenalin rush the films give. I got an 'A' on the paper and also a note written on the final page to the tune of 'I suggest you seek psychiatric counseling for the type of entertainment you partake in.'
A Study On Fear And Pleasure In The Horror Film
When I was five years old my brother and I sat down and watched Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), and when the film faded to black and the credits began to roll my brother and I finally regained pigment in our skin.
I have always thought the world of my brother and watching a ‘scary movie‘ with him was a big deal, so when we were watching Michael slice and dice Haddenfield to get to his niece I was unable to turn away - for fear of being caught. I probably could have closed my eyes and he would have never known, but I was amazed at some of the images I was seeing. I may have been scared before watching Halloween 4 but that film gave fear its name, I knew that I was petrified simply because I had watched a movie. I made the connection between the film and the emotion; a rather simple statement now, but when you’re five, fear tends to be correlated with something indefinable, or for no reason at all. Of course, like most kids growing up in the 80's I was told the first day I sat in front of ‘the babysitter’ that everything I saw was make-believe so I wasn’t under any disillusion when I saw Michael Meyers. But even though I knew it was fake, it still evoked an emotional experience that I have been addicted to ever since.
I might be able to pinpoint the moment in which I realized film holds a certain power over its viewers, but now I want to find out why I get pleasure from the horror genre. Is there something innate inside us that finds gratification through dread? Is it curiosity of the forbidden? Is it the ability to live through our greatest of fears, such as death? What is it that excites us when we see a decapitation, or one human eating another? These are questions that have been stirring inside me for years. So I began doing research, collecting different documentaries, books, and articles to find some satisfying answer to these queries.
Re-makes vs. Re-imaginings
There is a distinct difference between a re-make and a re-imagining of a classic horror movie. A re-make amends the characters and/or story while still using nearly the same plotline as the original film. A re-imagining uses the success of the original film and the established title to enlist intrigue yet does not use very much or any of the plotline of the original film. I have realized just recently that while I can usually tolerate re-makes of classic horror films, I absolutely despise re-imagings and here is why:
The term re-invent will be used in this article to describe the general re-make/re-imagining agenda.
Two of my favorite re-makes are Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The Night of the Living Dead re-make amended the character of Barbara to take charge of the situation and gave her more of a will to live, the lack of which in the original lead to her death. This made her a stronger, more appealing character. The film also contrasted the characters of Ben and Mr. Cooper to share the blame for their blunders, which rested solely on Mr. Cooper in the original. This made the situation more realistic. The film also amended the climax of the original film by replacing Ben's disparaging attempts to stop the hoard of zombies from encroaching into the house once Barbara had been taken, with a gun fight between Ben and Mr. Cooper. And while the official ending wasn't as haunting as the original in which, Ben, having survived the night of terror is gunned down as he is about to finally escape from the farmhouse, it still offered it's own reward at the stinging murder of the greatly hated Mr. Cooper.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre re-make amended the character of Leatherface to show more of his scared and misunderstood nature that was only hinted at in the original. The film also amended Erin's namesake for Sally from the original character by making her more of a resourceful and level-headed person. The plot was also amended to give a better reason as to why the teens are killed off, because while in the original they unsuspectingly visit a place near the Leatherface house and are slaughtered, in the remake the suicide of the hitchhiker leads them to wait for the county police force, which they don't know is just the Sheriff from the HeWitt family. Also, the lack of the dinner scene, which admittedly was a let down in the re-make was made up for by the new ending in which Erin is able to rescue a baby the family has captured and kill the greatly hated Sheriff Hoyt.
I admit, these films aren't perfect but they brought to light new characterization and plot points that don't detract from the film itself and don't make a mockery of the original's plot which I believe should be the idea of all re-invents.
Two of my least favorite re-imaginings are Halloween and Friday the 13th.
John Carpenter's Halloween was the highest grossing independent film of it's time and its title is taken in reverence to its many contributions to the horror genre. In the remake, Rob Zombie is fully aware of this and banks on the popularity of the franchise he overhauled and made almost a completely different story. The beauty of the original was the audience's lack of understanding of Michael's motives. Zombie instead makes Michael a misunderstood kid with sluts as a mother and sister and a redneck bad-mouth father figure. And he’s always being teased by elementary school bullies. He then goes on for the first hour of the film counting all the ways why Michael is the anti-hero and why everyone should feel sorry for him. This attitude, whether unintentionally done or not makes the audience realize that any attempt at sympathy for the actual hero of the movie, i.e. Laurie, is moot. This greatly contradicts the original vision where the audience cheered for Laurie. The film goes further downhill when Zombie finally gets to the part in which Laurie and her friends are stalked and killed. In this part of the film all characterization of Laurie and her friends is completely cut out as is every ounce of suspense. This again contradicts the original film which capitalized on both those aspects. The official ending recounts an alternate set of events to the original film in which Laurie hides within the Myers’ house as Michael stalks her. Loomis is killed by Michael and Laurie shoots Michael point blank in the head after being knocked over a balcony in the Myers’ house by Michael himself in his first long distance run – go team!
The original Friday the 13th franchise is one of the highest grossing in the horror industry and the title has released one of the longest sets of films in the horror genre. With this in mind Markus Nispel, obviously misreading his success for the re-make of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for his re-imagining of the ending decided to overhaul the entire concept of the original Friday the 13th film and present a completely new story. The original film’s plot, while a simple one, was intriguing for its use of the slasher cliché as well as the mystery of who the killer is. It's shocking twist ending in which it was revealed that a mother whose child has drowned while at the camp was killing the counselors, trying to prevent the re-opening of the camp, made the movie all it has been cracked up to be. The new plot is nothing more than a couple of kids getting slaughtered because they came to a place being guarded by hermit Jason Voorhees. In the first two minutes of the film, we watch from the sidelines as the ending of the original film is recounted in flashback format (Jason sees his mother being beheaded). There are several nods aimed toward Friday the 13th fans but the way they are worked in doesn’t work for the film itself and the ‘he’s back to stay’ ending was too cliché to even watch.
One reason why I think re-imaginings fail is because they aren't good movies to begin with, so counting on the success of the name doesn’t make up for lacking in writing and direction. Another reason is that writers are too lazy, uncreative and scared to release these re-invents that only resemble their namesakes in title and icon, on their own merit.
Guess what? The re-invents that everyone always defends, the re-invents that everyone always says the best things about, are the re-imaginings of Halloween and Friday the 13th. I just want to know why. When I critically can find everything wrong with the re-imaginings, how is that everyone else defends and enjoys them but yells and screams and completely puts down the re-makes of The Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, films that follow a similar storyline like their namesakes, improve upon certain character and story points, and overall live up their namesakes?