No offence intended, but the stereotypical “Masked Maniac kills dozens of promiscuous teenagers who try to run away from him and fail, even though he moves slower than a glacier” is not really scary. Entertaining, maybe…but not not frightening.
I Haven’t seen Poltergeist but I hope it’s better than director Tobie Hooper’s other horror “classic”, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That movie wasn’t scary, it was brainless and stupid.
I know what you mean. I like horror movies and have been watching them all my life, but don’t like splatter films or gore for gore’s sake.
I like (and find most frightening) films that use suggestion to make your mind’s eye fill the the details on what’s in the other room or outside. THE HAUNTING, THE CHANGELING (excellent ghost story with George C. Scott), THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT all do that admirably. What your mind can create on the other side of the tent or wall is better than anything CGI can.
I also like movies that give you that creepy feeling that something from the other side is breaking through in to ours, and how creepy that would be. The scene in THE INNOCENTS where Deborah Kerr looks at a field and sees a woman, presumably the ghost of the former governess, standing in broad daylight and staring at her. Kerr looks away and looks back, and she is still there. There’s enough ambiguity as to whether the events are happening or whether Kerr is having a mental breakdown that it adds another level of creepiness - how much can we really rely on our senses?
Also, I like movies that counterbalance the evil they show us with some kind of counterbalancing good, because that’s realistic, even in fantasy. I like THE HORROR OF DRACULA because Dracula’s evil is opposed by the heroism and bravery of the small band that opposes him, and they are representatives of a larger Good whose symbols they use. (Plus, Christopher Lee is just great to watch in everything!) THE EXORCIST is frightening and contains severely disturbing images, but is still a moral film that shows the power of good. The really involving parts of the film for me includes the sense that the little girl and her mother are a battleground for a much larger and ancient war between humanity and the Adversary, which is why the opening scenes in Iraq resonate so well. Jason Miller’s performance was also excellent, and the battle within his soul between the loss of his faith and his increasing belief that there is another world that he has paid lip service to but not really believed, and which is crashing in to our world, was really well done.
I have a pretty broad definition for a horror film - I can’t always define it, bit I knows it when I sees it - and can include things like dystopian science fiction - 1984 (the version with John Hurt, that was actually made in 1984) seems as horrible a vision of the future as can be imagined, but films like THE LAST CHILD (a 1970s TV movie set in a near future where America has population control policies like China, and demands that a young couple abort their baby because she already had one child who died young) or CHILDREN OF MEN or Z.P.G. are horror films of their own kind.
Some movies I consider horror films because of their dark atmosphere, like IRONWEED with Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep qualifies for me, as it follows a homeless man and woman one Halloween night in Albany during the 1930s, as he is haunted by the ghosts (which may or may not exist) of the people he’s wronged.
Horror is where you find it, I guess.
The thought that the tomatoes in our garden could turn against me was haunting enough for a young child.
Check it out on IMDB: