When hell is full, the dead will walk the earth.......
Prompted by the post on the Shining advert, I thought the Massive may wish to jot a line about this most underrated of movie oeuvres, the (good) Horror Film. Now I agree that this has become, these days, somewhat of an oxymoron, ever since it was decreed that horrors were either opportunities for teenage girls to display their bosoms ahead of being eviscerated, or opportunities for the director to display how ironic and comedic he can be with the past catalogue of this genre.
My shortlist of favourites:
Night of the Demon, an old black and white british effort, passing the runes to avoid (an agreeably laughable by modern standards version of) the devil. Still succeeds to raise a frisson.
The Shining, frequently deplored thru' Jack Nicholsons, um, excitable portrayal, but a very scary film, if you avoid the more obvious scary bits, in favour of imagining the reality of seeing the twin girls in the corridor. Or the chilling observations of the ghostly bartender.
Ghost Story, again often passed over, this tale of old men haunted by their collective past, and featuring some very old and very previously famous faces, always chills me.
28 Days later, right up to speed, this is a cracker. OK, as memorably pointed out by "Roasted" in the Observer colour supplement, please remember that this is not, repeat not, a zombie film. Zombies can't run. They are infected. Got that! (28 weeks later is crap, BTW)
Night of the living../Dawn of the.../Day of the Dead, the original George A Romero trilogy. My 3 favourite films ever, as my kids will testify, having been made to watch them from a (far too) young age. Parables of society, and the humans, or the most of them, are the bad guys. The remake of Night was not so good, but the remake of Dawn was surprisingly strong, even if forgetting "Roasted"s cardinal rule. It is sad that Land of the Dead was so dire; I had had high hopes. I am awaiting the new one,Diary of the Dead, now on DVD, following an cinema release so brief that even the dead could not have risen during its screening window, with some hope. (Maybe some have seen it already?)
As the man says, "They're coming to get you, Barbara"... Come and get me with your favourite recommendations.
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I agree with all of that....
...although I haven't seen Night of the Demon and Ghost Story.
I've only recently seen the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre which is an outstanding film and highly recommended. The Romero trilogy are also big favourites, particularly Dawn of the Dead.
'Race With The Devil' from the mid-seventies.
American movie with Peter Fonda and Warren Oates.
They get sprung witnessing a sacrifice while on vacation with their wives in their massive state of the art mobile home thingy.
Very creepy and truly scary.
Night Of The Eagle
Early 60s black and white with Peter Wyngarde. Saw it one sunny Friday afternoon on tv when I was younger. Made the day a whole lot colder.
Ringu
The original japanese version. Saw it alone in the house with all the lights off - the crawling out of the telly scene scared the living crap out of me. When mrs madrid returned home at 2am I was wide awake with all the lights on. The piss was taken.
In my opinion...
...George Romero’s Day of the Dead is a really poor film – embarrassingly so - where-as Land of the Dead is pretty good. A lot of the criticism leveled at ‘Land’ (poor dialogue, bad acting, ham-fisted social commentary) could be could be made of any of his previous zombie flicks.
Diary of the Dead was released on DVD a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t seen it.
The 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake has also been the target of snobbery – heaven help you if you happen to enjoy it more than the original. I find it well-scripted, well-acted and well-paced. The director’s cut is spectacularly gory and it has a great, ambiguous mid-credits ending. Good extras on my DVD too – a rolling news bulletin documenting the rise of the undead and a video diary by Andy (who spends most of the actual film marooned on the roof of a gun store) and who turns out to be a bit unhinged.
Audition
Another Japanese one - begins like a rom-com, a widowed producer holds auditions for a film role that doesn't exist - he's actually looking for a potential partner. The girl he chooses is a little...odd.
Shane Meadows
Dead Mans Shoes....very clever, great soundtrack and very plausible.."God will forgive them. He'll forgive them and allow them into Heaven. I can't live with that."
Hellraiser
The special effects are pretty ropey but it's an excellent film and anything with Scorpio from Dirty Harry in it always worth seeing.
I can second the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it's notorious mostly due to the lurid title. It has the same logic as a nightmare. That is, it has no logic, the plot is "I am being crazily chased by crazy people doing crazy things." It's just like a nightmare except you can't wake up and end it. It's a truly great film regardless of genre.
The best horror film I've ever seen though is unquestionably Psycho. It's a great pity that it's effect on audiences has been destroyed due to its own success.
I was lucky enough to watch it without knowing anything about it. For the first forty minutes it was about a woman who stole some money. Then the rug was pulled from under me, due to the shower scene. If you don't know that scene is coming it is devastating. All you think in its aftermath is "What the hell is going on?"
It also has one of cinema's best climaxes (mother's unveiling) and worst endings (Anthony Perkins in a straightjacket for ten minutes)
The original Halloween is another great film that has dulled with time due to it's own success, it simply spawned too many imitators. If you know anything about horror films, and you haven't already, you have to watch "Scream."
Oh I forgot "Trilogy of Terror" starring Karen Black, an omnibus type film, The third section is so good no-one can remember the first two sections. If you want your children to have nightmares show them this. I know it scared the bejeebers out of me when I was in my early teens.
Then there's "Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer", again bad reputation due to the lurid title. It's skin crawling stuff but well worth seeing.
"Silence of the Lambs" is the Citizen Kane of horror movies, at least it would be if Citizen Kane had won more Oscars. Odd movie in that it is at once badly written and extremely well written at the same time.
SofL is probably more a thriller than a horror movie. A little known but brilliant thriller (with horror elements) is a Canadian film from the 70's called "The Silent Partner" which stars Elliot Gould, Christopher Plummer, Susannah York and a very young (but still chubby) John Candy. The Sound of Music will never be the same after you see that.
The Silent Partner
I found an ancient VHS copy of this taped off BBC1 from about late 80s. Interesting movie. I don't see how you can describe it as having horror elements. A straight thriller through and through (a bank clerk realises that the bank is being cased, decides to rob the bank himself and using the future robbery as a cover-up, succeeds but the would-be robber comes back and demands the money from Elliot Gould, problem is Elliot has stashed the money in a safe deposit box in his own bank but has lost the key).
Silent Partner
I suspect you may have seen an edited version. Even if you didn't here's the scene I was thinking of...
During a struggle Christopher Plummer rams a womans head through the wall of a fish tank and then saws her head off on the jagged edge and leaves the head there for Elliott Gould to find.
The woman was Elliott's girl friend and the fish tank was his pride and joy. You don't find that horrific?
More thriller than horror
I'll have to confess not remembering that part (I saw it about two years ago). Now that you mention it I vaguely remember them fighting in Gould's apartment and her being killed. I doubt it was filmed with lots of gore.
I think it's more to do with the tone of the film. Plummer isn't really a psychopath, just a very bad man who robs banks and will kill people if he has to. I think it was made as a thriller and that's how I perceive it. The story supports horror, but I think they filmed it as a straight thriller.
It was screened back in the days of TV censorship so it's possible that it was edited for violence, although it was a late night broadcast (the channel closed down after the credits) so maybe it wasn't edited. I would be mildly surprised if it was a 18 certificate film.
Don't take my word for it, here's Hal Erickson...
I copied an excerpt from the All Movie Guide, just the pertinent bit.
"but Cullen has lost the deposit-box key. Be forewarned: this one gets extremely brutal and bloody at times, with sudden bursts of graphic violence."
This is where I got it from...
https://www.secondspin.com/movies/product-detail.jsp?id=2672484
He's not kidding it is graphic, far more gruesome than most full on horror films, for example The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The logic to my original post was merely as an extension to Silence of the Lambs which is a very famous thriller with horror elements. As I wrote a less famous example with a similar title popped into my head...
I think I'll have to dig out the video
I put it aside for future watching, but I wouldn't be suprised if I couldn't find it now.
I think of Silence of the Lambs as a horror movie. Is it even a thriller?
Silent Partner/Silence of the Lambs
For the purposes of this discussion you would probably be better off getting a different version of Silent Partner. I don't know where from though.
Oddly an edited version probably makes better viewing. The violence is too jarring, and out of keeping with the rest of the film, toning it down probably works in the films favour. Maybe you can search for the scene I mentioned on Youtube. Christopher Plummer fishtank should do it!
I reckon Silence of the Lambs is a "thriller" rather than "Horror" for the simple reason the main character is never in any jeopardy until the very end. Sure she goes to nasty places and talks to nasty people but they are always behind bars so no real danger there.
Jodie Foster is always doing the chasing, in a horror film the main character is almost always the one being chased.
Whole books have probably been written on what I am trying to express here but in any film the main character is for the length of the film "you" and "you" are not in peril at all in Silence of the Lambs until the climax.
The "you" in Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the blonde girl) is petrified for almost the entire film, she knows all her friends are dead and she will most likely join them. That is the basis for a horror film not "We're looking for this bloke, can you help us?"
Let's agree to disagree
as we obviously have a different criteria for classifying horror and thriller.
I found the tape
.
Agree to disagree? Certainly
The definition I gave you is (even in my opinion) very narrow. You only have to look at my own posts in this thread to find examples that contradict what I just said. For instance "Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer." Its all subjective
I watched the film
I remember thinking it was a very good film but a that it plodded a bit. Have to say I thought the film was excellent and doesn't plod at all.
It has been censored. We get a shot of the broken fish tank glass. Then a shot of her head being pushed down towards it. Then it jump cuts to outside the house as Gould parks his car. I don't think the censorship hurt the film as blood and guts are not essential to the film. It reminds me of the director Richard Donner saying that he liked the editing the BBFC did to his film Lethal Weapon 2. He said that he had made a comedy, but the producers wanted it to be a violent action film, so he had to film violence that he didn't really want in the film so he was happy to have the censors remove some of the blood and guts.
Interesting information about the VHS tape: It was recorded in 1987 as they showed the next day's schedule before the channel closed down just before midnight (channels usually close at about 4am now). The last programme for the next day (Tuesday) was Film 87 at 12pm. Films to be reviewed were Mosquito Coast with Harrison Ford and Duet For One starring Alan Bates (when was the last time he was in a movie?).
I searched youtube with no luck
From what I understand American film-makers routinely put in potentially offensive material they have no intention of placing in the final product to get the rating they want. They use it as a bargaining chip with the censors. "Will you lower the rating if we take out A,B and C?"
While I was looking I found this on some "girls discussing horror movies" site. I was trying to convince myself I hadn't mis-remembered it. From what "Mariana" below wrote I remembered it just fine. It is an excellent film and I'm glad you liked it.
The "point A to point B" bit is what caught my eye about this post. She's refering to a photo on the site of a head in a fishtank.
Mariana said...
This "head in the aquarium" photo reminded me of a similarly ghastly death I saw in a movie called The Silent Partner, with Christopher Plummer playing a sadistic, psychopathic murderer and bank robber. As you can guess one of his victims ends up much in this same way, but it was the murder scene itself, how the head got from point A to point B so to speak, that was shocking and graphic that I never forgot it. So if you ever come across that movie it may be worth a rent.
http://finalgirl.blogspot.com/2005/10/day-4-here-comes-brideif-shes-luck...
The Devil's Backbone
Very creepy.
Angel Heart
An atmospheric trawl through seamy 1950s New York and New Orleans, as Mickey Rourke's detective - Harry Angel - follows the cold trail of missing crooner Johnny Favorite.
Marred by a poorly executed conclusion, this film still has plenty going for it. It's well worth viewing for the chilling restaurant scene in which Robert De Niro methodically peels the shell off a hardboiled egg, mentions in passing that some cultures regard the egg as the symbol of the human soul, and then bites into it while wearing an expression of barely restrained hatred and malevolence.
Diary Of The Dead
is awful. really bad. Worse than Land Of The Dead. If you want a great zombie film, try the spanish film "Rec". Alternatively, if you are after a really scary movie, check out the spanish film "The Orphanage." I guarantee, both of these films will make you crap your pants!