Jeff's Picks:
Halloween is close at hand and I am back for another contribution to Joe’s movie blog. I can't believe he graced me with this great honor, since I know so many people read and respect this blog PSYYYYYYYYCHE. While I watch the World Series and cheer for the Giants (black and orange, y’all) I will talk about the three movies that scared the bejesus out of me as a youngster.
Before I go on, I’d like to give you all a little back story explaining my fear. My family thought it was hilarious to torture me through pranks, scary movies, and bullying. Once, my brother and I were in the basement playing Street Fight II when my dad called my brother upstairs. Alone in the basement, they proceeded to lock me down there and cut the power while I pounded on the door and screamed for help. I was seven. They thought it was hilarious. Me, not so much. I still haven’t let this incident go.
Anyways….
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre:
Hitch hikers slitting their own wrists, cannibal families, a chainsaw-wielding maniac, and a house essentially made of human remains. This piece of horror gold was probably one of the most brutal slasher films of its time and stands as a timeless piece. Five teens are road tripping when they run out of gas and have to stop at a country home. When they enter the house, Leatherface appears and shit gets real. Kids are killed with meat hooks and slaughtered by Leatherface and served to the family as dinner. The flick is ultra gory and was marketed as a film “based on a true story.” While the story isn’t completely true, the idea of cannibals using human flesh and bones as decorations is taken from the life of Ed Gein (warning: looking him up is a bad idea. Trust me). The idea of getting hacked up scares the hell out of me to this day, so I avoid the countryside at all costs.
Hearing this anywhere should automatically bring your mind to this AMAZING horror flick. Even the remake is amazing, which is effing rare these days. Seriously, find some movie remakes and tell me they are as good as the original. Total Recall? No Way! Dredd? Almost, but fuggetabout it? Alex Cross? HA! Rob Zombie's Halloween? HELL YEAH. With a low budget and using a painted William Shatner mask for the antagonist, John Carpenter made what many consider one of the most influential horror flicks of all time. Michael Meyers is a stalking, hulking, jumpsuit wearing monster who shows no signs of pain or remorse. All he does is kill, kill, kill all the poor unsuspecting immoral teens. He also has this amazing trick where he appears, you look away for two seconds, and he disappears. He’s like the Batman of horror villains. Making use of “psychological horror,” the age old “innocent babysitter alone” stories, and an eerie ambiance soundtrack, John Carpenters Halloween still stands as a haunting lesson to not be a degenerate on Halloween, unless you want to be impaled with a kitchen knife and stuck to a door.
Haute Tension (High Tension):
SERIAL HOMOCIDE! DECAPITATIONS! SHOTGUN BLASTS! EMBOWLMENT! FRENCH LESBIANS! I will say very little about this flick so you can watch it and be surprised. I saw this flick when I was about fifteen and it was terrifying even though I watched it mid-afternoon. Two friends go to a family house and then get hunted down by a homicidal trucker. Psychological, brutal, and with plenty of plot twists, this flick is the perfect Halloween gory gross out movie.
Joe's Picks:
Scary movies from my past, from my college days, and ones that continue to scare me. I'm kind of a baby when it comes to horror movies, though. That's why they call me Baby Joe.
Candyman:
I was a young seven-year-old lad, trotting into the TV room to see what great film my father had rented on that fateful night. My parents would often rent movies for Saturday nights. I came running out to see that the selection this week was a movie called Candyman. Having recently re-watched this flick I realize now how far I had overreacted as a child. But be it as it may, the movie still made me swear horror movies off for nearly ten years in my youth (other than The Shining, I was able to withstand scary movies until late in high school).
Candyman is based on a Clive Barker short story about a woman named Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen), a grad student researching the myth of the Candyman. The myth involves a man who will appear behind you if you say his name five times into a mirror. Did I mention he's a huge towering man? And only has one hand, because the other is a hook jammed into a bloody stump? And that he fucking kills you.
So there I am, a happy seven-year-old, sitting in the nook of my fathers arm, clutching the recliner in fear. I didn't want to be a little baby and leave, so instead I let the bloody images of horror bore themselves into my brain. Being one that has always had a slight fascination (and belief) in the paranormal, I figured this could all happen. I just hoped I didn't accidently say his name five times whilst in the bathroom.
Rosemary's Baby:
I just watched this for the first time this last year. I had been making my way through Roman Polanski movies at the time and this one popped up. It is a great example of why great directors should take a closer look at the horror genre. When we get these visionaries they are able to bend the genre to make truly scary movies without the need for shock gimmicks.
This is the story of Rosemary Goodhouse (Mia Farrow) and her pregnancy. Sometimes she gets scared and paranoid because of bumps and scratches in night. Overall, the movie is just her creepy neighbors helping with the day to day. Eventually, after the birth, we find out what all the bumps and scratches were all about, and it is unnerving. Not necessarily because of the what it is, but because the people around the secret were so devoted and seemed so normal.
I recognize that Ira Levin deserves his due credit for Rosemary's Baby, but again, he is a writer that takes genre fiction and elevates it, bringing a rich literary quality. Mia Farrow does an excellent job as a naive woman, ready to have her first child and listening to the voice of experience. That's a big part of this: she knows something is wrong, but since the older generation is assuring her that it's all normal she denies herself. It isn't that this movie is terrifying, but rather you'll feel amiss all night after watching it.
Before I leave this movie, I'd like to plug Ti West's The House of the Devil. He borrows a lot from Polanski and Rosemary's Baby for that flick, and it is just as unnerving.
Rob Zombie's Halloween:
I've talked about this movie before. Rob Zombie was able to take a generic slasher movie (sorry Jeff) and put some motivation behind it. Michael Meyers isn't just a killing machine anymore, well, I mean, he is, but now we have reference for how long he's been a killing machine and a hint of why. We watch his life as he is molded into a troubled kid. He moves further and further away from the only love that is provided to him from his mother and envelops the darkness. Zombie took the original and used that as his third act, creating a human being in the first two-thirds. Then he threw some gore on top of it. We can see the insanity in the mass murder of the night. There are a couple jumpy moments (and yes, I jumped) and I think that makes it lose a bit of it's credible scare magic. But because the first two acts build to a realistic reason behind the killing I can't let the jumps ruin it. I'm not saying the movie as a whole is realistic because Michael Meyers seems super human at times, but the motivation behind it is believable and that's what is so scary about it.
The Shining:
Like Chris says below, you can't have a list without added a Stephen King story on there (sorry Jeff). Stanley Kubrick's The Shining gets scarier with each viewing, and I think that's because you come a little closer to understanding Jack Torrance each time, but we'll never fully understand him, so you're just feeling him burrow further into your brain.
The story follows a family that is going to be the caretakers at an isolated hotel for the winter. The snow gets so bad that they will be cut off from society for months. Phones won't work because of the blizzards, leaving the only form of communication as a radio. Jack Torrance, the father, is a recovering alcoholic trying to complete his first novel. He thinks the alone time will be beneficial for his creative juices. That's not really the case when ghosts show up. Or are they ghosts? Maybe just figments of a man's slowly decomposing mind. So in the end, the loving family man turns into a murderous maniac bent on chopping his family to bits with an ax. And Kubrick is able to build him as an everyman in the beginning that by the end, we feel like it's even possible for us to sink so low.
When you watch other horror movies you can condition yourself to expect when the scares are about to happen, thus preparing for the terror and lessening the effect. So in any subsequent viewing isn't nearly as scary as that first time. But The Shining. Yes, The fucking Shining continues to build on your fears. There is something new to discover with each viewing. So opposed to learning what's behind every corner, you're discovering a new aspect for what so terrifying about what's behind each corner. Kubrick has layered the fear so deep that there is even a documentary (Room 237) coming out this year exploring the different theories involving the 1980 horror flick.
The first time I watched this it was easy to shrug it off. The second time a little harder. When I watched it while being snowed in (because I thought it'd be funny), I was terrified (and drunk at 10:00 am). I could see why Jack made some of the decisions. I started to see myself in him more. Now that I'm married, I can see more of myself in him. To think that I'm capable of following the same path as Jack Torrance, from a loving husband to a maniac wanting to brutally murder his wife, is so scary to me. I am confident that I'll never fall into that state of mind, but every time I watch The Shining I wonder just a little.
Chris's Picks:
THESE MOVIES TERRIFIED ME
Most of the time I like to pretend that
I am a rational being, infused by nature and the good sense of my
ancestors to use my brain in times of stress and to survey a
situation logically. This works well for self talk when I'm walking
down a dimly lit alley at night, and it works fantastic for
consideration in retrospect. After a movie has scared me, I can talk
myself out of it most times by saying, "Well, that would never
happen," or, "I wouldn't make the same mistakes she did in
a similar situation." Thus I can turn off the lights and close
my eyes and have visions of Justin Timberlake dance through my dreams
instead of horrible cannibals and psychopaths. However, with certain
movies this is less the case and these films that follow stayed with
me long after the lights went out and I thought I had talked myself
out of them. Also, spoilers permeate these little write-ups, so if
you don't like spoilers, go watch the movies already—not one came
out fewer than four years ago and they're all ones you should
definitely go watch already.
The Descent:
There's a lot of talk about how horror
films are almost entirely anti-woman. Women are the victims or the
sluts or the pure virgins whose unpenetrated hymens somehow carry
them past the final reel. So it impressed me when a friend of mine
recommended The Descent to me—a horror film with an entirely
female cast that treats its characters like they're people, not
fodder. Well, for the first hour or so anyway.
The Descent is probably the
creepiest movie I've seen in terms of how the environment feels to
me. In the same way Ridley Scott creates an environment that is
utterly believable, the director of this film (Neil Marshall, in his
sophomore effort) creates the most claustrophobic environments I've
ever seen on screen. He brings the walls in close and makes use of
the sounds of the cave system the ladies are spelunking in to give
you a sense in both visual and aural terms of just how cramped and
trapped these women are.
Add to the creepy closeness of the caverns the horrific monsters that live in them. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not blown away by the actual reveal of the monsters in the movie. They're sort of hokey and too similar to better efforts. But you don't see them for the longest time. You /hear/ them. They splash in the water and move around and remain just out of eyeshot of both the viewer and the protagonists. The spooky sounds the monsters in the movie made managed to make me attune my ears to the dark around me for weeks after I'd seen the movie. "What was that?" I'd think to myself, knowing that there's no such thing as monsters and that I was in my bed, not a cave.
The real gut punch for me about this
movie is the beginning of it, and is the impetus for all of the
subsequent action. The main protagonist of the movie is driving along
the road with her husband and her young daughter when a car crashes
into them and the husband gets a metal pipe shoved through his face.
This isn't an uncommon way to get to me. I still shudder at the PVC
pipe death in Final Destination 2 when the airbag deploys. The
protagonist's young daughter also dies in the crash, though the
director was classy enough to have that happen off screen.
Both of these deaths, the one in FD2
and the one here, scare the ever-living crap out of me because
they're so plausible. I rarely get scared by a specific creature in a
film. Werewolves and vampires hold no real power over me because I
know they don't exist. But I drive my car all the time! I have been
in car accidents that were entirely out of my control to avoid. My
father tells a story about a guy he used to know that drove around in
his car with free weights in the back seat because he liked to get
his workout in on his lunch break. Well, he was in a traffic accident
and one of the weights flew up from the back seat and smashed in his
skull, killing him instantly. These are things that can happen.
The Descent is a truly remarkable movie for the first two thirds. The characters feel human, even when they're not the best people in the world. They have emotions that go back a good distance and seem to relate to each other as individuals, not archetypes. The final act becomes less engaging because of the unnecessary deaths some of the characters go through and because some of the work that was done to make the emotions matter becomes less important. Early in the film, one of the characters is fumbling in the dark, trying to fight the demon monsters you can't yet see, and she accidentally fatally wounds another of the protagonists. She clearly feels awful about this, but then her guilt is largely dropped because it's a game of survival. Later, the remaining protagonist finds out about the other woman having been killed by her remaining partner and wounds her so she'll be eaten alive by the monsters. That's sort of a dick move to pull even if the woman wasn't one of your friends.
The Descent is a truly remarkable movie for the first two thirds. The characters feel human, even when they're not the best people in the world. They have emotions that go back a good distance and seem to relate to each other as individuals, not archetypes. The final act becomes less engaging because of the unnecessary deaths some of the characters go through and because some of the work that was done to make the emotions matter becomes less important. Early in the film, one of the characters is fumbling in the dark, trying to fight the demon monsters you can't yet see, and she accidentally fatally wounds another of the protagonists. She clearly feels awful about this, but then her guilt is largely dropped because it's a game of survival. Later, the remaining protagonist finds out about the other woman having been killed by her remaining partner and wounds her so she'll be eaten alive by the monsters. That's sort of a dick move to pull even if the woman wasn't one of your friends.
The final scene of the movie (if you
saw the British version of the movie) is great, because the problem
with most horror movies—and many people might not agree with
this—is that they pull too many punches. Just like the daughter
being created just to die in the first few minutes of the movie, The
Descent doesn't crap out in the ending. The American version of
the film ends with the protagonist escaping to her car and getting
away. The British version—the real version, as I like to think of
it—shows the same scene, but then reveals that the woman is still
trapped in the cave. The chittering sounds of the creatures grows
louder, and the film ends. She doesn't escape the cave; she dies
along with the rest of her friends down there.
So yeah, The Descent will stay
with you. And leave it at that. The follow-up is a nightmare of a
film, but not in a good way.
Alien:
As I mentioned in my preamble to the
discussion of The Descent, Ridley Scott is one of my favorite
directors for creating worlds that feel real and lived in and full.
Nowhere in his canon does he do that better than in Alien,
though. (Some will argue Blade Runner does it better, but
those people are wrong, since this is aesthetics and I get to
decide.) The intricate details Easter egged throughout the film,
which planted seeds for the continuations of the franchise, are too
much to catch at a glance (a beer can with the corporate logo on it,
though the company is unnamed throughout the film), but add to the
sense that the world is real. These small touches aren't necessary,
and Alien would be much the same movie without them, but for
me they add a ton of flavor to what could have been a bland and
generic set.
But this entry isn't about what I love about the movie in terms of production qualities, it's about why it stays with me. Alien is not the scariest movie I've ever seen, but it does have the best movie monster I've ever encountered to date. The designs for the various iteration of aliens within the movie (the face hugger, the chest burster, and the final, full alien) are all masterfully done. When I think about alien life as being, well, alien, I think of the creatures from Alien. I think of things which are biological in nature but so fundamentally divorced from the biology of Earth that they defy reason's ability to explain them. The decision to have the alien being reproduce through incubation within a living host, the decision that the blood of the creature would eat through the tough metal interior of a ship so sturdy as the Nostromo, that's the kind of thing which influences imaginations for years to come.
I talked about claustrophobia above,
with The Descent, and that movie is indeed the best example of
it I've seen, but Alien places a solid second in terms of the
way the environment crushes in on the actors in the space of the
movie. There are a few large rooms, but you're always aware that
you're on a space ship that is your only barrier between either space
or a hostile world on which you could not hope to survive. With the
alien creature tramping about, almost always as an barely seen
presence, the ship becomes smaller and smaller, and Scott develops
this feeling through the use of clever camerawork and solid sound
effects which show the cramped spaces in the interior of the ship and
the lack of suitable escape routes and hiding places.
Unlike with The Descent, the
deaths in Alien feel necessary and earned. The demise of Ash
with a fire extinguisher feels appropriate and reveals further depths
to the world than we knew existed before. The deaths of Parker and
Lambert feel a bit hollow, but it's also important in developing
Ripley as the true protagonist of the movie (which is harder to nail
down than you might think).
What I love best about Alien,
though, is the damn cat that Ripley manages to save and bring with
her onto the escape shuttle. It's also my favorite scene in the
movie, where Ripley believes herself safe and then the Alien reveals
itself once more for a final mano-a-mano showdown between the two. In
a way, this is just a different iteration of the final scare tactic
that had been used by slasher film creators for years, but in my mind
it's better than those. Ripley is undressed in the final scene, in
her sleeping gear. She has escaped, managed to get away from the
threat, and is in a place where she can feel safe. And she managed to
save the cat, which is nice. Then, BOOM! The alien appears, and there
she is in her underwear and having to face down this epic beast of a
monster. Both of them are without clothes and have only the weapons
endowed by nature with which to fight. Ripley manages to defeat the
monster using her brain and her knowledge of the environment. It's
the perfect marriage of the type of filmmaker Scott is and the type
of hero Ripley is. Plus I have a real thing for monsters getting
sucked out of airlocks.
Silence of the Lambs:
In some ways, Silence of the Lambs
doesn't belong on this list, since it's not really a horror movie in
the traditional sense. It's part mystery and part thriller and almost
none of it is horrific. Except the most important part of it, and the
thing that stuck with me for the longest time. I write, of course, of
Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
Dr. Lecter is really the perfect movie
monster, at least for someone like me. He's intelligent, he's
educated, he's cultured, and he's articulate (his pronunciation of
Chianti notwithstanding). He's the kind of man who, if you met him on
the street or in a bar, you would not think him a murderer or a
villain, but a perhaps slightly boring smart person. I love the idea
of people presenting a mask to the world, but being something else
entirely within themselves. I don't know what it is about this
concept, but the hidden face of evil being the face you know is
terrifically terrifying and thrilling to me. The idea of presenting a
mask to the world comes into literal reality, though, when Lecter
removes the face of a man in order to facilitate his escape.
The thing that gets me most about this
movie is its presentation of the developing relationship between
Agent Starling and Lecter. Jodie Foster's openness to this clearly
deranged cannibal is upsetting to me in a number of ways, but seems
also to make complete sense. When Lecter uses his mind and
psychiatric acumen to talk the pervert who harassed Starling into
killing himself, it's a touch of humanity we see, and I don't think
it's unappreciated by Starling. I love the idea of being attracted to
something vile that uses its vileness to protect you. I love the idea
of nuanced evil, of evil that has a directionality to it. Lecter is
unadulterated evil, the most debase of the things man can become, yet
he has a fondness for Starling and never focuses his evil onto her. I
love the idea of evil being gentle and kind when it wants.
Silence of the Lambs is also one
of the finest pieces of cinema I've seen. The performances by the
actors are all amazing (definite tip of the hat to Ted Levine for his
portrayal of Buffalo Bill), the soundtrack is solid and haunting, and
the camerawork is flawless. It won all four of the big Academy Awards
(Actor, Actress, Director, and Picture—it also won for Best Adapted
Screenplay) and is a truly remarkable piece of American moviemaking.
Misery:
It wouldn't be just for me to talk
about horror movies and not include a film based on a Stephen King
book. But which one to choose? Most people would probably go with The
Shining, due to its cinematic excellence and fantastic acting. My
friends and I get together infrequently and watch Shelley Duvall's
Faerie Tale Theater (a true masterpiece of horror, though
unintentional). It's in good fun, but we make fun of some of her
hokey costume choices and the performances of some of the cast
members for that week's fairy tale (Robin Williams as the Frog Prince
is a wonderful kind of awful and Jeff Goldblum as the wolf from the
Three Little Pigs is one of the best performances of his career). But
for me, Shelley gets a lifetime pass for her performance in The
Shining. Other people would point to Carrie, but never
having been a teenage girl, I just don't connect to it as much. There
are many other adaptations to choose from, but for me Misery
is the one that really shines the brightest and has stayed with me
the longest.
The set-up to Misery is this:
Paul Sheldon (James Caan), a famous writer, crashes his car in the
snow after finishing his latest novel. He gets rescued by this
seemingly cloyingly sweet woman Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates), who is a
fan of his novels. What starts out as a necessary convalescence due
to the weather turns into a hostage situation when Kathy is unwilling
to let the man she worships go.
Why is Misery the one that
resonates so much with me? Well, this is going to sound odd, but
Misery is the movie that convinced me I wanted to write things
when I was still a fairly young guy. I loved how much Kathy Bates was
invested in the outcome of James Caan's books, how giddy she was at
the prospect of reading the one that had just been published, and how
hurt she was about the character's demise. Yes, she overreacts a bit
to the news, and she does go a little overboard with the hobbling
(still the best body horror I've ever seen—I can't watch it without
my ankles flinching) and the killing of the cop, but it's all in
service to her devotion to the written word. I loved that words could
inspire like that, that kind of passion, fervor. I love the turn at
the end of the movie, too, where James is holding the page that has
all of the answers to the questions she's been dying to know for
years, and then he destroys it in front of her. That fangirl rage is
so clear and so pure.
Now obviously I hope I never have a fan
like Kathy's character in Misery. I like my ankles the way
they are and being forced to live in a house that full of kitchy junk
would probably drive me crazy. Not to mention not being able to
curse. If you interact with me on Facebook or in the real world, it's
clear I'm (at the very least) a salty fellow. But the kind of person
of whom Kathy is a caricature is a person I very much enjoy. I like
fans of things. Hell, I'm a huge fan of many things. When Kathy
screams about the revisionist resolutions of old serial films, I can
imagine friends of mine having the same screaming rant.
Ultimately for me, Misery is
about possession and fandom. Fans always feel like they have a
personal relationship with the characters and the creators of their
favorite works. How many times have I talked to a friend about Joss
Whedon as if the friend knew them personally. "I've seen
interviews and met him once at Comicon." Sure, so me and Leonard
Nimoy are BFF then, right? But the ardor with which people invest
their emotions into these relationships with creators is compelling.
At least it has been to me. It's what I want as an author, for
someone (possibly thousands of someones) to be completely invested in
the stories and characters I create.
As unnerving as Misery is to
watch, it's all about a fan trying to possess the object of her
passion. But the lesson of Misery is Stephen King's lesson,
that ultimately the fans cannot have a say in the story, that they
cannot possess either the art or the artist. James Caan gets away,
and though he is changed fundamentally by the experience, he is still
alive and Kathy Bates is dead. His art changes as a result of the
encounter, too, but it’s not the art that Kathy wanted him to
create. But I'm not certain that that wasn't a bit of wishful
thinking on Stephen King's part. George Lucas and he should have a
chat sometime about who the true owners of art are. I'd pay good
money to see that in a panel someday.
The Strangers:
And finally to the scariest movie I
have seen: The Strangers. This movie haunts me still, and
sometimes I dream about the killers in it. I saw it not long after it
was released on DVD. Now, neither Liv Tyler nor Scott Speedman are my
favorite actors. They are both capable, but they don't ever seem to
connect with me in any real way through their characters. At times
I'm even confused why their character is important to the story of
whatever movie they're in. In this case, however, that distance they
seem to unintentionally create is pitch perfect for the film.
Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler have just
gone through a proposal in which the answer was less than "Yes."
Scott is shattered and Liv is confused and they're both sort of
zombie-ing it up. Perfect, they're already dead inside, it shouldn't
be that tricky to kill them then. The premise of the horror element
is this: three people come to the house to terrorize and murder its
inhabitants. They do this for no other reason than that they can and
Liv and Scott happened to be home. This hearkens back to the car
crash in The Descent. I'm often home. Hell, I'm home right
now.
The three people (two women and a man),
who wear creepy masks the whole movie, succeed in their goal. Another
casualty of the evening is Scott's friend Mike (played by Glenn
Howerton of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) who gets shot
in the face by Scott's character when he wanders into the midst of
the action. This shatters Scott pretty completely, and it's not long
after Mike's death that Scott and Liv are caught, tied up, and sliced
to shreds by the maniacal killers's knives.
Now, what I've described to you here
doesn't seem that scary. This is another movie that plays well with
the feeling of being trapped. Scott's car is ruined by the strangers,
so there's no escaping that way. They take Liv's cell phone, so
there's no calling for help. They surround the house and pose and
bang on windows to scare the hell out of Liv. It's horrific. The
camerawork isn't as good as in other movies on the list (probably a
result of first time direction by the also-writer Bryan Bertino, who
does a credibly job, but makes a few amateurish calls), but it's a
solid film nonetheless.
But what really sells the film for me
is the scene at the end of the movie, where the killers are driving
away from the house after having killed Liv and Scott. They stop a
couple of boys in the street who are handing out godly brochures,
likely of the "repent now" type. One of the boys asks one
of the killer women if she is a sinner, and her reply is "sometimes."
This is chilling to me in a way that I can't properly express.
Because we all are, really, insofar as sin is a real thing. It
complicates the villains of the movie to know that they don't see
themselves as villains, but are still compelled to act in the way
that they do, terrorizing strangers and murdering them.
(It would be indecent to speak of The
Strangers without putting in a plug for the German film Funny
Games and its American remake. Those films tell a similar story
to this one, of people who like violence and killing inflicting their
will upon an unsuspecting and innocent family. There are key
differences in the choices the directors make, in the points they are
trying to make about the state of cinema and horror particularly, and
in the set-up of the families. But they're fundamentally similar
movies in several ways, and I have to at least mention them.)
_____________________
So I guess the reason The Strangers
and other films stay with me so forcefully is that reinforces that
age old problem of "other people exist." This is the main
issue in trying to believe that we live in a rational world and that
we can control our fates to some degree. Yes, there's no such thing
as ghosts and there are no werewolves who are going to bite you and
make you into one of them. But other people do exist, and they make
decisions without our control or opinion.
It's a common theme among the movies on
this list, I think: that fate our is beyond our control. The crew of
the Nostromo is put in peril because of the greed of their corporate
masters. The spelunkers in The Descent don't know what they're
getting into, and have to deal with their personal relationship
dynamics while fighting off ravaging monsters. Hannibal Lecter is
shown wearing his signature mask, but the real mask is his face and
how easily we would accept it in a social setting. Kathy Bates comes
unhinged following traumatic events in her past, and she fixates on
someone who is undesiring of her attentions. And strangers can come
to your door and kill you in the comfort and safety of your own home.
These are the things that stay with me from horror movies. They're
the things that stay with me in all sorts of fiction and film.
They're inevitable consequences of living in a world with other
sentient beings, and it's all beyond my control. Even as an adult who
understands that as a basic fact of life, I don't have to like it.
