As it's October, a lot of my friends have been requesting that we have movie nights and watch Horror movies.
Most recently we watched Most recently we've watched Halloween. Before that, Scream. Before that, You're Next, and before that, Insidious.
Which means by now it's become a bit of a running joke that whenever somebody suggests we watch a horror movie, I start to groan.
This is not untrue. I try my best to hold back that impulse, but it's slipped out, probably more often than it should. My friends are awesome and I don't wanna bring things down with a bad attitude. I dislike horror movies, but it should be no big deal.
But that's the thing.
I don't just dislike horror movies.
I loathe them.
Which sounds like a fun blog. So here we go:
Three Reasons Why Horror Movies Are Completely Reprehensible
1) Baby Formula
Everyone's heard the jokes that 'the first person to die in a horror movie are the ones who have sex' or 'the black guy always dies,' etc. There appear to be a lot of similarities between horror movies.
Which makes sense. Because every single horror movie is exactly the same.
The films all follow a very clear formula. Some group of people (often young adults) discover some spooky Macguffin (haunted house, Ouija board, book of the dead) and something started to haunt them, often killing them off in dumbest-to-least-sexually-adventurous order while they slowly dredge up the mystery surrounding the Macguffin, and once they've solved the mystery and possibly defeated whatever was haunting them, there's some twist ending. At one point this was original, but it's been plodded out so many times now that it's vomit-inducing.
This is why The Cabin in the Woods is one of my favorite films. Though it masquerades as a horror film, it's actually an unabashed attack on the horror film genre. It shows you the horror formula and turns it on its head, forcing you to see how simple and mindless other horror films truly are, and then it one-ups them all with a game-ending third act.
Formula has a lot of good uses. The Flintstones used the formula of a family sitcom to angle itself towards a unique style of humor. But formula has to be used purposefully, and horror films have been using it as a crutch. There's a significant lack of originality in modern horror films. It's not filmmaking by artists, it's just filmmaking by accountants; slap something on the formula machine to make a quick buck.
Ultimately, it comes down to this: horror movies are in the suspense business. They're trying to scare you, and a big part of being scared is the feeling of suspense, of dread, of not knowing what's going to happen next. So why do they keep following the same formula over and over again? It's impossible to feel suspense when you already know what's going to happen.
2) Moral of the Story
One of the reasons this particular formula has stuck around so long is because it reinforces very particular moral lessons. Promiscuous characters are killed off, and only the responsible, virginal one ever makes it out alive? Better not be sexually adventurous then! A bunch of kids read from the book of the dead and then it haunts them? Curiosity is clearly killing the cat! These lessons particularly resonate with parents trying to get their rebellious teens to behave, so it makes sense that moviemakers, who are all parentally aged, would have a vested interested in producing movies with those kinds of moral warnings.
The problem is that those morals are bull. Discovering sexuality is a huge part of becoming an adult. Exploring the world around you is how you find your place in it. Making mistakes is an essential aspect of being a human being. But these films make the argument that promiscuity will ruin you, and adventurous behavior could end your life. That's not a moral lesson, that's mental abuse.
Basically, they're all doing this to you. (For the record, I don't recommend watching that video, because it's graphic and absolutely absurd, but it does illustrate the point.)
Bottom line: horror movies are interested in force-feeding you very specific values, namely sex-negative and conform-to-social-order values, and those values are absolute garbage.
3) Flavor
A little cinnamon in a dish really adds a lot of flavor.
A mouthful of cinnamon makes this happen.
Horror movies are the latter.
A good storyteller is out to share a wonderful piece of art with the world. They have an amazing story that makes you think, that will shape the way you view the world. The genre of that story is completely arbitrary to them, completely after-the-fact.
This is not how horror movies work. Their inception begins with "How can I scare people?" Which means the story become the arbitrary thing. their first priority is to scare you. The second is to tell a story. And that's completely backwards thinking. it completely devalues the entire point of telling a story, of sharing art with the world.
Imagine we had a "Crying" movie genre. Movies made explicitly to make you cry. Not Dramatic films, mind you. Dramatic films focus on grandiose stories that somehow compel you or move you, and sometimes that might make you cry. But "Crying" movies aren't interested in moving you. They just do a bunch of stuff to evoke the tears.
This would be ridiculous. But for some reason, when you replace "crying" with "scaring" it's somehow supposed to make more sense.
This is the functional equivalent of starting a recipe with a pound of cinnamon and then figuring out what to mix it with. It's backwards. You'll get a truly terrible dish that way. Start with the main dish, the core, and add cinnamon here and there, to give it flair. That way it's a delicious dessert that just happens to have cinnamon, and the cinnamon really adds. Good movies can be made that just happen to terrify you, and the fear will really add to the experience of watching it. It'll just be a part of the journey you happen to go on in order to reach a brilliant conclusion. These kinds of movies can totally be made.
But they aren't.
(I should mention that there are many Comedies, Action films, Dramas, etc. that are made in this backwards way, but Horror movies are easily the worst offenders, because every single one of them is built this way.)
There's a reason I've been calling them Horror movies, rather than scary movie. To be perfectly honest, I don't think a single one of them is scary. They're formulaic backwards-thinking poorly-constructed tripe. Bottom line: the scariest thing about Horror movies is that people continue to watch them.
(For further interesting criticisms on the tragically disgusting genre known as Horror movies, I recommend the CinemaSins "Dear Hollywood" segment on How to Fix the Horror Movie Genre in 10 Steps. I particularly agree with #10.)
Most recently we watched Most recently we've watched Halloween. Before that, Scream. Before that, You're Next, and before that, Insidious.
Which means by now it's become a bit of a running joke that whenever somebody suggests we watch a horror movie, I start to groan.
This is not untrue. I try my best to hold back that impulse, but it's slipped out, probably more often than it should. My friends are awesome and I don't wanna bring things down with a bad attitude. I dislike horror movies, but it should be no big deal.
But that's the thing.
I don't just dislike horror movies.
I loathe them.
Which sounds like a fun blog. So here we go:
Three Reasons Why Horror Movies Are Completely Reprehensible
1) Baby Formula
Everyone's heard the jokes that 'the first person to die in a horror movie are the ones who have sex' or 'the black guy always dies,' etc. There appear to be a lot of similarities between horror movies.
Which makes sense. Because every single horror movie is exactly the same.
The films all follow a very clear formula. Some group of people (often young adults) discover some spooky Macguffin (haunted house, Ouija board, book of the dead) and something started to haunt them, often killing them off in dumbest-to-least-sexually-adventurous order while they slowly dredge up the mystery surrounding the Macguffin, and once they've solved the mystery and possibly defeated whatever was haunting them, there's some twist ending. At one point this was original, but it's been plodded out so many times now that it's vomit-inducing.
This is why The Cabin in the Woods is one of my favorite films. Though it masquerades as a horror film, it's actually an unabashed attack on the horror film genre. It shows you the horror formula and turns it on its head, forcing you to see how simple and mindless other horror films truly are, and then it one-ups them all with a game-ending third act.
Formula has a lot of good uses. The Flintstones used the formula of a family sitcom to angle itself towards a unique style of humor. But formula has to be used purposefully, and horror films have been using it as a crutch. There's a significant lack of originality in modern horror films. It's not filmmaking by artists, it's just filmmaking by accountants; slap something on the formula machine to make a quick buck.
Ultimately, it comes down to this: horror movies are in the suspense business. They're trying to scare you, and a big part of being scared is the feeling of suspense, of dread, of not knowing what's going to happen next. So why do they keep following the same formula over and over again? It's impossible to feel suspense when you already know what's going to happen.
2) Moral of the Story
One of the reasons this particular formula has stuck around so long is because it reinforces very particular moral lessons. Promiscuous characters are killed off, and only the responsible, virginal one ever makes it out alive? Better not be sexually adventurous then! A bunch of kids read from the book of the dead and then it haunts them? Curiosity is clearly killing the cat! These lessons particularly resonate with parents trying to get their rebellious teens to behave, so it makes sense that moviemakers, who are all parentally aged, would have a vested interested in producing movies with those kinds of moral warnings.
The problem is that those morals are bull. Discovering sexuality is a huge part of becoming an adult. Exploring the world around you is how you find your place in it. Making mistakes is an essential aspect of being a human being. But these films make the argument that promiscuity will ruin you, and adventurous behavior could end your life. That's not a moral lesson, that's mental abuse.
Basically, they're all doing this to you. (For the record, I don't recommend watching that video, because it's graphic and absolutely absurd, but it does illustrate the point.)
Bottom line: horror movies are interested in force-feeding you very specific values, namely sex-negative and conform-to-social-order values, and those values are absolute garbage.
3) Flavor
A little cinnamon in a dish really adds a lot of flavor.
A mouthful of cinnamon makes this happen.
Horror movies are the latter.
A good storyteller is out to share a wonderful piece of art with the world. They have an amazing story that makes you think, that will shape the way you view the world. The genre of that story is completely arbitrary to them, completely after-the-fact.
This is not how horror movies work. Their inception begins with "How can I scare people?" Which means the story become the arbitrary thing. their first priority is to scare you. The second is to tell a story. And that's completely backwards thinking. it completely devalues the entire point of telling a story, of sharing art with the world.
Imagine we had a "Crying" movie genre. Movies made explicitly to make you cry. Not Dramatic films, mind you. Dramatic films focus on grandiose stories that somehow compel you or move you, and sometimes that might make you cry. But "Crying" movies aren't interested in moving you. They just do a bunch of stuff to evoke the tears.
This would be ridiculous. But for some reason, when you replace "crying" with "scaring" it's somehow supposed to make more sense.
This is the functional equivalent of starting a recipe with a pound of cinnamon and then figuring out what to mix it with. It's backwards. You'll get a truly terrible dish that way. Start with the main dish, the core, and add cinnamon here and there, to give it flair. That way it's a delicious dessert that just happens to have cinnamon, and the cinnamon really adds. Good movies can be made that just happen to terrify you, and the fear will really add to the experience of watching it. It'll just be a part of the journey you happen to go on in order to reach a brilliant conclusion. These kinds of movies can totally be made.
But they aren't.
(I should mention that there are many Comedies, Action films, Dramas, etc. that are made in this backwards way, but Horror movies are easily the worst offenders, because every single one of them is built this way.)
There's a reason I've been calling them Horror movies, rather than scary movie. To be perfectly honest, I don't think a single one of them is scary. They're formulaic backwards-thinking poorly-constructed tripe. Bottom line: the scariest thing about Horror movies is that people continue to watch them.
(For further interesting criticisms on the tragically disgusting genre known as Horror movies, I recommend the CinemaSins "Dear Hollywood" segment on How to Fix the Horror Movie Genre in 10 Steps. I particularly agree with #10.)
No comments:
Post a Comment