Thursday, August 31, 2017

Horror movies - an appreciation for subtlety

The following are some haphazard/random thoughts, after just finishing "It comes at night" starring Joel Edgerton. The movie is far from perfect, but was a nice departure in the genre.

  • I love 'in your face', blood and guts, mass hysteria + mayhem horror movies as much as the next guy. However this was a lovely change of pace. A very small cast, and only a small handful of locations.
  • Tension is built not from some supernatural/evil force (although the belief that one exists always hangs, ominously in the background) but from the human interactions.
  • Unless i missed it ( i was distracted for several minutes here and there ) there is never any direct evidence of an evil presence (or monster, if you will), short of the distrustful nature of humanity.
  • The relationships are what matters - thus it requires the development of believable, and genuine character interactions. Something that's entirely absent from many horror films, as they rely on pre-established cliches in lieu of well constructed, believable PEOPLE.
  • fewer cheesy/convenient answers to problems. When horror movies are rooted in humanity, there is less wiggle room to explain away bad writing.

I'm about to watch "Antichrist" with Willem Defoe (or i may swap to the Spanish movie "REC", or "it follows" [which i watched briefly once before])

Anyone care to share similar experiences / thoughts on the matter?



Submitted August 31, 2017 at 04:48PM by MrEso http://ift.tt/2gsIMNQ

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