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Horror |
| Date: |
10/05/01 (86 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: ten great films
Disadvantages: none
There are two types of horror films that interest me. The first is the genuinely horrifying. To my mind, a horror film, if it's going to be worthy of that title, needs to be unsettling. Not just frightening or nauseating, but unsettling in rather less easily defined ways. Freud wrote about a feeling, unheimlich (roughly translated as "uncanny") - the feeling that there's something very wrong here, that things are very much not as they should be. The kind of feeling you get in nightmares, where everything is objectively perfectly safe, but subjectively you know that you're about to be hurt/killed/whatever. Difficult to explain, really, but the best horror films evoke this feeling and the rest don't.
The second type of horror films I like are the kind that amuse me. Again, it's difficult to be exact about how they amuse - there aren't necessarily common links between the types of humour that do it for me. A lot of the films are quite old, but the humour isn't just derived from how dated their attitudes are, there's a kind of peculiarly insane comedy that infuses horror movies. It's usually very macabre. I'm thinking of moments like the one in The Masque of the Red Death where you have Patrick Magee dressed as a gorilla being hoisted up on a rope and then set fire to by a dwarf. There's a very rich vein of such humour in older horror films. The League of Gentlemen have very successfully taken this kind of comedy and re-packaged it as sitcom/sketch show.
I won't include films like Scream or Nightmare on Elm Street here. They made me jump, yes, and they were both very entertaining, but neither of them was horrifying, or funny in the right way. There are also several films that a lot of people like that don't really do anything for me at all. The Exorcist bored me, as do the other big budget Hollywood horrors of the Seventies (The Omen, Amityville, Carrie etc.). And although I can see that He
llraiser is very inventive and thoughtful, I could easily go through the rest of my life without seeing it again.
So here's a list of ten horror films that I like, in no particular order (I'm excluding films that I've written opinions of elsewhere, or that I plan to soon, as it would be kind of lazy to put them in here):
1) Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) - The seventies saw the last generation of interesting horror film-makers emerge in America. People like George Romero, David Cronenberg, David Lynch. This was made by Tobe Hooper, who, on the basis of this, his first film, should have gone on to be the best of them all. Unfortunately his later work is nothing like as good. It's the story of a bunch of teenagers riding around Texas (duh!) in a van. Eventually they stumble across a disturbing family of murderous cannibals, and the film goes insane. There are some really unpleasant moments (although little actual gore), especially the room stuffed with furniture made from human remains, and the hideous "Leatherface", the chainsaw-wielding maniac who wears a mask of human skin. It's also pretty funny - the film turns into a giant Benny Hill type chase for most of the second half, apart from a break for the most incredible family meal sequence I've ever seen. This was banned for more than 20 years, but now it's finally available for all (over 18s) to see.
2) Videodrome (1983) - I had a lot of problems deciding which Cronenberg film to include. Shivers is very good, as is Dead Ringers (and Crash and eXistenZ, but I don't think they count as horror films). I decided on this one over the others mainly because of James Woods. No other actor I'm aware of could possibly find a facial expression that says "Oh my god I've just lost my gun in this weird vagina thing that's appeared in my stomach". He plays a sleazy video producer. He stumbles across some particularly hardcore S&M in a pira
te channel called Videodrome, and tries to track it down. At which point things get a little strange. He also has a most stimulating sado-masochistic relationship with Debbie Harry. An interesting look at how emerging technologies might shape society (and as such it's rather dated now, although Cronenberg addresses similar issues in the recent eXistenZ).
3) Eraserhead (1977) - Another director who I almost picked a different film to include (in this case Blue Velvet). Eraserhead was David Lynch's first film. If there's one film in this list that really epitomises the feeling of the uncanny, it's this one. The plot is pretty negligible - the main character's girlfriend has a baby that looks like a cow foetus - that's about it, really. The film abandons logic - no explanations are ever offered. It's really like a dream filmed - I can only assume that it's based at least in part on dreams that Lynch had. The film is often genuinely uncomfortable viewing, especially the sequences with the baby, but there's also a wistfulness running through it. Henry, the baby's father, has dreams of paradise in the form of a woman with hamster cheeks who appears behind his radiator and sings to him. Definitely one of those "love it or hate it" films.
4) The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Loads of people were really nonplussed by this film. I think it's the best horror film to appear for some years. I had a couple of advantages, though. I saw it on video before it was released in America. So I saw it before it was hyped to high heaven (no film could live up to the expectation that this one generated), and I think it's far more suited to video than the big screen. When I saw it again at the cinema it was a little bit too disorientating, what with all the camera movement and everything. Three students go to make a documentary about the legend of a local witch. They go camping in the woods she is supposed to haunt, a
nd bad things start to happen to them. The film very successfully builds up suspense, generating the feeling that something's wrong, and that something pretty damn nasty is going to happen really soon. And then it really kicks off, leading to a great ending. There's no gore or anything like that - it relies on the imagination of the viewer in a way that no other film does. OK, so it's effectively a toned down version of Cannibal Holocaust, and the theme of city folk coming to grief in hostile rural areas has been done before loads of times, but the execution in this case was pretty close to perfect.
5) The Devil Rides Out (1968) - Ah, Hammer. You've got to love Hammer, you really have, from their creepy paranoid scifi of the 50s, through the glory years of Cushing and Lee in the 60s, right the way through to the embarrassing soft core lesbian stuff in the 70s. It would be impossible not to include a Hammer film on this list. This is the one I've gone for. Based on a Dennis Wheatley novel, it's the story of a battle between a good occultist (Christopher Lee, for once playing the hero) and a bad occultist (Charles Gray). They fight for the soul of Lee's young friend. There's some great black mass scenes, some entertaining special effects and the usual Hammer eye candy (a messed up witch called Tanith, in this case). Hammer's best films are all of the same high quality, but this is my favourite mainly because of Charles Gray as the evil Mocata. I don't imagine Aleister Crowley was half as cool as him.
6) Frightmare (1974) - There's a strand of English horror movies made during the 60s and 70s that have a peculiar bleakness about them. They reject Hammer's rather obvious good-triumphs-over-evil stance and develop in rather more unpleasant directions. Witchfinder General is the most famous, perhaps, but there's also The Sorcerers, Death Line, Blood on Satan's Claw and Scream and Scream Again, all w
ell worth tracking down. Frightmare, however, is easily the most grim. Sheila Keith plays a mad old woman who eats people's brains. She lives with her despairing husband (Rupert Davies) and lures young women to their deaths. The couple have two daughters who live in London, and the power struggles within the family unit are the main theme of the film. The ending is genuinely horrifying. Very seedy, realistic English locations - it's almost an English version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Except that it doesn't have any chainsaws.
7) The Body Snatcher (1945) - It's not often that films made as early as 1945 actually make me feel uneasy. This one does. Set in 19th century Edinburgh, it's a tale of a body snatcher and the doctors who pay for his wares. It's based on a story by RL Stevenson, and is actually pretty accurate, historically. The reason that this film is so great is Boris Karloff. His performance as Gray, the body snatcher, is absolutely superb. He lisps in his sinister way, with the faintest trace of a Scots accent, genuinely making you fear for the safety of the other characters. Sends shivers down my spine every time. Karloff was the most versatile horror star of all time, and this is his finest role. The film does have its minus points, mind you. There's a really irritating little girl in it, and Bela Lugosi shambles through a few scenes, displaying his usual ignorance of the art of acting, well past his prime and obviously looking for his next fix. Still, these are minor annoyances when it comes down to it.
8) Dawn of the Dead (1978) - The second in George Romero's ground-breaking living dead trilogy. They're all great, but this one's my favourite. The dead have risen from their graves with a taste for human flesh. Following the isolated farm house setting for Night of the Living Dead, this one mostly takes place in a shopping mall. In the first film the hero does everything right but still loses i
n a big way. In this one, the characters do everything right - they clear the mall of the living dead in a very professional manner and live in safety - but, as with all three of the films, when things eventually go wrong it's because of human stupidity. A gang of idiotic Hell's Angels invade their boring little paradise world, letting the zombies in to run riot. Very gory, but not in the rather over-the-top way that Day of the Dead is. Pretty bleak in outlook - the human race is doomed - the film is shot through with black humour. Images of zombies shuffling mindlessly around a big shopping centre, calmed by the muzak - wow, do you think there's some kind of metaphor there?
9) The Curious Dr Humpp (1960s) - What can I say? This has been a favourite of mine since Channel 4 showed it a year ago. It's pretty much beyond the pale. I don't normally go for films that are so bad they're funny, but in this case I'll have to make an exception. It's a sci-fi/horror/soft core porn movie from Argentina. It's in black and white - I think it's from the mid to late 60s. A mad scientist is capturing young people in the act of having sex, then hooking them up to... well... some kind of machine which... erm... does... something. Ah, what the hell, I've no idea what Dr Humpp was trying to achieve, or even what he was curious about. Something to do with harnessing human sexuality to create an elixir of eternal youth, I think. This film has it all: lengthy sex scenes featuring some of the most unappealing actors and actresses I've ever seen in my life; large zombies shuffling around (and occasionally playing the guitar); absurdly cheap production values; atrocious dubbing; a talking brain in a jar; a man with a beard but no moustache (dunno why, that always delights me). I'm not going to try to defend this as a lost classic or anything, it's a worthless piece of junk. I love it.
10) Theatre of Blood (1973) - Vinc
ent Price as an embittered Shakespearean actor-manager type hunts down some critics (a bunch of classy character actors - Michael Horden, Harry Andrews, people like that) who slated his performances and kills them in Shakespearean ways (the deaths are taken from the plays in which he appeared). Everyone's favourite is the Titus Andronicus bit (substituting poodles for children). There are a few odd choices in there, mind you. I'm not sure who Price would have played in Cymbeline, or Henry VI part one (Talbot? I can't see it, somehow...). But still, all very entertaining. Diana Rigg's in it, too, as Price's daughter. One of those horror films where you really want the villain to win, as Price gives his most unrestrained performance. Probably the most successful mixture of comedy and horror, although Dr Phibes Rises Again comes close.
So there you have it. Ten horror films I really like. Lots of other films I could have mentioned but didn't have space: The Old Dark House, Nosferatu, Dracula AD 1972, Cannibal Holocaust, Martin, Bride of Frankenstein, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Peeping Tom, Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, Ring, The Wicker Man, King Kong and many more.
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