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October is once again upon us, a time when many of us collectively celebrate Halloween and our love of being scared by watching horror films. Horror is a subjective term, I find, because not everyone would lump, say, a monster film such as KING KONG (1933), into the genre. Myself, I think that’s a mistake. For me, horror has always been any film (or other work of art) conceived and executed with the intention of thrilling and shocking and terrifying and making people gasp or cover their eyes or turn away or simply scream. It evolves with the passage of time, sure, and what once left audiences fainting in theaters might seem quaint. But the intention of the filmmakers remains. Which brings me to this week’s question:
What’s your favorite horror film and why?
Mine is NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968). I saw it for the first time around eleven years old, and it still makes my skin crawl today. The gut punch of its ending never fails to make me sick to my stomach. Fifty-five years later, it sadly remains as socially relevant as ever.
I’ve got three and I can’t decide. The Thing by John Carpenter, so tense and horrifying, and the most beautiful remake ever made. A Nightmare on Elm Street by Wes Craven, because the idea of a killer acting in dreams is pure cinematic genius. And then Ringu by Hideo Nakata the first and scarier J-horror I’ve ever seen, because it scared the hell out of me, it made me relate to Sadako, the monster, but yet kept her menacing and scary and it was so metalinguistic: a demon in a vhs coming out of the tv... wow!
In a week or so, I'm going to share another one of my script link compilations. I specifically cite THE THING as a masterpiece of economical storytelling. The story just explodes on to the screen, drops you into it with no explanation, and never lets up. It's...I would dare say *perfect*. As for NIGHTMARE, I heartily agree. I actually got to work with Wes Craven on a project that was interrupted by his death. One of the great honors of my career.
The Wicker Man, without question. I came to it relatively late after years of seeing black and white stills in magazines and books and fell in love within the first few minutes. The folklore. The humour. The songs. These days I only watch The Final Cut as it makes so much more sense than the butchered original cut.
This film has such significance in my life. I developed a TV adaptation of Thomas De Quincey's SUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS with Dario Argento. Sort of a marriage of his inspiration for SUSPIRIA and my passion for gothic literature. The so-called "wicker man" played a huge role in that story because of the impact the film itself had on me. It lives, as they say, rent-free in my imagination.
'Night of the Living Dead' had a profound impact on me as a cinephile. As a Black teen girl, I first saw it growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood, city, and state. The social commentary remains relevant, just as it did over fifty years ago. Prior to that, horror movies were a visual form of escapism, offering plenty of blood and gore to please. Romero, however, crafted something much more unsettling than your typical zombie flick. He brought to light the suffocating hatred that exists in this country, even in the most dire circumstances. Romero dared me to demand more from horror films and to admire risk-taking directors in the genre. The decision to cast Duane Jones, a Black man, as the lead in 1968 was likely met with resistance. According to Romero, Jones secured the role because was the best actor who auditioned, plain and simple. Romero and Jones changed horror history with a character that wasn’t characterized by his race and as fans of the genre, we’re all better for it.
Duane Jones's performance in this film is superb because, as you say, it's not characterized by race. He just...acts. He just is. His skin color, on screen, is another matter. While I don't think Romero set out to make a film about race, his fearlessness about how he cast the film became a statement in and of itself. It imbued moments, such as him slapping a white girl, with a power that shocked. 1968: to imagine a Black man as the cool, collected, mature adult in the room and the hysterical white girl -- previously, the kind of girl who might've pointed a finger at him and got him lynched -- being put in her place by him is almost as powerful, if not more so, than the conclusion of the film in my mind. In many ways, Jones is a prototype for the decision to cast Sigourney Weaver as Ripley. A role that could've easily been played by a man (in other words, gender blind casting as Jones was race-blind cast). But in casting her, she became the sane woman at the center of a ship full of (almost all) men slowly losing their minds. Anyway, I'm rambling. I should probably write something about contrasting these two performances and their resonance in pop-culture. Thanks for sharing!
I’ve got three and I can’t decide. The Thing by John Carpenter, so tense and horrifying, and the most beautiful remake ever made. A Nightmare on Elm Street by Wes Craven, because the idea of a killer acting in dreams is pure cinematic genius. And then Ringu by Hideo Nakata the first and scarier J-horror I’ve ever seen, because it scared the hell out of me, it made me relate to Sadako, the monster, but yet kept her menacing and scary and it was so metalinguistic: a demon in a vhs coming out of the tv... wow!
In a week or so, I'm going to share another one of my script link compilations. I specifically cite THE THING as a masterpiece of economical storytelling. The story just explodes on to the screen, drops you into it with no explanation, and never lets up. It's...I would dare say *perfect*. As for NIGHTMARE, I heartily agree. I actually got to work with Wes Craven on a project that was interrupted by his death. One of the great honors of my career.
The Wicker Man, without question. I came to it relatively late after years of seeing black and white stills in magazines and books and fell in love within the first few minutes. The folklore. The humour. The songs. These days I only watch The Final Cut as it makes so much more sense than the butchered original cut.
This film has such significance in my life. I developed a TV adaptation of Thomas De Quincey's SUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS with Dario Argento. Sort of a marriage of his inspiration for SUSPIRIA and my passion for gothic literature. The so-called "wicker man" played a huge role in that story because of the impact the film itself had on me. It lives, as they say, rent-free in my imagination.
'Night of the Living Dead' had a profound impact on me as a cinephile. As a Black teen girl, I first saw it growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood, city, and state. The social commentary remains relevant, just as it did over fifty years ago. Prior to that, horror movies were a visual form of escapism, offering plenty of blood and gore to please. Romero, however, crafted something much more unsettling than your typical zombie flick. He brought to light the suffocating hatred that exists in this country, even in the most dire circumstances. Romero dared me to demand more from horror films and to admire risk-taking directors in the genre. The decision to cast Duane Jones, a Black man, as the lead in 1968 was likely met with resistance. According to Romero, Jones secured the role because was the best actor who auditioned, plain and simple. Romero and Jones changed horror history with a character that wasn’t characterized by his race and as fans of the genre, we’re all better for it.
Duane Jones's performance in this film is superb because, as you say, it's not characterized by race. He just...acts. He just is. His skin color, on screen, is another matter. While I don't think Romero set out to make a film about race, his fearlessness about how he cast the film became a statement in and of itself. It imbued moments, such as him slapping a white girl, with a power that shocked. 1968: to imagine a Black man as the cool, collected, mature adult in the room and the hysterical white girl -- previously, the kind of girl who might've pointed a finger at him and got him lynched -- being put in her place by him is almost as powerful, if not more so, than the conclusion of the film in my mind. In many ways, Jones is a prototype for the decision to cast Sigourney Weaver as Ripley. A role that could've easily been played by a man (in other words, gender blind casting as Jones was race-blind cast). But in casting her, she became the sane woman at the center of a ship full of (almost all) men slowly losing their minds. Anyway, I'm rambling. I should probably write something about contrasting these two performances and their resonance in pop-culture. Thanks for sharing!