Hollywood Horror Movies

Horror Films are unsettling films designed to frighten and panic, cause dread and alarm, and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience. Horror films effectively center on the dark side of life, the forbidden, and strange and alarming events. They deal with our most primal nature and its fears: our nightmares, our vulnerability, our alienation, our revulsions, our terror of the unknown, our fear of death and dismemberment, loss of identity, or fear of sexuality.

Whatever dark, primitive, and revolting traits that simultaneously attract and repel us are featured in the horror genre. Horror films are often combined with science fiction when the menace or monster is related to a corruption of technology, or when Earth is threatened by aliens. The fantasy and supernatural film genres are not synonymous with the horror genre, although thriller films may have some relation when they focus on the revolting and horrible acts of the killer/madman. Horror films are also known as chillers, scary movies, spookfests, and the macabre.

Introduction to Horror Films

Horror films go back as far as the onset of films themselves, over a 100 years ago. From our earliest days, we use our vivid imaginations to see ghosts in shadowy shapes, to be emotionally connected to the unknown and to fear things that are improbable. Watching a horror film gives an opening into that scary world, into an outlet for the essence of fear itself, without actually being in danger. Weird as it sounds, there's a very real thrill and fun factor in being scared or watching disturbing, horrific images.

Horror films, when done well and with less reliance on horrifying special effects, can be extremely potent film forms, tapping into our dream states and the horror of the irrational and unknown, and the horror within man himself. (The best horror films only imply or suggest the horror in subtle ways, rather than blatantly displaying it, i.e., Val Lewton's horror films.) In horror films, the irrational forces of chaos or horror invariably need to be defeated, and often these films end with a return to normalcy and victory over the monstrous.

Of necessity, the earliest horror films were Gothic in style - meaning that they were usually set in spooky old mansions, castles, or fog-shrouded, dark and shadowy locales. Their main characters have included "unknown," human, supernatural or grotesque creatures, ranging from vampires, demented madmen, devils, unfriendly ghosts, monsters, mad scientists, "Frankensteins," "Jekyll/Hyde" dualities, demons, zombies, evil spirits, arch fiends, Satanic villains, the "possessed," werewolves and freaks to even the unseen, diabolical presence of evil.

Horror films developed out of a number of sources: folktales with devil characters, witchcraft, fables, myths, ghost stories, Grand Guignol melodramas, and Gothic or Victorian novels from Europe by way of Mary Shelley or Irish writer Bram Stoker. In many ways, the expressionistic German silent cinema led the world in films of horror and the supernatural, and established its cinematic vocabulary and style.

I know that the subject of remakes has been beat more than one of Michael Vick’s pooches (too soon?), but is also a subject that is not going to go away in the near future. A quick glance of the slated horror releases for the next few years has no fewer than 12 remakes including The Birds, Evil Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser…I could go on.

As fans of the genre, of course we hate the idea of remakes. What ever happened to the saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”? So many of our favorites are getting makeovers, and then the makeovers are getting their own sequels? What the hell is up with that? Kinda bullshit. There are also those remakes, however, that I think are allowed. A film that was released over 50 years ago, in my opinion, is eligible for a remake, or “reimagining.” Take Wolfman for example. Judging from the posts on the discussion board on this site, I’m not the only one absolutely stoked for the release of the remake. I saw the trailer, and there are clearly scenes that are an homage to the original, but I’d bet my entire savings account ($223.24 – ugh, no wonder I’m single) that less than 5% of people who go see the film in December have seen the original Lon Cheney version. This is the situation where a studio exec can say that they’re bringing an old story to a new generation, and I’ll actually buy it. When they try to use that line when referring to a remake of a movie made in the 80’s, however, it makes me want to punch them in the side of the neck.

So why all the remakes? None of us are idiots, we know it’s all about the $. Studio heads, or at least their Development heads, have been groomed in the Hollywood system, and taught that they have one job, and that one job is to bring in revenue to the studio. I’ve heard many a complaint about the fact that nobody in Hollywood has creativity anymore, or that everyone only cares about the money. I don’t necessarily think that is the case. It’s just that the people with the creativity aren’t the ones making the decisions.

Hollywood is not run by fans of horror; it’s not even run by fans of movies in general. The 1990’s ultimately destroyed the original horror film. It was in the 90’s that big companies got bigger, ate other companies, then merged with other big companies to become uber-companies. Studio execs were hired to improve the bottom line, not create good product. This is when focus groups, trends, and statistics started deciding what movies got made. An exec knows in order to keep his job, he’s got to greenlight movies than bring back big returns. Knowing his job is on the line, of course he’s going to pick a sure thing over a creative, potentially great idea.

Had I walked into Lionsgate with a pitch for The Blair Witch Project, they would have smiled and escorted me out of the building. (Actually, they’d say “We really like it, let us talk internally to our finance people, and get back to you with the company go-ahead right away.” Then I’d wait 3 weeks, try to call, and they’d refuse to return any of my messages, and I’d never hear from them again. Seriously.) But when Blair Witch hit big on the festival circuit, all of a sudden it got scooped up by Artisan, an affiliate of Lionsgate, and went on to be the biggest grossing independent film of all time to that point. It wasn’t until the execs physically saw the impact the film had that they got on board.

This signified the beginning of the age of horror we are now in. Every decent horror film comes either from another country, or an independent producer. When GE and Time Warner and their kind took over Hollywood, they eliminated creativity and passion from the upper echelons of studio management and replaced it with words like profit margin, corporate sponsorship, and investment returns. A whole lot of rich people looking to get richer.

We are a massive fan base with more passion and creativity than any of the suits in Hollywood could ever imagine having. We long for them to create weird, different, off the wall, original films, the likes of which we’ve never seen – but words like “weird” and “different” don’t work next to words like “investment returns,” so instead, they give us a sequel to the “reimagining” of Friday the 13th because their “stats” say that’s what will make us stuff our hard-earned money into their pockets.

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