THE FILM PATROL

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

HORROR HARVEST: Part Thirteen: New masters for a new millennium

"Let the Right One In" -- a terrifying romance.

Horror films continue to come from unexpected places and fresh perspectives. Mexico brought us Guillermo del Toro; Sweden gave birth to “Let the Right One In.” Japan and South Korea continue a flood of horror offerings that are either released or remade in America. Low-budget innovators such as Lucky McKee and Bill Paxton and auteurs like Terry Gilliam still turn out disturbing narratives that push the boundaries.

Whether horror will continue to boom and blossom, or whether it will wither into a curio like the Western genre, will depend on the mood of the movie-going public and the inventiveness of writers and directors. It will remain fascinating because of the vicarious transgressions it lets us experience; because it posits a world beyond the mundane; because it dares us to look into our darkest depths.

Then it lets us go, at least nominally. Remember – it’s only a movie, it’s only a movie . . .

The Devil’s Backbone

Guillermo del Toro

2001

The Others

Alejandro Amenabar

2001

Bubba Ho-Tep

Don Coscarelli

2002

Frailty

Bill Paxton

2002

May

Lucky McKee

2002

Tideland

Terry Gilliam

2005

Pan’s Labyrinth

Guillermo del Toro

2006

The Host

Bong Joon-ho

2006

Grindhouse

Quentin Tarentino, Robert Rodriguez

2007

The Orphange

Juan Antonio Bayona

2007

Teeth

Mitchell Lichtenstein

2007

Let the Right One In

Tomas Alfredson

2008

Monday, November 14, 2011

HORROR HARVEST: Part Twelve: Art-house horrors, 1973-2000

"Don't Look Now" -- horror film as Cubist puzzle.

While mainstream horror blockbusters and a seemingly endless stream of highly graphic, cheaply made horror series were flooding the market in the last quarter of the 20^th century, a handful of filmmakers were producing a third line of product. Iconoclasts (Roeg), past masters (Russell, Zemeckis) and future horror superstars (del Toro, Jackson) were all crafting well-thought-out, innovative works that deserve a closer look.

The Wicker Man

Robin Hardy

1973

Don’t Look Now

Nicholas Roeg

1973

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

Nicolas Gessner

1976

Burnt Offerings

Dan Curtis

1976

The Changeling

Peter Medak

1980

Near Dark
Kathyrn Bigelow
1987

The Lair of the White Worm

Ken Russell

1988

Lady in White

Frank LaLoggia

1988

Jacob’s Ladder

Adrian Lyne

1990

Man Bites Dog

Remy Belvaux, Andre Bonzel, Benoit Poelvoorde

1992

Cronos

Guillermo del Toro

1993

Cemetery Man

Michele Soavi

1994

Heavenly Creatures

Peter Jackson

1994

What Lies Beneath

Robert Zemeckis

2000

Friday, November 11, 2011

HORROR HARVEST: Part Eleven: Horror goes mainstream; or, bring the kids!

Robert Shaw meets his comeuppance in "Jaws."

When horror moved from the drive-in to the multiplex, the trends that had dominated the early 1970s were ripe for harvest. The first major step towards Steven Spielberg’s present status as America’s most influential director was the phenomenal success of “Jaws.”

Although it is a thriller and an adventure film (with a touch of a tribute to Ibsen’s “Enemy of the People” as well as "Moby Dick") as well, it is in structure and tone a horror film. Its massive financial return created the “summer blockbuster” and made major studios decide to haul horror out of the ghetto, provide substantial funding, promotional and booking support, and seek out up-and-coming talents in the genre. The “Halloween,” “Friday the 13^th,” “Nightmare” and many other lesser film series (“Chucky,” “Leprechaun,” et al) all sprung from this impulse.

The seemingly unstoppable Jason from the "Friday the 13th" film series.

It didn't hurt that the most significant American horror writer since Edgar Allan Poe came along. Stephen King was not only in touch with the zeitgeist, he was prolific. His work was seemingly written with an eye to film adaptation -- dozens of books have been converted into film and/or television projects, some more than once. Whether it was the gimmicky menace of "The Mangler" or the epic post-apocalyptic vision of "The Stand," people found profit in putting it on screen.

It seemed that every established and aspiring director wanted a horror film on his or her resume.Kubrick, Nichols, Donner were among the honored directors who picked up the blood y mantle. More significantly, A-list actors such as Gregory Peck, Jack Nicholson, Brad Pitt and James Caan signed on to horror projects. Most significantly of all, in 1991 "The Silence of the Lambs" became the first horror and to date only horror film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The examples listed below are a representative selection of films that occupied the public consciousness as much or more than the more “legitimate” dramas, adventures, and comedies that used to hold sway.

All these mainstream efforts legitimized the grammar and content of film horror. Just as much of Spielberg's early work was a synthesis of classic-era movie tropes, so did the big-budget horror films subsume and build on the film work of the past. To some extent, they would overshadow and displace their ancestors in the filmgoing mind. It would take a self-conscious, post-modern era to bring back the memories of those progenitors.