Zwaarddijk wrote:

Varangian wrote:Just because we are underwhelmed by movie plots founded in superstition?

No, but you rationalize this underwhelmedness the way you do, without any real tangible proof that this is the reason you dislike it. Maybe you've just grown out of liking that kind of movie. Or whatever. Some of you do seem as though you're implying a good atheist should necessarily dislike that kind of movie - I know several good atheists that do like that kind of movie. Your rationalization seems a tad hollow and a bit like you're trying too hard to find things about supernaturalism to pick on.

Whatever floats your boat.

Animavore wrote:
Interest is piqued.

Oh - sorry, I didn't mean that the movies induced hallucinations; that would be something!
I meant within the plot, that the characters are in a world that is not what it seems (or that they see the world differently from how it really is), and that the fright is based on more mental phenomena than ghouls and goblins and dead corpses running around. That said, I do enjoy a good zombie move now and then.

The thing is, and I forgot to mention this, that I can still be scared momentarily by the supernatural kind of horror movies, but now it's more because I'm afraid my brain may conjure up these things, and a bad experience is a bad experience, imagined or not. Not that it's happened so far.

It's not necessarily the religious that find movies more scary, but people who accept the possibility or even believe in ghosts. None of my friends are religious but they're all idiots, so are easily convinced and frightened by ghost/supernatural horrors just because it "might" be true.

Animavore wrote:That crab walk bit of The Exorcist freaked me out. And even the brief appearances of Captain Howdy in the background made me flinch slightly. But for the most part I found it funny.
I don't usually watch 'serious' horror because it never does what it sets out to achieve for me. Comedy horror like Evil Dead and Brain Dead is a genre I can watch. At least it doesn't try to pretend that horror isn't a farce.

Yeah, the crabwalk was very creepy. It's interesting that it was cut from the theatrical release. Not because it was too scary, as I recall Friedkin (the director) saying, but because it ruined the pacing of that scene - it introduced one too many shocks within a few seconds of each other, thus diluting the effect.

About comedy horror: I grew up with Sam Raimi and his brother Ted. For those of you who don't know, Sam directed the Evil Dead series, Darkman, Drag Me to Hell, and the Spiderman series. Ted played Joxer on Zena: Warrior Princess. Sam was a little older than me; Ted and I were classmates. We used to make home movies, and also comedy audio sketches using my dad's old open-reel tape recorder. It was great fun. And I'm glad to see that they're continuing to do what we did as kids - and getting rich and famous for it!

Anyway, I can tell you that the comedy side of "comedy horror" was of paramount importance. We really wanted things to be funny - especially in a really bad, cheezy style. One big influence was the Three Stooges.

Animavore wrote:

The_Metatron wrote:

Animavore wrote:You know a horror has lost its appeal when they bring it to space.

Are you kidding, man? Alien scared the crap out of me when I first saw it.

Oh I was speaking about films like Hellraiser, Friday the 13th, The Leprechaun, Critters and even Dracula which have all been brought into the future and/or into space out of desperation.

I am reminded of the epic poo fest that was Event Horizon.

Denny wrote:The plot of the movie wouldn't scare me but the sudden transition to a contorted face eating the bloody skull of a baby would. Most movies rely on this tactic. I haven't seen a movie with a genuinely scary plot in a long, long time.

Have you seen The Thing ? Not the original, but John Carpenter's remake. It has some of the most grotesque and disturbing special effects I've ever seen*. In fact, many of the early reviews panned the movie for being way too grisly.

But I don't think that's where the film gets its power. It comes from, as you say, a genuinely scary plot. And fine acting. And most of all, a slow, relentless pacing underscored by very effective music.

All in all, a very underrated film.


*All the more impressive, in that they were done before computer graphics; these were all done the old-fashioned way, with makeup, models, etc.

orpheus wrote:[snip] (lots of awesome)

That's cool. coincidentally I got Drag Me to Hell today. Afilm which never interested me when I saw the trailer as I generally don't like horror then someone on Rationalia mentioned it and how much like Evil Dead it was. If I had've noticed it was Sam Raimi I would've watched it sooner. Will be watching tonight.

The_Metatron wrote:

Animavore wrote:

The_Metatron wrote:
Are you kidding, man? Alien scared the crap out of me when I first saw it.

Oh I was speaking about films like Hellraiser, Friday the 13th, The Leprechaun, Critters and even Dracula which have all been brought into the future and/or into space out of desperation.

I am reminded of the epic poo fest that was Event Horizon.

I liked that movie and was generally scared by it

orpheus wrote:

Denny wrote:The plot of the movie wouldn't scare me but the sudden transition to a contorted face eating the bloody skull of a baby would. Most movies rely on this tactic. I haven't seen a movie with a genuinely scary plot in a long, long time.

Have you seen The Thing ? Not the original, but John Carpenter's remake. It has some of the most grotesque and disturbing special effects I've ever seen*. In fact, many of the early reviews panned the movie for being way too grisly.

But I don't think that's where the film gets its power. It comes from, as you say, a genuinely scary plot. And fine acting. And most of all, a slow, relentless pacing underscored by very effective music.

All in all, a very underrated film.


*All the more impressive, in that they were done before computer graphics; these were all done the old-fashioned way, with makeup, models, etc.

If you want to watch it now, I just found it on Youtube. Cut into parts, of course, and not on the big screen. So it loses something. Even so, I was knocked out all over again; right at the outset, these first ten minutes manage to establish an incredibly ominous sense of end-of-the-world foreboding.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai1T3KMRMpg[/youtube]

To tie this in to the subject of this thread, The Thing is notable in that it relies on no supernatural elements. It's farfetched, but rather "sciencey".

David Cronenberg has a good line in non-supernatural horror.

After watching Drag Me to Hell I don't think my atheism effected my enjoyment of it. I think movies tap into a primordial sense of fear which has nothing to do with religion. That feeling of being watched or of something bad about to happen. Of grotesqueness, plight, pestilence and attack. Bodily invasion. Loss of control of the body and mind. Danger percieved rather than real and terror that comes to us in dreams.

Zwaarddijk wrote:Some of you do seem as though you're implying a good atheist should necessarily dislike that kind of movie

I didn't read the posts that way. Indeed, it seemed to me that some were saying they enjoy such movies more because they find them less scary. I'd put myself in that boat.

I think the OP suggestion that religious horror is wasted on atheists is overstating the case though. Just because you're not scared out of your wits by something doesn't mean you don't enjoy it or that it's wasted on you.

I also think there is more than one type of "scared" that comes from such movies. One is the shock of a sudden scene change to a horrifying spectacle - such as Animavore's Exorcist crab-walk or Denny's bloody cannibal scene (usually accompanied by a suitably chilling, dissonant, orchestral thump). The shock reaction to that is almost universal, regardless of one's metaphysical beliefs. Another is the type of fear that stays with you long after the movie is finished, especially in the dark in the small hours of the night. It's that second type of fear that I think depends upon one regarding the story as at least partly plausible. I suspect many people enjoy, in some sense, the first sort of fear but I doubt there are many who consider the second to be a good thing.

orpheus wrote:

Denny wrote:The plot of the movie wouldn't scare me but the sudden transition to a contorted face eating the bloody skull of a baby would. Most movies rely on this tactic. I haven't seen a movie with a genuinely scary plot in a long, long time.

Have you seen The Thing ? Not the original, but John Carpenter's remake. It has some of the most grotesque and disturbing special effects I've ever seen*. In fact, many of the early reviews panned the movie for being way too grisly.

But I don't think that's where the film gets its power. It comes from, as you say, a genuinely scary plot. And fine acting. And most of all, a slow, relentless pacing underscored by very effective music.

All in all, a very underrated film.


*All the more impressive, in that they were done before computer graphics; these were all done the old-fashioned way, with makeup, models, etc.

One of the best horror films ever made!

In the real world god, satan, demons ,angels etc don't exist, but when I go to the movies I don't go to see the real world I go to see a fantasy one where such things do definitely exist (cos the writer says they do). Quite simply God, Satan and the anti-christ exist in the world of the Omen making it a great film (obviously not the remake(

Have to agree that the suspension of disbelief is key - whether you are a believer only affects this suspension if the filmmaker is so slack as to make his film dependent on it, either because the world he has created within the film is so dissonent that some pre-existing belief is necessary for you not to notice or because it has a preachy tone that would break the illusion unless you agree with it.

---

I'm going to make some enemies and say John Carpenter's Thing is massively overrated*, because we see too much of the creature, too early and too often, and the effects don't live up to the story. Alien was much better because, for most of the film, we just got glimpes - Jaws worked for the same reason.

(*yes, I am aware of the possible innuendo in this sentence)

rJD wrote:

I'm going to make some enemies and say John Carpenter's Thing is massively overrated*, because we see too much of the creature, too early and too often, and the effects don't live up to the story. Alien was much better because, for most of the film, we just got glimpes - Jaws worked for the same reason.

(*yes, I am aware of the possible innuendo in this sentence)

I think Alien and Jaws worked very well for the reason you give; I just think The Thing was up to something else altogether, and worked on its own terms. It wasn't really a "monster" movie, as the other two were. The core of it was a "Ten Little Indians" type thing: who is it going to be next? Who isn't who he says he is?

By the way, your possible innuendo is hilarious.

The paranoia element of Carpenter's Thing is really good - I just got distracted by how crappy the monster looked and the film never recovered for me; it would have been much better if they'd given us less of it.

A film where I thought the breaking of disbelief damaged a movie in a slightly different way was Moon. This starts off really terrific paranoid stuff but, when the twist is revealed halfway through, the paranoia is lost and the simply ridiculous nature of the twist broke my engagement with the film, just as seeing the monster did with the Thing. It was still entertaining, but the second half of the film was not nearly so entertaining as the first. Once that immersion in the film's world is broken, something is lost.

I believe that horror films are those films who are most depending on their story and way of telling it than in other genres, since very few viewers watch them in purpose of seeing a well-made and interesting film worth analysing, stare themselves blind at all the innovative angles that are used or the brilliant dialouge, no - they want to be scared right out of their pants, and if constant entertainment seems absent they will probably turn it all off.
So personally, I will probably not feel a genuine interest in a movie where the antagonist is portrayed with evilness and satan, but I will probably feel uncomfortable by unequal looking characters or sudden noise.
Otherwise, as an atheist, I find psycological horror the most terrifying, because it is most likely to be around. That's why I did like Rosemary's baby, it wasn't really about convincing the audience that there are evil babies out there, but about a regular person losing her mind. A metamorphosis is always interesting. Thereby, if a person develops throughout a movie and becomes "obsessed" with religious phenomenon, that can be as scary and interesting, since the obsession of surreal things are something common in our human species.