I'm constantly afraid of talking out of my butt when it comes to this kind of a thing. Like, I am not a hardcore horror fan; most of my knowledge comes from friends who ARE and from the REALLY BAD flicks I saw when I was younger. But the genre as a huge whole fascinates me because of the willingness of directors and producers in the 'golden age' to try out weirdass filming and processing techniques and dig their elbows into the sides of what was 'acceptable' to show.
Now, it's completely acceptable to show gut splatterin' violence...provided the portrayer is American in origin. Don't get me started on the stricter standards that imported material is usually held up to. Just - I can seriously go on for ages. BUT ANYWAY it's become quite acceptable to show epic violence and gore everywhere in cinema. it's no longer shocking and the directors who think that the best way to be revolutionary is to HAVE MAOR SPLAT have forgotten the spirit of the age that made the initial splatsplatSPLAT as effective as it was. NOW for example we know to keep cameras the hell off the battlefield if we want our lunch to stay down. It's a lot easier to keep on telling the old lie (dulce et decorum est...) if you don't see the pro patria mori part. And there is a lot of mori.
The other thing is there seems to be this reluctance to have a major identification character now. Which - godDAMN people can't your brain? Argh - it's kind of important to have that kinda thing. What do you think made Blair Witch so damn successful? The fact that you could to easily put yourself in the characters' shoes, that you knew nothing more than they did. There was also some great playing on ingrained human fears/kid fears: SOMETHING BIG IN THE DARK IS COMING TO EAT YOU. (This is why the Destiny Island sequence of KH scares the dickens out of me still - that and the Shadows look a lot like weird little cricket critters I dreamed of when I was very small.) Back in the early days of kersplat, physical violence with guts was NEW. Nowadays - come on, we have those IRL Surgery Dude kinda shows on cable networks. We have CSI's TMI Cam, which showed up first in Three Kings (a Gulf War movie that made an effort, at least, at depicting 'their side' as also people). There's none of the novelty. We can see guts if we want to, and I find the TMI Cam worse than anything in current horror XD; That's again my relationship to medical shit talking.
(That, and the fact that I can no longer see TMI Cam stuff without remembering walking up the stairs while the TV was still in mom and dad's living room and I was still living at home - dad was watching one of the CSI series, and as I reach the top of the stairs, I hear my dad say cheerfully to the cat, "Look, Harley! Colonoscopy!" I almost fell back down the stairs.)
Blaaagh I dunno XD; I think the Silent Hill series (up to a point) and Resident Evil series (same) are a hell of a lot more successful than most horror stuff coming out in the mainstream now because of the HUGE identification factor. Also you can do more in a vidya gaem than in live action cinema, often. (And here is where I sigh over the Silent Hill movie missing just what it was that makes Pyramid Head so fucking scary - it's that he is inevitable. If you run away flailing, James will have a stamina clunk, get tired, and slow down...and good old PH just keeps plodding doggedly after James, knowing that he WILL catch up. He doesn't rush because he doesn't NEED TO. What he represents to James makes this even worse. /wanky) I dunno XD; most mainstream horror stuff now is bereft of something and the fact that everyone apparently thinks MAOR GUTZ is the solution to that is annoying.
ROFLMAO LONG COMMENT IS LONG! Back on topic - I'd always heard that Wicker Man was about that kinda thing, like - fanaticism of any kind usually ends in things and people becoming set on fire.
Man. Clips from the remake just - I hear P in my head muttering "This guy is the opposite of a good actor. He's the opposite of an ACTOR. SHUT UP NICHOLAS CAGE. Get off of my screeeeeeen." Because I am thinking the same thing.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2010-08-27 01:29 pm (UTC)I'm constantly afraid of talking out of my butt when it comes to this kind of a thing. Like, I am not a hardcore horror fan; most of my knowledge comes from friends who ARE and from the REALLY BAD flicks I saw when I was younger. But the genre as a huge whole fascinates me because of the willingness of directors and producers in the 'golden age' to try out weirdass filming and processing techniques and dig their elbows into the sides of what was 'acceptable' to show.
Now, it's completely acceptable to show gut splatterin' violence...provided the portrayer is American in origin. Don't get me started on the stricter standards that imported material is usually held up to. Just - I can seriously go on for ages. BUT ANYWAY it's become quite acceptable to show epic violence and gore everywhere in cinema. it's no longer shocking and the directors who think that the best way to be revolutionary is to HAVE MAOR SPLAT have forgotten the spirit of the age that made the initial splatsplatSPLAT as effective as it was. NOW for example we know to keep cameras the hell off the battlefield if we want our lunch to stay down. It's a lot easier to keep on telling the old lie (dulce et decorum est...) if you don't see the pro patria mori part. And there is a lot of mori.
The other thing is there seems to be this reluctance to have a major identification character now. Which - godDAMN people can't your brain? Argh - it's kind of important to have that kinda thing. What do you think made Blair Witch so damn successful? The fact that you could to easily put yourself in the characters' shoes, that you knew nothing more than they did. There was also some great playing on ingrained human fears/kid fears: SOMETHING BIG IN THE DARK IS COMING TO EAT YOU. (This is why the Destiny Island sequence of KH scares the dickens out of me still - that and the Shadows look a lot like weird little cricket critters I dreamed of when I was very small.) Back in the early days of kersplat, physical violence with guts was NEW. Nowadays - come on, we have those IRL Surgery Dude kinda shows on cable networks. We have CSI's TMI Cam, which showed up first in Three Kings (a Gulf War movie that made an effort, at least, at depicting 'their side' as also people). There's none of the novelty. We can see guts if we want to, and I find the TMI Cam worse than anything in current horror XD; That's again my relationship to medical shit talking.
(That, and the fact that I can no longer see TMI Cam stuff without remembering walking up the stairs while the TV was still in mom and dad's living room and I was still living at home - dad was watching one of the CSI series, and as I reach the top of the stairs, I hear my dad say cheerfully to the cat, "Look, Harley! Colonoscopy!" I almost fell back down the stairs.)
Blaaagh I dunno XD; I think the Silent Hill series (up to a point) and Resident Evil series (same) are a hell of a lot more successful than most horror stuff coming out in the mainstream now because of the HUGE identification factor. Also you can do more in a vidya gaem than in live action cinema, often. (And here is where I sigh over the Silent Hill movie missing just what it was that makes Pyramid Head so fucking scary - it's that he is inevitable. If you run away flailing, James will have a stamina clunk, get tired, and slow down...and good old PH just keeps plodding doggedly after James, knowing that he WILL catch up. He doesn't rush because he doesn't NEED TO. What he represents to James makes this even worse. /wanky) I dunno XD; most mainstream horror stuff now is bereft of something and the fact that everyone apparently thinks MAOR GUTZ is the solution to that is annoying.
ROFLMAO LONG COMMENT IS LONG! Back on topic - I'd always heard that Wicker Man was about that kinda thing, like - fanaticism of any kind usually ends in things and people becoming set on fire.
Man. Clips from the remake just - I hear P in my head muttering "This guy is the opposite of a good actor. He's the opposite of an ACTOR. SHUT UP NICHOLAS CAGE. Get off of my screeeeeeen." Because I am thinking the same thing.