Talk:Horror film/Archive1

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Contents

Eras of Horror

I don't think the seperation of films into decades works to well in discussion of the Horror Film. I've seen a more accurate (IMO) breakdown of the eras of Horror done as such: Early Horror (1890-1920s) - Not much typifies this era beyond the first timid steps done by a few filmakers, mostly in Europe with such films as The Cabinet of Dr. Calligari. Gothic Horror (1930s-1940s), the era of Universal Horror films. Drive-in Era (1950s-1968) where horror was often mixed with Science Fiction, Appocalyptic Horror (1968-1996) beginning with Psycho and Night of the Living Dead, the Appocalyptic film typifies most of the genre themes played upon in Scream and other things such as inept authority, isolated heroes, "the Final Girl", a growing reliance on shock-horror/gore, etc. Unfortunately, this breakdown does not yet have a title for our current age of horror, so it's usefullness is debatable. --Majin Gojira

That makes a quicker overview. But it seems to me that, looking back on the past half-century, you can see some trends that were roughly unique to one decade or other. That's only rough, mind you, since admittedly not much is worth noting about some decades. IE, the 90s were a bit barren (though, in retrospect, you can find a few strands of interest -- ie, east-inspired occult horror stuff ala Ringu; various remakes, like Dawn of the Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre; and a turn towards dark fantasy). "Millenial horror", I agree, was just added for completeness's sake.
Anyway, if you make modifications that don't toss out the observations made on the page, I don't think people will mind that much. But I must highlight that I certainly think that a lot more happened in the 68-96 period than just apocalyptic films. The rise of awful slasher films is one noteworthy example. Lucidish 00:42, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Should we dump the naming of years/decades altogether in the headings, since there's so much overlap among decades and trends? Meaning, decades and trends don't line up terribly well all the time. Then the main text would take care of setting the timeframe. Maybe a bad idea, just a thought. Michael Wells 22:37, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Evil Dead

I don't see an easy answer, but why is Evil Dead mentioned under the banner of the 1990's? Parts one and two both came out in the 80's and hardly seem representative of "90's horror" if we use the example of Scream. --Feitclub 14:56, Sep 5, 2004 (UTC)

i changed it. there is still some out-of-place films like "rosemarys baby" in the 70s and "silence of the lambs" in the 1960s, but couldnt find a nice way to rewrite them into the correct decade. Niz 22:05, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Sympathetic monsters?

I don't know enough about the subject to meaningfully contribute, but should there be a mention of sympathetic monsters, like King Kong? And were there any significant horror films in the 1940s? (Even if no, it should be mentioned.) 68.81.231.127 00:07, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe that Night of the Living Dead was refered to as a shocker. Was this in reference to it being shocking or a bad film? Very little history on the movie that changed the face of the genre. Shouldn't its impact be noted somewhere?

i added a bit more about it Niz 22:05, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

re: Sympathetic monsters

here is a list of some significant and popular horror movies of the 40's:

The Mummy's Hand '40, The Wolf Man '41, Cat People '42, Ghost of Frankenstein '42, The Mummy's Tomb '42, I Walked With A Zombie '43, Son Of Dracula '43, Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man '43, House Of Frankenstein '44, The Mummy's Curse '44, The Mummy's Ghost '44, Return Of The Vampire '44, Isle Of The Dead '45, The Body Snatcher '45, The Picture Of Dorian Gray '45, House Of Dracula '45, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein '48

POV Issues

A lot of changes have been made to this article recently in the mistaken belief that horror films can only be about the supernatural. References to sci-fi films, The Fly, Frankenstein, The Silence of the Lambs and Alien have all been removed. I reinstated them because this is totally wrong, horror films don't have to be about the supernatural. I have also removed these intensely POV paragraphs written by someone pushing the case for the separation of "psycho films" from horror films:

"More ludicrously, it has sometimes been used to umbrella films which don't even go that far, but are simply made by people associated with horror film production, such as the Sherlock Holmes films of Universal Pictures Co. Inc.."

"One result of the common appeal of these two genres with the same audience was the tendency of fans, and fans-turned-film-scholars, to not discriminate between true horror films and their feel-alike compatriots in the psycho genre, a problem which remains today in film study."

JW 15:28, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed the same thing and edited the intro accordingly. Thanks for spotting the things I missed. Lucidish 18:15, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
I think there are a lot of POV issues here even aside from the egregious examples above. The bit on Coppola's Dracula, for one example, is virtually content-free - it's just gushing, with vague adjectives like "brilliant." It's easy to get carried away writing about movies you love - I've done it - but I think this sort of thing needs to get reduced on a lot of the film pages. Michael Wells 17:44, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Hah. My fault on that. I couldn't think of anything else to write. I think it was partially out of shame for having overlooked such a momentous flick. Lucidish 02:09, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
actually it wasnt very momentous - it had virtually no influence, got bad reviews, disappointing boxoffice, is not remembere much today, and people thought at the time it would revive all the old universal monsters but it didnt! i left it in but removed the gushing stuff. Niz 22:05, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Edit it as you please. However, your assessments of critical reaction is totally off base. Rotten Tomatoes has Dracula at an 87% rating -- nothing to sneeze at. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bram_stokers_dracula/ Lucidish 22:59, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

David Friedman? Try H.G. Lewis

This is really strange: the films Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs are described as David Friedman movies. David Friedman was a producer on these, whereas the director/writer (and auteur, if you want to call him that) was Herschell Gordon Lewis,who is a truly significant figure in horror history and the one who ought to be mentioned here. Furthermore, the David Friedman wikilinked is a libertarian economist, not a horror movie producer. Not that you couldn't be both, but apparently he isn't. I'm just going to change it. Weird... Michael Wells 17:36, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Nice start, but this page wants to be bigger!

Well, obviously I'm thinking of wading in and doing some revision on this page or I wouldn't be posting all these discussion comments. But I wanted to throw out some general thoughts and get a little feedback.

This page is a nice start with some thoughtful content, but I feel like it needs to be expanded quite a bit further. Where do people feel the appropriate balance is between succinctness and thoroughness? There are many more threads and major figures of horror history that deserve mention. And I think we need more mention of horror traditions from outside the Anglo-American ones - Mexican horror movies, for example. Japanese horror had a long and distinguished tradition before the Ringu era. Italian horror certainly merits a little more description - there isn't much point in mentioning a trend if we don't at least note in passing what it made it distinctive and important. (And on that note, why is Sergio Leone mentioned in regard to Italian horror, but Bava and Argento aren't? Did Leone even make any horror films? This seems like a mistake.) There certainly ought to be at least a few lines on the controversies of the last thirty years over horror film violence (particularly the "video nasties" debate in the UK), but I think others probably know more than I on that topic. In fact, how about more in general on the social contexts of horror in various eras? Blah blah, etc. Thoughts of fellow Wikipedians solicited and appreciated. Michael Wells 18:02, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

The article limit is about 30K of text. If it gets past that, it's best to cannibalize the article into smaller ones.
You're right about this being Anglo-centered, I had noticed that last time. But being admittedly quite ignorant of the genre in other nations, and with other commitments, was not willing / able to do anything of it. Any insight I have is based of vague memories of Stephen King's Danse Macabre. Additions are always welcome, of course.
Social contexts can always be addressed in the main blurbs, i.e. for Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the Cold War. Lucidish 02:18, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
did a massive rewrite today, including lots of subgenres, important films etc. still not enough on international horror trends though (too american-centred). Niz 22:05, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
This article seems to be particularly at risk from horror fan boys adding their favourite films and directors, and constant POV stuff that has to be removed. If it's in danger of getting too long I would suggest removing the notables section, or at least "notable films", as most of these will be mentioned in the article anyway if they really are notable. JW 10:35, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
exactly! i did remove all entries in the "notable people and films" section that were already mentioned in the main text but see discussion below - they've now come back! if i get agreement, i'll remove the already-mentioned ones again. Niz 10:42, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
IIRC, it looks like you added year-of-release citations for all the movies, too, something that I was going to say was badly needed. I'd also like to put out the idea of including nationality citations in those (relatively infrequent) cases where it isn't obvious from the context. Ex: Suspiria (1975, Italy). We also BADLY need a references list, plus reference citations in the text. Checking references will help cut down on spurious information and other fanboyish mistakes. A lot of the folks who've worked on this page must have horror film reference books on the shelf; me, I'm kinda surprised, now that I look, at how few I have. Unfortunately, it's become apparent that since the site software upgrade, I need to upgrade my operating system and web browser on my home computer (which I'd been meaning to do anyway) before I can edit pages properly. I'm mostly typing these comments during breaks at work, so it's tough to put my money where my mouth is at the moment. [Insert sheepish shrug.] I'd hope others could run with some of this stuff in the meantime. Michael Wells 22:34, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
yep i added the years. i think all the films mentioned in the main text (apart from Ringu, and maybe Hellraiser and Nosferatu and the Hammer Horror films) are american though. as for references, i have the "timeout film guide" from 1991, will that do? unfortunately i dont know how to do references correctly, i would need some examples to follow! Niz 00:25, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Re: nationality citations: I meant as a general rule, going forward, when hopefully we add more foreign stuff. There is a page about citations and references somewhere in the tutorial; I'd give you the link, which I have bookmarked at home, except that I'm at work. Ask at Help/Contact Us and someone will point you there. Time OUt Film guide is fine for basic details like cast and release dates and such, but we need more than that for deeper stuff on horror film specifically. Michael Wells 15:21, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
To clarify further re. citations: one certainly doesn't need to cite sources in the text for stuff like release dates, etc., basic data that can be had from any number of sources. (Still, if you're using the TO Film Guide to check this and other stuff, it couldn't hurt to list it under a list of References at the end of the article - it would be a start.) But for less commonplace information - and especially for analytical observations such as, for example, that '50s sci fi/horror films were reflective of Cold War anxieties - we need to cite sources and authorities. This isn't supposed to be a page of our personal observations, but a compilation of authoritative information. So we need authorities. As the official shpiel at the Wikipedia tutorial says, authoritative sources vastly increase the credibility of a page for people who come here wanting information - and using them obviously can improve a page's professionalism and the strength of its facts and interpretations. My endlessly useful copy of Phil Hardy's Encyclopedia of Horror Movies will certainly be cited on here once I get around to it. Michael Wells 17:50, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Nod; if the "noteables" section were to be jettisonned, I wouldn't cry over it. Lucidish 23:02, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Editing Notables etc

Niz: Can I ask what your reasoning was behind editing Notable actors, directors etc? It appeared to be totally arbitrary. I am re-adding some of the most important names you deleted.

Also, could you use the Preview button a bit more? I had to trawl back through pages and pages of history to trace all the changes you made, where if you'd just previewed instead of publishing, it would be a lot fairer on other users.

Cheers! David L Rattigan 0825 2005 JULY 21 GMT

I have now re-edited the notables sections. I selected those films, actors and directors that were important or influential within the genre. For those I wasn't familiar with, I followed the links and read the entries to gauge whether they were just someone's personal favourite or were truly "notable". David L Rattigan 0839 2005 JULY 21 GMT
i removed any people or films that were already mentioned in the main text, to avoid unnecessary duplication... so that section becomes "Other notable people and films". Niz 10:34, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
I can see an argument for either way. I can see people coming to the horror film entry and jumping to the "Notables" lists in order to track down entries, in which case it would be good to include all the notable names and titles. On the other hand, the Notables lists can become terribly long and unwieldy if they're not limited to people not noted in the main text. Um, was that helpful? Michael Wells 19:46, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Geographical bias

Added tag coz I think more could be done to include non-Hollywood and non-Anglophone films. We should encourage anyone with knowledge of these to contribute. 213.202.148.158 18:25, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Misogyny? Huh?

"The horror film genre is often associated with low budgets, misogyny, and exploitation, but major studios and well-respected directors have made intermittent forays into the genre. Some horror films exhibit a substantial amount of coexistence with other genres, particularly science fiction and fantasy."

How is the horror film genre associated with misogyny? I mean, I know there are a few feminazis out there who think that the people who make these films, and the men who watch them, have some kind of sick fettish for seeing women get abused and battered, but they read misogyny into everything. These folks would accuse breakfast cereals of misogyny if they could figure out a way to do it.

I'll admit that horror films use exploitation -- glamorous blondes in the early years, tomboyish virgins with androgynous names in the 80's, etc., always coinciding with whatever the current perception of the "ideal" woman is in the minds of male movie-goers, but this is exactly why accusations of misogyny are so laughable. The fact is, a male viewer isn't going to give a darn if a male protagonist lives or dies. But the cute girl? He wants her to live. It's not just exploitation of women that occurs in horror movies, but exploitation of the male protective instinct that these idealized women provoke. Most men just don't want to see harm come to an attractive, plucky young girl.

It isn't as if it takes a Harvard professor to understand something this basic. How accusations of "misogyny" could sustain themselves in light of such an obvious (and much simpler) explanation probably has less to do with the merits of the accusations themselves than with the fact that many, many young women -- who eventually grow up to level such accusations -- are very obviously (and very outwardly, as much as they attempt to hide it) jealous of the fact that their boyfriends seem to actually care about the women on screen. Any casual on-looker can see that girls tend to get hostile when they see their boyfriends cheering on the female protagonist in a horror movie. And it's probably a lot easier for these girls/women to accuse men of nefarious, misogynistic motivations than it is for them to face their own insecurities, and own up to something so ridiculous as being jealous of fictional characters. Don't believe this happens? Look at the controversy in previous years over the Tomb Raider video grame franchise. --Corvun 20:05, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

the word 'misogyny' was added v. recently (by an anonymous author i think). the Final Girl concept is certainly a strong argument against misogyny in horror films. the other preconception, that the films are targetted at male audiences, is also pretty inaccurate, Ringu et al had a mainly young teenage girl audience. Niz 23:55, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
There's no doubt that the female audience is the backbone of the horror film industry. One could argue that men, being predisposed to violence, are less easily frightened than female viewers. Not sure if that's the real reason, but in any event, it's the girls that the horror film-makers are trying to scare. This is probably the double-usefulness of the female protagonist; the male wants to see her survive because the idea of virginal young girl getting sliced and diced is more disturbing to him than seeing a fellow male meet the same end (possibly due to the perception that men are "supposed" to fight and die, ideally to protect women), and, at the same time, the female can theoretically identify with said female protagonist. That's probably the major reason why horror movies have largely kept their idealized female protagonists, while at the same time attempting to make them more relatable to the female audience. Whether one of these comes at the cost of the other, and to what extent, is certainly debatable, though. --Corvun 00:42, August 2, 2005 (UTC)
I certainly think that the way the subject was shoehorned into that particular sentence was awkward, out of place, and tendentious, too, suggesting that the article necessarily agrees with the accusation of misogyny. I've drastically reworked the comment in the course of some extensive work I just did on the intro section in general. I disagree with the assertion that accusations of misogyny in horror movies are solely the province of "a few feminazis." There are plenty of serious critics and writers, including many horror enthusiasts, who see this as a major strain in horror, and it's been a big part of the prominent controversies over horror film content over the past few decades. That being the case,I think it certainly ought to be mentioned somewhere, but in an NPOV fashion. I think what I've done takes care of that for the moment, although someone could probably improve on it (maybe myself, later) and I can see an argument for its being included later on in the paragraph on the controveries of the '70s and '80s, during the slasher era. Michael Wells 21:17, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
I'll admit that "a few feminazis" was a trivialization, but I simply can't understand how movies about intelligent, prudent young women defying the agressions of super-powered monsters and/or super-cunning killers, un-armed and having to survive, by the skin of their teeth and on wits alone as they continue to overcome impossible odds, could possibly be construed as misogynistic. If anything, they're just they're just the opposite.
Some people look so hard for misogyny, they find it even where it doesn't exist. Does anyone consider Sylvester Stallone movies of being misandric, and accuse viewers of those movies of sadistic voyeurism? No. But when it's a woman fighting and getting beaten up and chased, it's all of the sudden sadistic. The association of horror with misogyny is a purely sexist one; there is a much simpler alternative (jealousy, which I mentioned above) and it's something that any group of people watching horror movies late at night can witness for themselves.
I think the "Final Girl" concept is less indicative of a sadistic voyeurism on the part of men, than it is of female insecurity and ultra-political correctness affecting both men's and women's thinking (can anyone say Newspeak?).
I agree that accusations of misogyny do need to be mentioned somewhere on the page, but we should be careful not to make it seem like anything more than the ultra-feminist theory-of-the-month fringe trend piggy-backing on the bra-burning subculture that it is. --Corvun 23:10, August 6, 2005 (UTC)
I think the misogyny accusations come not from looking at the one girl who survives, but the many, often semi-naked, girls who die horribly while the camera leers over their death throes. Many critics have pointed out that the male victims in slasher films tend to be dispatched quickly and suddenly, whereas the female ones are slowly tormented before dying. Obviously there are a lot of complications to the 'misogyny' theory (e.g. lots of women enjoy watching these films, the Final Girl kicks butt, etc.) but it certainly raises interesting questions about what we find entertaining and why. And there's certainly no need for red-faced frothing at the mouth about the very idea of raising such questions. That is where the Newspeak lies. :) The Singing Badger 20:38, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
I still say that the many, often semi-naked girls who die horribly while the camera leers over their throes is a (perhaps subconscious) artifact of men being more horrified when an attractive young girl dies than when another guy gets whacked. Or perhaps it's a matter of killing off characters that the female audience is supposed to (but obviously doesn't) connect with, thereby horrifying them. Maybe it's a little bit of both. And I'll admit, there may well be a bit of misogyny in there -- not so much to satisfy misogynists, but to do what all horror is supposed to do, which is to horrify people. That is the whole point of horror, isn't it? --Corvun 04:10, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
P.S. I didn't mean to sound frothy. I just have a bad habit of being superfluously wordy and hysterically intense when it comes to description. I'm actually a very strong supporter of both feminism and masculism, or at least those forms of which do not exclude one-another.

So what about all the men that in horrible ways in horrible ways in horror films? I don't recall Ash in the Evil Dead genting off particularly lightly. Or what about all the MALE soldiers in Day of the Dead? Or the Priest in Omen? Or Prince Prospero in The Masque of Red Death? Or Johnny Depp in Nightmare? Or Renfield in Dracula? Oh, and what about all the female monsters? Return of the Dead part 3,Bride of Frankenstein, Texas Chainsaw Massacer, Switchblade Romance all had these.

Oh, and other than the army of "Final Girls", what about Ellen Ripley, Sidney Prescott in Scream 3 or Jamie Lee Curtis in H20? I'd rather take on Freddy Kreugar or 500 zombies than one of them! Anyway, as a guy, I'd like to say the women in horror movies are more likeable than the men.

A semantic revelation

It just occured to me that strictly speaking, there's no doubt as to whether or not horror films feature misogyny -- since young women dying in horrible, horrible ways is a staple of the genre -- but whether said misogyny is intended to horrify the audience (as is generally assumed to be the purpose), or whether it is intended to satisfy some kind of "sadistic voyeurism" in the male audience (as has been postulated by some feminists).

Of course, while I've been arguing that these movies do not contain "misogyny", I've merely been giving reasons why such misogyny would be considered horrifying, which upon reflection doesn't really need much explaining (hence I felt my reasons to be so obvious). I mean, what the heck is the point in speculating about why people would find the massacring of innocent young women horrifying?

Anyway, perhaps we need to point out that while the mistreatment of women is in fact a common feature in horror movies, and while it is generally assumed to exist for the purposes of horrifying audiences, some feminists have leveled accusations that it satisfies a hypothosized male need for sadistic voyeurism. (Though I find this suggestion abhorrently sexist, I suppose sexism against men is permissible, no matter how slanderous or offensive it is.)--Corvun 10:04, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Amen. I toyaly agree. I have a personal hatred of mysogyny and chauvenism in all form but I'm a big fan of horror. I freely admit that I revel in the on screen violence. Perhaps it is "sadistic voyeurism" but I'm totally indifferent to the gendre of the person.

Intro

Oh dear. Sorry, but I really don't like the new intro. Its too POV and a bit questionable factually. "The haughty intellectualism of the 19th and 20th centuries"? Who invented the horror genre in the first place, wasn't it those 19th century Victorians? JW 13:39, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

yep, got rid of that sentence, and removed some pov stuff in "millenial horror" section to.. Niz 15:19, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Section headers

I removed the names of these headers ('The 1950s: Cold War Paranoia' etc). They're cute but they're way too much one person's POV and simplify matters overmuch. The Singing Badger 02:17, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

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