Scary Movies?
Scary Movies?
I have yet to find a horror movie
that can really freak me out, so I have sort of made that my
movie-watching-mission. I love “scary” movies like the newer stuff by James Wan,
he is incredibly talented and movies like The Conjuring and The Nun are
a great representation of modern horror (The Ring deserves honorary
mention but Gore Verbinski has no other strong horror movies, so The Ring
is a fabulous anomaly), beautiful and well crafted, but not really scary.
Looking to past horror movies, Wes Craven is one of my favorites-name almost
any semi-old horror movie and it is his (except Friday the 13th).
From Craven, I think A Nightmare on Elm Street needs recast and then it
would be freaky and his other stuff like Scream are fantastic
representations of a good horror movie but I still have no reason to be afraid
(assuming I don’t have a freaky boyfriend who murdered my mother last year,
which I don’t). Alfred Hitchcock is (obviously) iconic for a good reason, but I
can’t tell if his movies make me anxious because they are in black and white
because it’s hard to take Norman Bates seriously enough to fear for Marion Crane’s
life, let alone my own. Personally, I prefer Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s
Baby if I’m watching a 60s movie. The idea of slowly driving someone insane
so that they will give birth to the antichrist is inventive and deeply
upsetting, as any thriller should be. Besides Rosemary’s Baby, the only
modern movie to make me anything close to scared was The Strangers because
it is reasonless and brutal, and even after doing everything right, Liv Tyler
can’t get her scrawny little butt out of there, and that is raw horror at it’s most
twisted. But it still didn’t scare me. So, what will make me truly afraid?
The answer, pathetically enough, is post-college
coming of age movies. I think of Adult World, Reality Bites, and St
Elmo’s Fire. These kinds of movies make me want to watch romcom garbage and
fantasies to push future and change out of my brain forever. These movies about
valedictorians, star lawyers, and artistic poets who fall off of the deep end,
become suicidal and broke after doing everything right, those are the real
horror movies. Blood and guts can’t make me flinch, but these indie movies have
me in a state of existential crisis. Seriously, Nancy fought Freddy in her
nightmares, but little does she know life after college is worse than any
severely mutilated murderous pedophile. For me, an aspiring writer, to watch
talented people stick their heads in ovens after they fail time and time again
to get published traumatizes me deeply. Seriously, at best, my future seems to
be reduced to throwing books at mentors, crying over gas station coffee, and
(if I get lucky) someone adorable who is way too good for me but I never
appreciated until the very moment that I decided to kiss them, and later figure
out they are more talented than I will ever be.
I say all this because I just watched
this indie movie, Adult World. It’s about an aspiring poet fresh-out of
college (Emma Roberts) who figures out she isn’t the best writer and is forced
to work at an adult video store to make ends meet, you know, the true New Yorker’s
story. I stumbled into it because Evan Peters is in it and that justifies
watching it, but a simple crush has got me to this point where I am now
obsessively studying what appears to be one way that my life could go. I mean,
to be real I was not interested in a deep indie film when I picked it out (I
was interested in Evan Peters) but I love it. It’s artistic and scary, but
regardless of where my future takes me, it has helped remind me that future is
subjective and there will always be something ahead to be scared of (oof).
Okay, let me leave you with this: watch
more movies, read more books, listen to more(better) music. The only way we can
discover our tastes and our deep-seeded fears is by absorbing as much art and
culture as we can.
![Image result for nightmare on elm street 1 poster](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1057/4964/products/a-nightmare-on-elm-street-vintage-movie-poster-original-1-sheet-27x41-7316.jpg?v=1535847408)
![Image result for rosemary's baby poster](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0598/2925/products/O5d4SOR.jpg?v=1531004654)
I prefer movies like Goodfellas or Step Brothers but if I do watch a horror its something like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Silence of the Lambs, American Psycho, Alien, and The Shinning which use more mental stress and anxiety to make someone scared then jump-scares and load music.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree, from a cinematography perspective, The Silence of the Lambs and The Shining both make me anxious and squirm, but it's really interesting that blood and gore can't make me nearly as frightened as movies about real life!
Delete