October 27, 2003

Halloween spirit.

Eyes Without a Face "At the beginning of the current decade, there appeared two directions the horror movie could go," writes Liam Lacey in the Globe and Mail. "One was toward the art-house mental puzzles of films such as The Blair Witch Project and The Sixth Sense. The other was lowbrow mockery of traditional horror, films like Scary Movie, Psycho Beach Party and Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th. The decision seems to have been: neither, as old-fashioned horror movies have won the night."

Oops. If Lacey'd waited just another day or two, he'd have seen Scary Movie 3 pull in around $50 million this weekend, not only knocking The Texas Chainsaw Massacre down to second place but sending its earnings plunging 48% to a mere $14.7 million. Not that we watch box office returns around here like a hawk, but that is pretty amazing. And calls somehow (don't ask us how exactly) for a round-up of seasonal horror news in a single entry.

For example. Among the many items Tagline is currently pointing to (including more online viewing than you have time for - but that's a good thing!) is Tiberius Furioso's top ten horror list; another from the Denver Post, found in The Age via Movie City News, where Ray Pride recently wrote, "Just as the credits to Scary Movie 3 ended, my date turns to me, says, 'Did we just see a movie?' (I could not come up with a worthy reply.)" But here's the really big list: Britain's Channel 4 viewers' "100 Greatest Scary Moments," with little interview clips and so forth.

Anne Rice chats with NPR's Liane Hansen.

"...until a thin stream of blood starts to trickle down her neck. The effect is profoundly shocking, in the way that Surrealist dream imagery aspires to be: we feel the sudden incursion of the irrational, the unspeakable, in the hushed precincts of sleep." Terrence Rafferty on Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face in the New York Times. Intrigued? You'll find three pieces on the film in the September 9, 2002 issue of Kinoeye (scroll down a tad).

"I mean, look at Anthony Hopkins, he plays the other scariest human being on earth and then he goes and makes a romantic film with Miramax. Nobody thinks twice about that. They need to remember that with me." That's Linda Blair talking to Salon's Amy Reiter, who, moments earlier, asks the did-she-really-ask-that question of the week, "It's been quite a journey for you from The Exorcist to the Hallmark Channel, hasn't it?"

And to wrap, a nostalgic return to Suck: "Final End III: The Third Final End."



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Posted by dwhudson at October 27, 2003 9:11 AM

Comments

Lacey fails to note that Freddy vs. Jason, which to some degree bridges his dichotomy and adds a tinge of 1980s splatter film nostalgia, also opened at Number 1. And, most shockingly, he fails to revisit the genesis of the snarky horror pic: the Scream films. It was a little less than a decade ago, but when Scream came out, there was some discussion in horror circles over whether it represented the End of True Horror As We Know It. After all, the film had been directed Wes Craven, the man who had given us The Hills Have Eyes and the original Nightmare on Elm Street. It seemed a betrayal to have Craven usher in this new self-referential horror wave, referencing not only the horror film "rules" and B-list casting (e.g., Henry Winkler's cameo), but even his own oeuvre.

If anything, the strong box office grosses of all of these respective films indicate to me that people are not only fond of laughing at a spoof, but still want to get the living bejesus scared out of him. You could make the case that audiences have evolved. Could this mean a new respectability for horror? Or just the same old human impulse?

Posted by: Ed at October 27, 2003 11:42 AM

Freddy vs. Jason hitting #1 is actually mentioned in there, but you raise a good question. Note, too, that Rafferty begins his piece on Eyes Without a Face with "Horror movies have traditionally received little to no respect from educated, art-house-type audiences..."

I think that's already changing but may have more to do with the fact that so many of us are practically in film school these days. With the DVD, every movie comes with its own little correspondence course, and when an art-house-type sees, say, Martin Scorsese express his admiration for Mario Bava in some extra (I have no idea if that extra exists anywhere; I'm just pulling that out of a hat simply because I know Scorsese does admire Bava), well, that art-house-type might give a second thought to his/her prejudices.

That's a big element, I think.

Posted by: David Hudson at October 27, 2003 2:46 PM

I just think it's great that the French adapted that Billy Idol song into a film.

Posted by: M. Signalstation at October 27, 2003 5:55 PM

I just think it's great that the French adapted that Billy Idol song into a film.

Posted by: M. Signalstation at October 27, 2003 5:55 PM

Well, frankly, I think all this cross-cultural thievery has got to stop. Before you know it, we'll be seeing gangsters in Japanese cartoons and Americans making kung fu movies. [g]

Posted by: David Hudson at October 28, 2003 12:43 AM