I don't even remember falling in love with movies. The love affair was hot and intense, wild and passionate before I even knew it had began. When I say I've been in love with films my entire life, I am almost certain I literally mean my entire life. While I don't remember it, my mom tells me that even as an infant, I was very easy to entertain. She'd throw a Mickey Mouse cartoon into the VCR, and I was good to go for at least a half an hour.
As I grew, so did my interest and love for films. I'm sure there are a lot of reasons why people love films as much as they do, but for me it has always been story and performance. I must like a film's story in order to like the film. I don't care how good anything else is, if I don't like the story, I'm not going to like the film. Although not as crucial, the performance out of the actors is also important to whether I enjoy a film or I do not.
I went to college with these big aspirations of earning an undergraduate degree in theatre and then going to graduate school to learn to write screenplays. While attending college, I took a variety of film classes. I met other film enthusiast and had some of the most intriguing conservations and debates about what is good and what is not. As a story teller, wannabe writer, I earned the respect of my peers by producing work that they deemed good. As a film lover, I had proven my opinion as someone that, "Knew what they were talking about" on the subject. I could make cases for anything, drama, comedy, action, mystery you name it. It wasn't until I admitted a personal love for horror films, that people began to question my knowledge and expertise about films. It wasn't until I admitted that I had a desire to write and make horror films, that people began to question my ability and my talent. I have had to defend specific movies more than once in my life, but I've never had to defend my love for any other genre. Horror is the only genre in which I've had to consistently defend my passion.
I ask myself why is this? Why does the genre of horror have to prove it self again and again that it is capable of producing thought provoking, mesmerizing good art? Why do all other genres get a free pass? See a terrible drama, it is the exception. Most dramas happen to be good, but that was simply a rotten apple in the bunch. Horror is just the opposite. Make as many phenomenally good horror films as you can, and no matter how many you make they are the exception. Horror is senseless, mindless, madness! Why are there so many avid movie lovers,schooled in the art of film, who carry this view?
Horror believe it or not, is almost as old as film itself. La Caverne Maduite what many historians believe to be the first horror film, was made in 1898. 117 years ago. This is nearly a decade and a half before the Titanic sunk and long before the start of World War I. Horror films have been around for as long as any other type of film. Yet, no genre of film has experienced more change and transition than horror films. Matter of fact, try and define what a horror film is. An intuitive definition would be, "A film whose purpose is to frighten its audience." Yet, there is so much more to a horror film than that and horror films of yesteryear are very different than horror films of today. The very thing that makes me love horror films as much as I do, is the very thing that makes others loathe them as much as they do. The beauty of horror is that it can be adventurous and full of action, it can be serious and mysterious full of suspense and it can also be comedic and full of laughter. The ugly of horror, is that it can also be stupid and gory. It can be as some like to view it, senseless, mindless, madness.
In order to discover why people like myself love horror and why others hate it, I believe we need to look at the last 117 years of horror and examine all of the ways it has changed throughout the decades.
The 1900's through the 1920's was the era of bringing the monster from the pages of the novel and onto the screen. It is immensely fun and interesting to see all of the many ways in which film makers thought of Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula and other characters that for years people could only picture in their own minds. Today these characters are very recognizable by nearly everyone around the world. We can see them, and we identify them easily. What we forget sometimes is that what we identify as Frankenstein, or Wolfman or Dracula may not be what the novelist who created the character necessarily had in mind. What we see and identify as the monster, is the vision of the monster that the film maker created.
We think of remakes as if they are a fairly new device. We hear the word, "reimagining" as if it is something commonly unique to our era. It isn't. Matter of fact, remakes and film makers reimaging original ideas, is as old as horror films itself. We may think of Bela Lugosi as the "original" Dracula but there were many before him. There were many Frankenstein's before Boris Korloff. You can make the argument that Lugosi and Korloff were the best, but they were far from the first.
What makes the horror films of the 1930's and 1940's stick out over those that came 10-25 years before them? Why is Dracula (1931) or Frankenstein (1931) what most people think of as the first, when they were not? I think it's because they were the first (or one of the first) "talkie" versions of the story, where all other films depicting the story were made during the silent era.
The 1950's from what I gather were an experimental time for horror films. There were certainly some gems during this time, including House of Wax (1953) and The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954.) Yet, the 50's also produced some crazy, not so great films like Tarantula (1955) and other killer insect films with horrible effects and laughable blue screen shots. The 50's also introduced us to the wild and whacked mind of Ed Wood and his films that can be easily summed up as, "awful." Today, we'd categorize these types of films as, "So bad, they're good" but movie goers didn't know to do that 60-65 years ago. All they knew is that they were bad films, and they didn't know well enough to laugh them off as such.
The 50's also believe it or not, was well aware of itself. Sure, some displayed their garbage on a pedestal thinking that the smelly rubbish was something good, but others were aware of the fact that no matter how many air fresheners you stick in the basket, it's still garbage underneath. While they're not well known or remembered, the 50's had its fair share of parody films. Tongue in cheek films that purposefully poked fun at moments like seeing the zipper in the back of the costume or the string on the obviously fake airplane, next to the obviously fake mountain. These parody films didn't take off though, because it was too difficult for fans to see the difference between what was trying to be actual horror and what was purposefully being a spoof. I suppose it is similar to how it's often difficult to tell the difference between what it posted in The Onion and what we see on what it supposed to be the actual news.
The 1960's came back with a vengeance, redefining itself and more importantly establishing itself as the pioneering time of modern horror. The mesmerizing, psychological, captivating films I think of, when I reminisce about the horror films I love, originated in the 1960's. One of the people we can thank for this is the late mastermind Alfred Hitchcock who created such masterpieces as Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963) which were so much more about the story and the development of the characters than they were about the scary moments they went through. The 60's also explored with our fascination and fears of religion with such films as Rosemary's Baby (1968).
The late 1960's, 67',68', 69' was more of a beginning of the 1970's genre of horror than it was the end of the 1960's. The 70's much like the 50's was an experimental time, but in many regards more successful. The envelope was pushed many times throughout the late 60's, through the 1970's. Things that were never seen on film before were seen. Things that were never done on film before, were done. Take Night of the Living Dead (1968) for example. It was the first time a fully nude woman was seen on screen in a non-pornographic film.
It is also important to note that during the 1970's, people were no longer afraid of the imaginative monsters they knew weren't real. Film makers instead had to scare them with the ideas of, "this really happened" or at least, "this could really happen." Writers and directors knew that as seriously as people took their religion, movies such as Alice, Sweet Alice (1971), The Exorcist (1973) and The Omen (1976) would scare the shit out of them. Throw "based on a true story" on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1973) and suddenly people are avoiding shortcuts down old country roads. Know anyone who won't swim in the ocean? Jaws (1975) or Orca (1977) have anything to do with that?
The 1980's, which also began more so in the late 1970's, began a shift back to the monster themed horror films, but these monsters were different than the monsters of 35-50 years prior. These monsters didn't exist in novels already written. They were created on the pages of a screenplay and first brought to life on the screen. Michael Myers from Halloween (1978), Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th (1980), Freddy Kruger from A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Chucky from Child's Play (1988), Pinhead from Hellraiser (1987) and so many more of our beloved horror icons, we must thank the 1980's for. If being honest and examining the evidence thoroughly we must also examine why these films were as good as they were. Was it simply because they had such well developed, interesting antagonist? Or was it also because these antagonist had equally as interesting protagonist who were just as developed, with a stimulating and provocative story? If you want to know why the original of these films and some of its sequels were so good, while others got progressively worse or even downright sucked, there you have your answer.
For a long time, the 1990's of horror, I don't think ever knew what it was trying to be. It certainly didn't establish itself on its own terms and instead seemed to want to be a bit of everything from the beginning of horror all the way up into the 1980's. This was demonstrated with sequel after sequel rehashed again and again throughout the entire era. Part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, you name it, the original was made in the 1980's and the sequel(s) came out in the 1990's.
The 90's also mimicked the 1950's with a fair share of ridiculousness with The Ice Cream Man (1995), Mosquito (1995) and The Dentist (1995) which are all enjoyable films, but none of which take themselves seriously. I can't say that the 90's didn't at least try to take itself seriously by creating it's own monsters such as, The Candyman (1992) The Puppetmaster (1993) and Leprechaun (1993) but at least in my opinion these monsters were not near as iconic or memorable as the ones created in the 1980's.
In 1996, after six years of simply doing what had already been done 100's of times before, the 90's finally sat itself apart in two distinctly unique ways. The first was so innovative and creative, that I don't think film makers knew the magic that they created. Either they held pure gold in their hands and didn't realize it or they knew what they had created and they simply didn't know how to create it again. The Frighteners (1996) was the first and to my knowledge still is the only film that is nearly impossible to categorize easily under horror or under action. It has everything that a horror film could ask for. It's suspenseful, it's frightening and it deals with a frightening monster. Yet it also has everything that an action film could want too. Horror? Action? Horror-action? Action-horror? I think something was stumbled on that could have lead to whole new genre of beloved films. Unfortunately though, no one else must have seen the potential besides me. It's been nearly 20 years, and to this day it remains an idea that has sat dormant, waiting for someone to come along and capitalize upon it.
The other ingenious idea that sparked in the 90's was the idea of a non-comical parody, which came in the form of Wes Craven's Scream (1996). Before we had horror films and we had parodies of those horror films but we had never seen the two come together to create something new and that is what Scream gave us. It was an idea that I would like to think had been thought of before, but so indifferent to what people were used to, that it was probably shut down because people didn't have the imagination to envision it. While its three sequels built upon the idea, like The Frighteners it seems to be very unique unto itself.
As the 90's began to come to an end with Deep Blue Sea (1999) and Lake Placid (1999), the 2000's began with the era of "This is real footage" horror of The Blair Witch Project (1999) which is in one way where we are today with horror. For some this type of horror is fun and for others it is totally lame. I personally fall into the latter category. Matter of fact, the whole supernatural craze with the umpteen Paranormal Activity(2009) sequel, The Gallows (2015) and Unfriended (2015) is making me sick. I have to admit I sort of liked, It Follows (2015) but even that turned me off with its supernatural, paranormal undertone. I'm sick of the paranormal, supernatural horror film. I want something else.
Many people say they're also sick of all of the remakes, reimaginings and sequels and I can understand their frustration. I enjoy the good ones, but enough is enough already. When are we going to see something original? When are we going to replace Halloween Part 87 with a new horror film, that takes place in a new location, with a new killer and new protagonist that try and stop him/her? Why is everything these days, not only horror, but literally everything a sequel, remake or reimagining?
You want to know what I think it is? I think it is another consequence of being overexposed do to the internet and social media. People see an original idea come out and say, "That's a rip off of (insert movie the already know here)" You want to know something? Many of the films people loved in the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's were "rip offs" of films that had come 10, 20, 30 years prior? Only, you didn't know that because you didn't have the handy, dandy internet to look it up. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago and even longer ago, people simply watched these movies. They didn't fixate themselves on the idea of everything having to be original. They did obsess themselves with worry of whether someone else had done something similar in the past or not. Our demand of originality is the very thing that is killing it. A young film maker makes a horror film about a killer that stalks his brother out of revenge, we refuse to see it because it is "too much like Halloween and not original enough" but we'll make some young buck millions upon millions of dollars for reimagining/remaking the original Halloween or making the 10,000th sequel. People need to realize that no idea is truly original. Not in this business anyway. You can put your own spin on things, change the name, change the location and change the story overall, but the original concept was already thought. Someone already had that idea. Why we are so afraid of that and so eager to dismiss it in hope that someone will come along with something that seems totally brand new to us? I'd hope by now people are so sick of twist endings that are about as shocking as not being able to fit into the same pants you wore in junior high. The sooner we accept the fact that it has all been done before, we just simply have to figure out new ways to do it, the sooner Hollywood, especially horror films will be great once again.
Horror more so than any other genre has seen its good days, its bad days and everything else in between. You want to name a list of horror films as long as my chin, that absolutely suck? I'm sure you can. I can name plenty of them myself. However, there are plenty of horror films out there that do not suck. They do not suck at all. Matter of fact, I'd put some of them up against what you feel is a great drama. I'd put some of them up against what you feel is a great action film. I'm a fan of horror, because in many respects horror is a fantastic genre of film. Films full of drama, action, adventure, mystery, suspense and mesmerizing, thought provoking characters and story. I'm not ashamed to be a fan of horror, not ashamed at all. Matter of fact, I'm just as proud of my passion and love for horror as I am of any film genre.
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