I can say with some sense of assurity that whatever we (we being the westerners) come up with, the Japanese do better. This goes for cars, horror (and for that matter, revenge) flicks, even organized crime. Alas, I am not as adept at Japanese horror as I would like to be, but I can say with relative confidence that a great deal of it is better than ours.
Why? Because American horror has lost something.
It wasn't so long ago that I didn't enjoy scary movies. At least, I thought I didn't. As a young child films like Pinocchio and E.T scarred me. Neither of which is a horror film, but as my parents wouldn't let me see any such movies, I came to understand that if I hated these films so much, something designed to be scary would destroy my young unstable psyche.
This has resulted in my late-blooming horror interest. As such, some movies held in high esteem by others are so underwhelming to me as to be pathetic. It, for example, has instilled anyone who saw it as a child with an irrational fear of clowns. I find the movie laughable - watching the woman in the library flinch as the "invisible balloons o' blood" are bursting is kind of amusing.
But on the flip side, I have a deep interest in why the horror genre exists. Horror navigates the moral latitudes and longitudes of our culture. Romero uses zombies to create a vicious social commentary. Characters in slasher films disobey a moral code, which will get them murdered. This is not to say that all horror films are good, by any means. I'm not even a great fan of the slasher films, seeing as they all seem to have the same plotline and one can only take so many sequels. Still, horror done well can be very unsettling, disturbing and more importantly, challenging to ideas and beliefs. And it's something that other countries do better than us.
But despite that, if you go to the video store and start looking through the horror films, there are caseloads upon caseloads! Most of them are sub-par, and most of them small release without ever seeing a theater. I have two theories on why this may be.
First, it's just plain fun to make the gore effects, and the whole thing, usually in one location can be shot for relatively cheap.
Second, the horror genre has it's own built in character motivation which makes it easier for the writer and filmmaker. It's not like a drama, where you have to really know the characters, and give them reasons for mental breakdowns, lapses in judgment or alcoholism. No, in horror our characters generally have one motivation: to make it out alive. Most of them will fail miserably at this too, but we relate to that need. We imagine our selves in the same situation, and (most of us) don't have a death wish. There's no need to explain why Mary is scared and running away from the one-eyed man with an ice pick. We get that.
It's funny then, for a genre whose players driving forces are so obvious, that the plot and script writing is often just plain terrible. To fledgling filmmakers, and even veterans, horror seems like an easy choice; some jump-out-of-your-seat surprises, lots of gore, a bit of nudity, and the suspense of who will survive is all you need. Some people believe it's ALL you need, and the muddled plots filled with logical flaws and irrational otherworld beings leave a lot to be desired.
As example, I direct you to the U.S. version of Pulse. If you've seen it, you'll understand my displeasure of being raped $7.50 for that experience. Plot holes abound, such as when our main character takes a nap on the side of the road and the ghosts wait until she wakes up, hears the radio broadcast about ghosts traveling through cell phones, checks her cell phone, realizes she has coverage, and looks at the window. Oh the brilliant timing. This whole situation was somehow was sparked by a computer virus; who knew the dead were so adept at computer programming? Or that they can walk through walls, but driving recklessly at high speeds will shake them off your car. Remember these tips kids; your life in a technology-free compound may someday depend on it.
The ghosts themselves are completely ridiculous, doing things that make no sense for their goal: to steal human life since they don't have their own. If these beings are simply the dead trying to take life back from the living (which doesn't accomplish anything but provide the director with the chance for gratuitous deaths of a stupid and inexplicable nature) why do they spend their time trying to scare the audience? And let's face it, when the ghost in the dryer started throwing laundry out, it just became asinine.
For all the motivation of the characters trying to survive, the major flaw (and there are many, many others) here lies in the creatures having no real understandable reasoning. If we want to be scared and hope for our characters, we have to believe there is something they can do about it. Slashers are generally human, and there's the hope of escape or killing him, regardless of whether our hero(ine) does or not. Zombies are re-animated dead who feast off the living for sustenance. Vampires drink blood to survive or increase their ranks. Etc. Etc.
Horror is one of the most overdone genres because it's cheap, and seemingly easy. But it's also the easiest to do poorly. The sad part is that we don't learn from our mistakes it seems. So what is missing in American horror films? Intelligence. The scare can't be "the all." Don't insult audiences with atrocious plotlines and hope to make up for it with moody lighting and splattering blood. Gore has become a trend that is a sad imitation of scare appeal. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against gore and it can be used effectively in a film. But blood and guts = revulsion, not fear. Still there are plenty of directors who seem to equate their fascination with human mutilation as frightening stuff. I'm going to attribute this to the MPAA and the desensitizing of violence to the public in the U.S. of A.
If you're going for sick and twisted, then by all means! It's not the same. There are those, I know who will argue with me that horror encompasses both, and that's probably true. But personally I enjoy going to a scary film to be frightened silly.
Thus it is refreshing to see somebody making films that are both intelligent and frightening. When was the last time the Hollywood studios or even American independent filmmakers put out something really decent and scary? I saw The Descent last August and have no other descriptive term than the film was truly horrific. And in the best possible way. There was indeed gore and surprises, but incorporated into the film most excellently. The audience was uncomfortable in anticipation throughout the whole movie and made for a noisy theater as people tried to talk or whisper to quell their nervousness. It even delivered one thing I haven't seen very often in horror: a look at some of the psychological ramifications of going through such an experience.
Of course this film is British, and just goes to show you that we need a jumpstart in the subject of national horror. There are excellent films being made out there, it's just been a long while since we've seen them come from home. Even The Ring, based on the Japanese version Ringu, while somewhat scary was a rarity and could do to lose the sequel. Filmmakers need to learn that while some things are a given, don't take the genre or film for granted. It's never that easy and the best films are the ones that manage to give us insight into the character and the monster, provide thrills and chills, and wind it all up with an intelligent plot that leaves us contemplating ourselves and our world.
I guess I'm just picky because now that I've discovered the genre, I have high expectations for it. High expectations, which, I believe, are entirely possible.
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