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Requiem for Innocence

posted 18 years ago by pygmalion6
6 replies | jump to latest

Edited 11/3 to take out some unkind comments about slasher film fans.

I am cross-posting this message on about 30 old horror films from pre-1980 in the hopes that somebody out there shares my despair. I am feeling very lonely from my experience of the last few moments:
It is nearing midnight on Halloween 2006. This evening I've been flicking through TV channels and getting very depressed. True I have my DVDs to rely on, but I find it sad that there are no good old-fashioned monster movie marathons. You would think you'd be able to rely on the Sci-Fi channel, but for some perverse reason they are showing some wrestling federation. What "professional wrestling" has to do with sci-fi is quite beyond me. Any other movie channel acknowledging Halloween is showing slasher films.

For most of the past 25 years, the fun, the spookiness, the elegance, and the CLASS are all gone from horror films. Frankly, I hate to think what films I'd be watching if I were as "jaded" as today's audiences. I am in mind of a quote from the late Boris Karloff, the Grandmaster. A recent book on horror films recounted Boris talking to author Robert Bloch at a party, and Boris said: "There is nothing pleasant, nothing appealing about the word 'horror.' It doesn't promise entertainment. You and I, each in his own way, have devoted careers to providing chills, shocks, shudders. But we've done so only to amuse, to fulfill the same function as the time-honored teller of ghost stories who offers a few cold shivers to his audience in front of a warm fireplace on a winter's evening. No harm in that, surely. But I'll be blasted if either of us ever deliberately set out to horrify anyone. All this violence and brutality today, shown against a 'realistic' background -- now that's downright horrible!"

If you find these wonderful old horror films "lame", it's nothing to boast about, and I'd keep it to myself if I were you. To the contrary, it's quite sad if you find them so. Most today think the only merit to a film is how good the CGI special effects are. Or how many times they employ the cheap "cheat" where they play an obnoxiously loud chord of music to jolt the audience out of their seats (whether anything frightening is happening on the screen at the time of the loud music blast is immaterial). How lazy the creators of good horror films have become and how sadder still for those who watch them. They've desensitized themselves in a way that denies them 50 years worth of classics. There is no sadder word to describe someone than to say they have become "jaded."

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] pygmalion6 18 years ago

One nostalgic blast I've been having recently is going to YouTube and viewing the opening titles to Creature Features and Chiller and Fright Night. (Alas, there doesn't seem to be any surviving footage of WNEW's "The Creep")
Just go to YouTube.com and do a search and your cup will runneth over. There are lots of YouTube users who lived in the same time and place and have truckloads of bumpers and commercials from the local NYC stations of that great era.

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] Biodorah_X 18 years ago

Honestly, I'm a fan of the horror genre in general. I like films like Halloween, A Nightmare On Elm Street, and Friday the 13th. But, you know, they don't hold the same place that Dracula, The Wolfman, Frankenstein, and the other oldschool monsters do.

I wasn't around to experience the golden age of fear (as I call it) but I miss it. Those old monster movies brought you to another world, and a frightening one at that. Now, it's all about realism, and as much as I like Michael Myers from Halloween, I want to go to that other world again. Where spider-webs have flies with human heads, crying for help. Where the new neighbor accross the street can fly into your room at night and drink your blood while you sleep. Where a man can truly be God as he watches his masterpiece rise from a cold, iron table. Where even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright. That is where I want to go again.

Modern filmmakers just don't understand. They insist on showing you the world that you live in now. And yet, the greatest horror films of all time took you away from the world you live in, and showed you a place where all you have to do is listen, and you can hear the children of the night make their sweet music.

...I'm done...

http://halloweenfans.proboards60.com/index.cgi

[–] Shinobu_Sensui 18 years ago

I completely agree. They need to get back into Gotic supernatural thrillers. If I ever become a film-maker, I promise to revive them.

[–] novastar_6 17 years ago

Even if they were going to do realistic horror today, they could at least do a good job of it, who remembers the original Cape Fear? That's been scaring the hell out of people, parents especially I would think, for over 40 years and they didn't have to rely on a drop of blood to do it. Or what about the original Psycho? Granted that happening is a bit unlikely, but it's still possible that you could be stuck at a motel for the night with a crazy guy who runs the place, and who knows what could happen from there. Or the original Rear Window? Can anybody tell me they weren't on the edge of their seat with terror when they saw Lars Thorwald find Lisa in his apartment? Or when he cut Jeff's phone lines and went into his apartment?

Movie makers of today have a lot to learn, this is my theory of how you do great at something, you learn from the greats of the past and don't stray from the basics that made their work as sensational as it is. You can go your own way, do your own thing, just don't forget the history of what makes good movies of these sorts possible.