Why do you like horror films?

[Mini]

Freddy Films=Comedy slasher gore for teens
Cronenburg/Carpenter=Genuinely unsettling sense of dread.

Close that discussion.

Are we talking about the original or the sequels? Because I'd argue the original Elm Street is genuinely unsettling.

[AsparagusTrevor]

I agree, the first NoES film is up there with any 'scary' horror. Everything about Freddy as a concept is genuinely terrifying.

It wasn't really til the third film when Freddy started to get progressively more light-hearted with his child-murder.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I watched the first Nightmare on Elm Street for the first time a couple of years ago and thought it was a bit rubbish.

[Sin Agog]

Certainly not because they terrify me so much.  Too fucking stoical when it comes too stuff like that.  The types of horror I really like are basically fantasies unbound by that genre's tropes and the need for politesse.  I know a few hardcore horror fans who are very straitlaced misanthropists, flooding their minds with scenarios wherein their fellow man is like as not a psychopath, probably because they're introverts who have an essential fear of everyone but a select few who've made it into their inner sanctum.   Not really into those types of rampaging psycho horrors, really, unless they're shot/edited in such an otherwordly way that the filmmaking itself is almost supernatural (I'm thinking of things like Jamie Lee Curtis' Road Games, or Assault on Precinct 13).  Oneiric schlock I particularly adore because they tend to have their own internal logic which makes everything that would be a fatal flaw in another movie perfectly forgivable.

Psychedelic giallos like Woman In a Lizard's Skin, and Euro horror-fantasies like Viy and Valerie and Her Week of Wonders are particularly my jam.  I go through phases of watching more recent horror films which can really grab me, things like Grave Encounters, and I enjoy them a lot, but I guess it's the weird old fever dreams that really stick with me.

[itsfredtitmus]

i like that ^

[Dr Syntax Head]

I recently watched the first Freddy and yeah it was a bit dull. The fact that I've seen so much horror and my taste has become more sophisticated over time is probably the reason.

A good example to use in explaining what I want from Horror is that I cannot sit through any of the Halloween films, I find them extremely boring but Halloween 3, well I saw that a couple months back and it creeped me out even more than when I saw it as a kid.

[greenman]

Not from my knowledge of the making of Alien; very much a team effort. The difference between Alien and Prometheus is that Scott wasn't surrounded by a bunch of yes-men for Alien.

The big difference is Scott was 30+ years older and not nearly so motivated/able to make great cinema anymore, the same really as Lucas with his prequels.

[NoSleep]

The big difference is Scott was 30+ years older and not nearly so motivated/able to make great cinema anymore, the same really as Lucas with his prequels.

But it was Dan O'Bannon who brought Giger, Foss & Cobb in, from having met them during the Jodorowsky project, and of course wrote the script with Ron Shusett. This project was alive many years before Scott was even a part of it. I find it very hard to accept it being ascribed to Scott's "vision" alone. This is made clear in the "Making Of" film, "Star Beast", as well as the 1979 "The Book Of Alien". Very much a team effort.

[magval]

It wasn't really til the third film when Freddy started to get progressively more light-hearted with his child-murder.

Best one though, by a long stretch. That film's great craic.

[Dr Rock]

Hammer made the best horror films anyway. Wow, as I typed that, the Kate Bush documentary I'm listening to in the background said 'Hammer horror.' Spooky!

[George White]

The creation of worlds. Some kind of evocation of dark nights, hence why I usually prefer 70s contemporary British horrors.

Realised there's very few 80s horror films I genuinely love - Gremlins, Halloween III, American Werewolf. The Stuff. The Howling's bits of, yes.  Most fall into three categories, fun, reasonable timekillers, artsy-fartsy and plain duds. As you were saying, It becomes all very slick and heartless somehow. Even something like Waxwork. And also - a major reason, 80s American teens annoy the hell out of me. There's elements of films I live - the opening of the Monster Squad (and Duncan Regehr's a good Dracula), McDowall in Fright Night, Elmer in Brain Damage, Belial in Basket Case, the Killer Klowns from Outer Space themselves but not so much the film, bits of Creepshow (but even then Romero is overrated, and apart from Amicus, EC comics translations don't work well as they're all about a single image), bits of the 80s Blob, bits of the Funhouse, the attacks, the opening and Henry Silva's bits in Alligator (1980), elements of fun slashers, Bloody Birthday, Strange Behaviour and Motel Hell  the slashers especially, a few moments shine - but the slasher is a genre where every film is so fragmented), most of Omen III - The Final Conflict (I know, it's not great but...), Frank Finlay's performance and the hitch-hiking scenes in Lifeforce, but a lot of it doesn't gel, and a lot of those films have 80s teens. And also re:that 80s zaniness of things like Re-Animator, I think a friend said that that HBO Tales from the Crypt mix of prosthetics and jokes doesn't translate well here.

There's films I like for their so-bad-it's-good quality, Pieces (1982) a rare 80s horror entry, Pieces,

Even something like Dead and Buried (1982) I find the California sunlight ruins it, it also feels slightly too much like an episode of an 80s cop show.  I think TVCream described it as being Lorimar-esque, which is a very nice way of putting it. Then again, zombie films I find mostly boring.

Weirdly, the 90s, there's more films there, possibly - Hardware, the Witches, the Addams Family/Addams Family Values, Braindead, Matinee, Funny Bones, Mars Attacks! but even then, most of those are borderline...

[greenman]

But it was Dan O'Bannon who brought Giger, Foss & Cobb in, from having met them during the Jodorowsky project, and of course wrote the script with Ron Shusett. This project was alive many years before Scott was even a part of it. I find it very hard to accept it being ascribed to Scott's "vision" alone. This is made clear in the "Making Of" film, "Star Beast", as well as the 1979 "The Book Of Alien". Very much a team effort.

I mean Scott obviously used the talents of various people for the film as any director is going to but ask yourself what reflects Alien more closely in style and quality, Blade Runner or Dead and Buried? never actually seen the latter but watching the trailer leaves me pretty certain which.

Scott might not have been there from the start of the project but I think its pretty clear his involvement elevated it considerably.

[NoSleep]

Dead and Buried can't be compared to Alien, given the long period that Alien took shape. I doubt that O'Bannon or Shusett expected much more from Dead and Buried than what it turned out to be, whereas Alien was very much their baby. Have you seen "The Beast Within: The Making Of Alien"? It's on youtube. As you'll see, Shusett was developing Total Recall all that way back, too (which is a much fairer comparison).

I've heard others claim that Blade Runner was more of a team effort, also (I don't know the making of it well enough to know how true this is).

[DukeDeMondo]

I would take a tenth of Dead And Buried over a dozen Blade Runners any day of the bloody old week.



Well, bit of hyperbole there, maybe, but there's truth in it somewhere. Dead And Buried is fantastic, anyway, that's all that matters.