Cold Light of Day: Daylight Horror

[Sin Agog]

I rewatched Who Can Kill a Child? (subtitled: not including British babysitters) yesterday, and was really taken aback by what a different tone horror movies have when they're set primarily in the daytime.  I can totally understand the allure of nighttime shooting, where the unseen becomes fraught with mystery and terror, but being able to see everything with too much clarity can be just as chilling. Like the shots in this movie of crowds of kids clambering down a distant hill towards our protagonists, or the sheer desertion of the island- it's scary because it's the day and we expect it to be littered with various people going about their daily rounds. Seeing as how everyone's been scared of the night at some point in their lives, it feels like a teensy bit of a cop-out just relying on darkness for scares, so props on scary movies that don't shy from stories set from dawn til dusk.

Some scenes at night are acceptable, but most of the movie's scariest moments have to take place in the daytime to qualify.

Few more: And Soon the Darkness (despite the title, it's about two girls on a cycling trip in rural France, and I can't remember a single scene after sunset), Witchfinder General, The Hitcher...and wasn't Nightmare City mostly set in the day?  Seems to be the case with a hefty chunk of giallos.

[Phil_A]

The original TV movie version of The Grudge largely takes place during the day in brightly lit provincial Japanese homes, and still manages to be the most effectively creepy entry in the franchise. The series started to lose it's way once they had a budget to spend.

[prwc]

This was a trademark of Jess Francos. Albeit possibly as much as a budget saving thing as much as a stylistic choice but it certainly helps to lend his horror output a distinct vibe.

[Phil_A]

I thought of another one, "La Cabina" takes place entirely during a normal sunny day, adding to the surreal nightmare feeling of the whole situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdq4LjaFyFk

[Sin Agog]

La Cabina's such a great film.  Weird though, this seems to particularly be a trend amongst Spanish horror.  Was listening to a podcast t'other day with a Spanish horror expert who went into how horror wasn't really condoned by Franco's regime (General Franco that is; Jess had a whole other type of regime) until the '60s, and when they were allowed they had to get over the stumbling block of imitating hammers etc.  It makes sense that such a hot country, trying to put its unique mark on the horror genre, would make a point of making so many horrors set during the day.

Anyway, thought of Duel and a handful of slashers, Last House on the Left, I Spit On Your Grave, and Don't Torture a Duckling.

Another common denominator will probably be that horror at least used to tend to be a low budget affair, and daytime shooting is so much cheaper, what with not having to spend any money on the lighting.

[DukeDeMondo]

Let's Scare Jessica To Death has a couple properly fucking frightening sequences set in the broad daylight. Two in particular. Eerie as the devil.

[Bazooka]

The reason I have always held The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in such high regard is due to its use of hot summer days as an intro into the horror. The dark masks the unknown and exemplifies humans being shit in the pitch black. Halloween did it really well also, Myers behind the shrub etc.

[Bad Ambassador]

The lakeside murder in Zodiac.

[Avril Lavigne]

The reason I have always held The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in such high regard is due to its use of hot summer days as an intro into the horror.

I was going to post this too.  The daylight in combination with the lack of a traditional musical score makes the whole thing seem much more realistic and it's always baffled me how few horror directors seem to have taken note of that, especially since it's been considered a genre-defining classic for decades.  The only major horror movie I can think of doing a similar thing is The Blair Witch Project which I also love.

[Shaky]

The Wicker Man.

[Custard]

The brilliant Train To Busan is set entirely in the day, from memory.

What a belter that film is

[Johnny Yesno]

The original TV movie version of The Grudge largely takes place during the day in brightly lit provincial Japanese homes, and still manages to be the most effectively creepy entry in the franchise. The series started to lose it's way once they had a budget to spend.

That was a terrible film. Stupid people doing stupid things. Wanting the characters to die really kills the suspense.

Ring and Ring 2, on the other hand, were set mostly during the day and were properly terrifying.

[Johnny Yesno]

One of the things that gives Shaun of the Dead its edge is that a lot of it is set in the day time.

[Phil_A]

That was a terrible film. Stupid people doing stupid things. Wanting the characters to die really kills the suspense.

I'm not talking about the theatrical film or the US remake, I mean the DTV movie from 2002(Ju-On: The Curse). It used to pretty difficult to find in English until someone put a subbed version on youtube a few years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx1O_OHTQwY

I've seen a couple of the sequels and they become rapidly formulaic. As everyone tends to get killed off there's no real character development or interesting plot twists, it just becomes a series of people showing up and getting Ju-On'd. There was nowhere for the series to go after the original movie, which is why I would only really recommend that one.

[Johnny Yesno]

I'm not talking about the theatrical film or the US remake, I mean the DTV movie from 2002(Ju-On: The Curse). It used to pretty difficult to find in English until someone put a subbed version on youtube a few years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx1O_OHTQwY

Ah, right. I wasn't talking about the US remake either, but I didn't realise there was a DTV movie out before the cinema release. In fact, wikipedia tells me there were two DTV Ju-On's and they were both from 2000. Ju-On: The Grudge is from 2002.

So you reckon this one is worth a watch, given I think Ju-On: The Grudge is so poor?