By: Allissa Lozano
Movies can excite and thrill an audience, that is why horror movies are the best! Scary movies can range anywhere from just simply scary to shaking in your boots horrifying. With movies the scariness feels so intoxicating, Junji Ito, who is a Japanese horror manga artist, puts the experience into words “It’s like when you see something scary or you’re wondering what is beyond the darkness. I want to know those kinds of things.”
SLASHER
The appeal of violence being inflicted upon another human dates back thousands of years all the way back to Ancient Rome as the ancient Romans were very violent and cruel. More notable slasher and horror movie productions and plays began in the 19th century due to the Grand Guignol.
Grand Guignol was a theatre in the Pigalle district of Paris, that specialized in naturalistic horror shows. This sparked the excitement for violence in movies especially slasher movies. Black Christmas in 1974 was the first slasher thriller and it sparked a movement of gory violent slasher movies.
A slasher movie plot typically consist of a psychopath stalking and murdering a group of people.
The first horror movie I ever saw was Halloween. The movie tickled my skin and gave me goosebumps down my spine it was marvelous. The movie was released in 1978 the plot consists of Michael Myers brutally murdering multiple people and the outstretching timeline of Myers looking for his next victims. This started my addiction to all types of horror movies. My favorite types of horror movies are slasher, crime, and psychological thrillers.
One great slasher movie is My Bloody Valentine a 1981 Canadian slasher film directed by George Mihalka and written by John Beaird the movie takes a twist on a Valentine’s day like no other. A murderer takes vengeance of the celebrators of Valentine’s day by cutting out their hearts. The beautiful winter scenery sets the mood for the bloody murder fest to come.
Another amazing slasher movie is Psycho a 1960s American Slasher horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by Joseph Stefano. A secretary who ends up at a secluded motel after stealing money from her employer creates a horrible aftermath. It has gone on to become one of the most recognizable films in all of cinema history.
The last most thrilling slasher movie is A Nightmare on Elm Street a 1984 American film that brings its audience to actual nightmares. The film consists of a disfigured mangler named Freddy Krueger who prays on teenagers in their dreams and in return kills them in reality. The antagonist is burnt killer who uses a leather gloves with knives attached to it, he invades the minds and psyche of his victims, making the feeling of helplessness in the audience. The film is utterly horrifying.
PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLERS
My favorite horror genre to watch is psychological thrillers. Psychological thrillers emphasize the elements of mystery, drama, action and horror in to the audience’s psyche. These movies are emotional roller coasters, movies are often disturbing and unnerving.
One of my favorite directors is Ari Aster. He is a American director and screenwriter and is best known for his two phenomenal movies Hereditary and Midsommar. He also directs many short films including The Strange Thing About the Johnsons, Basically, Munchausen and many others.
Hereditary a 2018 American supernatural psychological horror film written and directed by Ari Aster is like no other movie I have ever seen. When Annie Grahams mother passes away she is very fraught about the grief and begins the attend a support group where she meets a woman that leads her down a dark path. When Annie forces her 16 year old son Peter to take his 13 year old sister Charlie to a high school party Charlie has a allergic reaction and goes in to anaphylactic shock. Peter races to drive her to the hospital but something horrible happens. When Annie discovers her daughters death she is hysteric and tries to summon Charlies spirit creating a very evil opening to Hell. My favorite thing about this movie is the soundtrack, Colin Stetson is a Canadian-American saxophonist the unsettling music creates the perfect aspect of a great horror movie.
Hereditary is one of the scariest movies I have ever seen. The movie still keeps me wide awake at night.
Midsommar is a 2019 American psychological film, written and directed by Ari Aster. College student Dani Ardor is traumatized after a recent family death after dealing with such grief she decides to go with a group of friends to Sweden, but things go horribly wrong, when what they thought was an innocent cultural festival turns out to be a cult. The whole movie is very eerie, and the use of hallucination drugs makes the film very confusing of what is reality.
“One thing that is exciting working in this genre is that people come in with certain expectations. They know what the tropes are; they know what the conventions are, and it’s like comfort food. And I feel like it creates a certain complacency in the audience. There’s something really exciting about the idea of totally appending those conventions. I know that I’m always looking as a spectator, for that moment in a film where I realize I’m not in control of this experience, and the movie isn’t safe. That’s certainly something I was hoping to do with hereditary.”
CRIME
Crime films are a genre of horror that is able to involve many aspects and other genres in one movie for example drama, comedy, violence, mystery and suspense. Crime films speculate whos innocent and who’s guilty. Police or another form of a justice system essentially creates the control in the movie leading up to the ultimate “verdict” which is the end of the movie.
One wonderful crime film is Silence of the Lambs a 1991 American crime, psychological thriller film directed by Jonathan Demme and story by Thomas Harris. A young bright F.B.I agent named Jodie Foster need the help of a brilliant psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter who is also a violent psychopath serving life in jail, she hopes to use information from a pervious murder to stop a current murderer but all goes wrong. The ending is one of the best cinematic credit roles ever. It is such a great movie that involves suspence, murder, love and a hankering for a deep thought process about childhood and how that effects us throughout our whole entire lives.
“You still wake up sometimes, don’t you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs.”
Another great crime film is Videodrome a 1983 Canadian crime horror thriller directed by David Cronenberg. The president of a horrible TV channel is desperate for something original and something that will shock viewer hints the creation of Videodrome but that’s not all videodrome attracts. The movie is utterly confusing and the SFX make up is awful but it makes your brain think what if mind control was real and is this what goes on behind big names like ABC and NBC. It opens up commentary on media and television history in general.
Lastly one very great crime film is CopyCat is a 1995 American crime drama thriller with actors like Sigourney Weaver from Ghostbusters and Holly Hunter, a voice actor in The Incredibles. After an assault on Dr. Helen Hudson, she develops agoraphobia from this incident, once there is a killer on the loose she is overwhelmed with fear so she works with the police aka Holly Hunter to solve multiple murders.
Ultimately I love all of these movies, these movies are very scary so you have been warned.
Allissa Lozano
Tags: movies
What an absolutely captivating read, the reviews on the movies amazingly summarize the key elements of each movie. I truly enjoyed reading through this article and have very few complaints about it.