Horrifying Good!

Greetings mortals!

Last Saturday I went along with Carrot Head, The Mom Away From Home, The Pretty Assistant and The Maid to see The Machinist at the movies. First off, let me say it is a great movie, especially Christian Bale's performance and the fact that he had to lose 67 pounds for the movie; which is amazing if you see the hard body he had on American Psycho and even more amazing when you consider he is pumped up in the new Batman movie. That speaks a lot about discipline.

Although the movie cannot be classified as horror since it leans towards suspense, let me say that I was surprised The Pretty Assistant came along with us because she dislikes horror movies so much; actually, if I must be totally honest, I think I might have lied to her a little bit when she asked what the movie was about. Hey! You cannot blame me for wanting her to jog along so I had to use any underhanded techniques at my disposal. Means to an end. In any case, I think she liked it...

... a little... maybe...

But that is besides the point. The point is that she got me thinking about her dislike for horror movies and found out that a lot of people find horror movies senseless and... well... vanal. A guy in a jockey mask following around naked teens with a chainsaw and cutting them to pieces in their dreams on Halloween night does not sound like much of a piece of art. And you know what? I agree.

Still, I like gore :D

Then I had a realization: that is not horror. Most slasher films (Freddy, Jason, Michael, Texas Chainsaw Massacre) are terror movies. I guess now there are two thoughts going through your head: "What in the blazes is this guy talking about? I should stop reading this senseless crap" or "What in the blazes is this guy talking about? Meh, I have nothing better to do so I will humor him and read the entire thing."

Please stay, I get lonely.

When we speak of terrorism inherently we fear for our physical well-being, of not being blown away to pieces or maybe shot down by a sniper. That is terror, some kind of physical fear, clean cut bleeding damage to our bodies. It is pain as much as a corporal repulsion. This is why terror is born out of scenes which I call Gross Out Scenes; when there is a shot of something really disgusting on screen: a gun to someone's head, the high impact noise of the bullet crushing the guy's skull, squishing the brains as they fly through the room and end up splattering against the wall; rotting zombies with their hanging eyeballs yelling "brains!" in a mall while they tear people's guts out and eat them with deviant and void pleasure. You get the picture. A very good example of this is Cabin Fever.

Horror is a psychological fear, mental and spiritual. It is more primitive and arcane. The fears we have to life itself, rooted well inside our souls. That is why sometimes a movie that speaks to us about the meaning of life, of not knowing what is going on in our heads, of being lost in a dark alley really get to us and scare the living bejeebus out of our bones. Blair Witch, Open Water, Jacob's Ladder and The Eye are good examples of this kind of fear. Horror is not just an image which scares you, but the fear of not knowing what in the hell is happening to your sense, the insecurity for your soul and human existence. And not necessarily your own, but of other people out there.

That is why the movies succeding in causing such a big fear capable of killing Dissi of a heart attack are those with a good mix of terror and horror, such as The Phone. Movies that can set the psycological mood plus throw some scary images to support that atmosphere and increase the feeling of hopelesness. Lucio Fulci is a director that comes to mind; someone who could show you scenes of tension, suspense and horror; then suddenly gross you out with a totally disgusting scene of a little girl's head exploding into pieces with flying brains all around to up the notch on terror before going back to the psychological horror.

Kinda like a roller coaster. Ups and downs.

Yet, horror and terror are not enough to make a good movie. A good movie should be entertaining while still being capable of leaving a message behind that the audience can later reflect upon. Therefore, to me the really good horror movies are those that instead of the writter/director coming up with ideas to scare you, they think of something they actually want to tell to the public. Maybe a social commentary, critisism or love. And then wrapping this message in a nice, tiddied up horror package. Then you get a real good movie which has you on the edge of your seat all one-hundred-and-twenty minutes and come out of the theater thinking: "Wow, I had never looked at life this way." Case in point, just one of the best movies to come out in ages: Saw.

That is why I take so long to come up with my screenplays -yes, I sometimes write beyond this senseless words on the Net-; because I have to think of something I want to tell the world, something I want people to think about and after that contextualize it to a horror story.

In summary, terror is to scare while horror is to fear.