Are You Still Afraid of the Dark?

Sophie Parkin discusses the decline of the traditional horror film. 

Outmoded: Christopher Lee as Dracula.
Image credit: The Guardian

As the dark nights set in, it’s the perfect time of year to watch a scary movie, hide behind the sofa and inadvertently throw your popcorn in the air as your housemate walks into the room. But this year the number of horror films gracing our screens seems somewhat limited.

Gone are the days of classic British horror epitomised by the likes of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. But therein lies the problem; the audience of 2013 would merely sit and laugh at the now comical ‘bat on a string’ that, in its day, terrified a generation.

It seems that the current call is for gore, blood, flesh, and lots of it.

The more gruesome the film, the more it seems to fit the needs of the modern horror audience. Yet I would argue that the true essence of a horror film lies in a slow moving plot line that is able to build a sense of unease and discomfort amongst its viewers.

Take the 1978 John Carpenter classic Halloween, a slow moving thriller teamed with a chilling score and very little gore. Nevertheless, the story, centred on Michael, an escaped psychiatric patient, managed to frighten cinema goers and had babysitters locking doors and windows for years to come.

In a modern world where this villain would be deterred simply by double glazing and a house alarm, people seem disengaged with the thought of fear of the real-life, masked killer.

The Paranormal Activity series is wildly popular.
Image credit: Total Film.

Instead, we turn to the sudden abundance of ‘found footage’ films. With the likes of Paranormal Activity and The Fourth Kind focusing on ‘real people’ being terrorised and tormented by paranormal entities, there has been a major shift in the focus of the genre.

However, the seemingly random footage of furniture bouncing around rooms lacks any real fear factor. Fear of the unknown is paramount to the makings of a successful horror movie and the endless remakes of classic horror films and the repetitive nature of the ‘found footage’ films seems to beg the question; has the industry simply run out of ideas for a good horror movie?

Hopefully the answer is no, but what film makers seem to have forgotten is that the formation of a villain that can truly terrify is vital. The faceless spirit entities in the likes of Paranormal Activity are not the sort of villains that keep you awake at night and grasping for the bedside lamp.

The notorious characters of horror – Michael, Jason, and Freddy – are so because they had the ability to unsettle an audience and make them fear that the terrifying acts they saw on screen could happen in their own homes.

It’s safe to say that, despite the lack of innocence in the modern generation, there is still a call for a gritty horror film in the 21st century. What Hollywood needs to grasp onto is what truly terrifies people – the fear that their own lives could portray the horror story that they see on the big screen.

Sophie Parkin

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Does the Turn of the Page Still Terrify?

It’s the spookiest week of the year, and Thomas Davies and Maddy Walters discuss whether paper or celluloid gives them a bigger fright and whether books or screen provide nightmares for longer…

FILMS – In my mind to have a successful horror story you need three things: involvement, tension and the ‘whoa factor’: the actual scare. In all three of these areas films and games are far better at creating a good scare than books.

As for involvement, a film is more accessible than a book to most people. I’m not saying books are difficult, it’s just films are undoubtedly easier. With a book the words create a barrier of sorts that could stop you from accessing the full dread of a page; the elaborate nature of the language takes away from the raw horror of what unfolds. Games throw you right into the action – you can’t get more involved than that.

For build-up in films and games we have sound. A well-placed soundtrack can do wonders for a scary scene: the odd noise, the whistle of the wind, the dramatic score of Psycho or Jaws, from creepy to heart-pounding. A book can’t provide quite the same experience. It can describe scary sounds but you, the reader, have to make them up in your mind which doesn’t have the same effect as actually hearing a sound. The anticipation of hearing a twanging string piece as the full moon rises is unparalleled in the world of literature even by some of the most evocative descriptions.

Finally, it’s the ‘whoa’ factor where films and games triumph over literature. It’s one thing to read about a goblin jumping on someone from behind, it’s quite another to watch it happen. The horrified expression of the victim, the repulsive look of the monster’s face and the desperate struggle that unfolds before your eyes is much more powerful on screen than when you read about it. This is particularly true in games where you are the victim; there’s definitely an added adrenaline as you fight off demons or zombies that appear out of nowhere. We humans use sight as our primary sense, and it’s films and games that exploit that to their fullest.

Horror films, games and books have a lot of things in common, but it’s only films and games that fully use all the tricks to their advantage. The visuals, the sound and the action suck the audience into the scene and force you to believe in the tale. You may create your own chills from books, but horror films are your worst nightmares.

Thomas Davies

BOOKS – We’ve all had the night: innocently drowsing, the mind wanders, and eyes lose their focus. Suddenly, the shadow created by the clothes hanging on the wardrobe transforms to the shape of the murderer/villain/mad-person from the horror story you haven’t quite been able to shake.

For me, it’s Jack Torrance, protagonist of The Shining. However, it is not Jack Nicholson who haunts my nightmares, but the image I invented for myself when reading the book as an innocent 15-year-old. Since then, I’ve watched the film, and, masterpiece though it is, there is no way the motion picture can compare to the captivating horror of the book.

This is due to the inherent process of reading itself. A book only provides descriptions, and leaves it up to the reader to colour in the details: the look, the person, the setting. The reader becomes part of the story and more importantly, the story becomes part of the person. The direct communication reading provides to the imagination-centre of the brain, the area that (for me, anyway) kicks into gear in the minutes before sleep, means that these are the images that greet my closed eyes on the night the wardrobe and its shadows begin misbehaving. Despite watching horror films before and after reading this book, it’s Jack that haunts my dreams, never the Ring-girl or Jigsaw.

When reading, the mind is active; it cannot look away. When watching, the mind is passive, we can close our eyes, hide behind the pillow, and shield ourselves from the images on the screen. When the images are inside the mind, they become harder to ignore, and possess us in a very real way.

I’m not going to deny that films can be terrifying. Many a night I have spent regretting my decision to watch The Ring, The Exorcist, or Saw, but the fact is that the two hours-or-so spent in front of the television are far more fleeting than the week-or-so spent with a novel. They take up more of my time, and thus become a greater part of my life. And while these films have the power to scare, they exist and will always exist as things in the physical world, regardless of whether I watch them or not. For me, however, a book comes alive when it is read, and much like a horror-story character, once I have given them life, they never seem to leave me alone.

Maddy Walters

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Review: Sinister

Image credit: Summit Entertainment

Upon moving his family into a house that was previously the scene of a horrific murder, true crime novelist Ellison Oswalt discovers a box of home videos depicting the butchering of several families, and begins piecing together the reasons for which they were made.

If I can give one piece of advice regarding how you watch Sinister, it is not to see it in a packed out cinema full of teenagers that scream at the slightest whiff of malevolence and then in turn laugh at their own reaction. I say this simply because the atmosphere that budding horror director Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) builds throughout the film is outstanding. Poignantly low-lighted shots throughout the film often leave you unsure as to whether the scenes take place in the day or night. This is in contrast to how most horror films usually allow the viewer to know what time of day it is and establish that the night scenes are to be feared.

However without this norm, along with the truly unsettling soundtrack, the overall result is a nerve-wracking 110 minutes of film. Interestingly, one of the scenes rendered the previously excitable audience silent, and I knew I was in for a treat. Or perhaps an enormous jump moment. It’s a horror film, go figure.

Many films in this genre have moments of respite allowing for the audience to relax into a false sense of security and Sinister does this cleverly with comic relief. Not only does this add to the overall entertainment value of the film, but the humour is seemingly self-aware. It pokes fun at the conventional characters introduced into horror films and makes light of some of the terrifying events that come to pass.

I am of the opinion that the plots of many recent horror films have become fairly predictable and, unfortunately, Sinister does fall into this category (think Insidious or the Paranormal Activity franchise). That said, this film is both rewarding for those new to horror and satisfying for those familiar with the style of the genre.

Laurie Pope

My Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Rotten Tomatoes Critics’ Average: 3.1/5 stars