io9
Welcome back to Horrorhead, a column where we explore the intersection of horror and scifi. I wasn't born a horror movie fan, I made myself one through years of careful practice and studious watching. Everybody has an origin story, and mine begins with the pulsing, gooey strands of sludge that enveloped and destroyed every single point-of-view character in the 1970s version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I was so young that I missed the political allegory about Nixon, and the joke about how Spock plays one of the pod people. I crunched down into the fake velvet movie theater seat, wondering if there was a way to worm out of the narrative but still make it through. My first discovery came then: If I plugged my ears, blocked out the heart-beating soundtrack, I could survive the alien invasion.
I still use this little survival mechanism to get through the scary scenes in movies. It's amazing how covering your ears, rather than your eyes, makes it all much more bearable. Plus, I wouldn't want to miss the best parts: the spatter of gore when the infected lady explodes; the crunch of the monster's gigantic mouth through the annoying dude's neck; the boiling pool of bloodslime where the ladies stab each other with rock-climbing equipment while a monster looks on; the giant alien orgy where some poor sucker gets dissolved and eaten.
So I have trained myself to watch horror movies, using little tools like fingers-in-the-ears and watching so many flicks in the genre that I know what will happen before the director does. And I'm willing to admit that I pay a little price in my electricity bills every month. That's right: I can't sleep without leaving the hall light on. I've got too many excellent eviscerations packed into my imagination to ever sleep soundly again.
Why do I do it? Why do we all do it? Here are five reasons — they may not be good reasons, but I guarantee that they are true.
To Survive
As I have already pointed out with my little story about Invasion of the Body Snatchers, part of the fun of every horror flick is getting through it alive. I am a firm believer that the right way to watch horror is not to distance yourself from it, but to plunge in and let yourself be completely credulous and scared. Sure the monster in Neil Marshall's amazing spelunking horror flick The Descent was a little cheesy, but watching those women get deeper and deeper into the dark tunnels, more and more lost, squeezing through the claustrophobic, dirty spaces and into madness — if you let yourself feel the horror of the situation, you'll be thrummingly high on relief when the flick ends.
To Take Your Secret Thoughts to Their Most Extreme — and Laugh
When I first saw Stuart Gordon's mad doctor gorefest Re-Animator, it was like a revelation. There were all these gross brain-operation scenes, and headless zombies, and people drooling blood. And that was good, but I'd been over that terrain before. But then came the moment of pure breakout genius. The headless zombie bad guy, whose body carries his head around in a bowling bag, finally kidnaps the lady he's been wanting to hook up with. His body straps the lady to a medical table, and proceeds to jam his severed head between her wiggling legs. He's giving her head! Also, holy crap what the fuck. Director Gordon WENT THERE. I mean, he wasn't afraid to just show you the most fucked up thing he could possibly imagine. How could even your weirdest private thoughts ever seem disturbing once you've laughed at the most fucked-up thing in the universe? Same goes for the moment in Frank Henenlotter's Brain Damage where the main character's penis-shaped parasite hides in his jeans and pops out to eat the brains of a girl who is just trying to give him a nice blowjob. Damn. I will never feel weird about any of my random fantasies ever again, because they can't top what Henenlotter actually committed to film.
To Let Everyone in on Your Nightmares
All of us have dark thoughts, but probably some of us more than others. I'm one of the ones with the ultra-super-dark thoughts — and my dreams are even worse. But the whole situation becomes a hell of a lot more bearable, and even fun, when some of those dark thoughts are realized in film. After all, most of our dark thoughts aren't really unique or special. That's why I will always treasure David Cronenberg's mad gynecologist movie Dead Ringers. Those gynecological tools for mutant women, pictured below? Oh yeah, I imagined stuff like that about twenty million times before I saw them in his flick. And now I can force all my friends to think about them with me when we watch the movie together. Same goes for the lady impregnated by aliens in Slither, who grows to the size of a barn before exploding with all those sperm-shaped baby aliens going everywhere. Sick, but I've dreamed that one too. Welcome to my mind. Nice to have company in here!
To Speak the Unspeakable
It may be hard to articulate what's wrong with your city, your sexuality, or your relationship with your boss. That's why horror does it for you, in grisly, unsparing detail. While the movie Akira is usually billed as pure scifi, anybody who has watched the grotesque physical mutation-explosion of the gangster-psychic Tetsuo at the end knows that it's also a terrifying look at the unspoken but well-known psychological consequences of poverty in the city. And anyone who has ever quietly suspected her boss might be controlling the fabric of reality was rewarded by that scene in The Matrix when Neo is kidnapped by Agent Smith, told to be a good little worker, and then tortured and implanted with a tiny robot while his mouth is sewn shut. In a few months, when Frank Henenlotter's latest movie Bad Biology hits theaters, we're about to get a good dose of inexpressible sexual panic in a tale of a guy whose giant cock is both detachable and addicted to drugs — so it's always running away to score some dope. I know the feeling. But I wouldn't have been able to tell you about it without the help of Henenlotter's film.
To Shove a Big Spiny Stick Up Rationality's Ass
The great part about science horror, full of mad doctors doping themselves with Hyde serum and physics experiments gone wrong, is that they are a slap in the face to so-called rationality. How many times have you heard someone describe the "rational thing to do" and known that it was also the worst, scariest thing to do? Sure, it was "rational" to try to get samples of those aliens in the first Alien flick; and it was "rational" to put that futuristic Prozac in the air of that planet in Serenity that created the rapin, cannibalizin' Reavers; and it was rational to genetically engineer dinosaurs for a cool new theme park in Jurassic Park. All those things were done with pure science in mind (and a little profit). My point? Scientific rationality is great and all, but scifi horror is here to remind you suckas that sometimes you need to check with your ethics and all that mushy crap before experimenting on people's brains or messing around with outer-space superweapons that you don't understand. Your science won't save you when the Hulk comes around to beat your sorry ass.
Comments
"... anybody who has watched [Akira] ...knows that it's also a terrifying look at the unspoken but well-known psychological consequences of poverty in the city"
No, sorry: Akira is about puberty. and giant blobs. and screaming your friend's name over and over and over again.
@DSTRYA: It's also about orphans whose families are violent gangs in a giant, fucked-up city.
Hate to split hairs, but the horror for me isn't staying alive in BodySnatchers, but staying yourself. The threat isn't mortality, its individuality.
God I love that flick. Totally random finding that photoshop job, but i feel it works.
img[i134.photobucket.com]
What's Saw about?
I find the best way to watch a horror movie is just to not be afraid of anything, because you've watched so many you know exactly what will happen every time.
Yes, I'm jaded.
@Garrison Dean, King Awesome: Well, the snatchers do technically kill you. Your body shrivels up into dusty yuck.
But my point was more about surviving the experience of the horror film itself and getting to leave the theater at the end without an axe in your head. So the "survival" is really you as an audience memeber.
When you mention "Sci-Fi/Horror", the two names that blaze into my brain at the speed of axon-charring electricity, are Clive Barker, and of course, H.P. Lovecraft.
Yet, there is but one film, (which I didn't think was all that) listed here that's even remotely based on one of their stories.
Both writers have a dearth of selections to choose from, and yet we have not seen a single movie worthy of their work.
I wait with baited breath for the day that Hollywood gets off it's ass and gives on of their classics the grand treatment it deserves.
@Plague: You're not getting the good of it then, Plague. Don't you want to feel really, genuinely horrified? I know you do.
I've watched so many of these that I can easily go into Jaded Mode. Did that with Blair Witch, a movie I saw by myself on a dark night. But it's just not as fun if you go all distancey.
Hmmm, comments seem to be appearing and disappearing on this post.
@Annalee Newitz: Nah, they kill your shell, but they change your soul. The new you is still you, your memories, your relationships, your body, you just lose your emotions and individuality, but that gets into a whole argument over physical and spiratual death. I get what you mean about survival though.
I have many daydreams about the zombie apocalypse and how I would survive. When, oh when will it come, and where is the io9 bunker going to be. You lot may not be the strongest I'm guessing, but the knowledge would be there.
@Garrison Dean, King Awesome: I actually have a zombie apocalypse plan. When it happens, we're all meeting up in Golden Gate Park and then driving our Priuses up to Saskatchewan because it's too cold for zombies there and they have really nice co-op markets.
@Annalee Newitz:
If I want to be genuinely horrified, I go to my place of employment.
The last time I truly watched a horror movie I was 6. It was Omen. Scarred 4 life, I have yet to watch another.
Except Scream, which had me sleeping with night light on. For the entire weekend. Reinforcing the idea that really, the genre could deal with my absolute disinterest quite well.
@Annalee Newitz: "we're all meeting up in Golden Gate Park and then driving our Priuses up to Saskatchewan because it's too cold for zombies there and they have really nice co-op markets"
Wait, is that to evade zombies or an exodus from L.A.? Or am I splitting hairs?
@Plague: Do you work in telemarketing?
@fintach: Hair splitter!
@Annalee Newitz:
I see you have a very low opinion of me.
@Plague: I was just trying to think of a place to work that would be scarier than having your brains eaten by a penis-shaped parasite.
Event Horizon taught me to never BEND space and time. Just don't. Trust me.
@Annalee Newitz:
It's called "The Music Industry".
@Annalee Newitz: Government work?
I, too, do the "stick fingers in ear" method of horror movie survival. It's almost always the soundtrack that gets my nerves shot, not the actual visuals.
@Miranda Kali: In The Mouth of Madness was a worthy tribute to Lovecraft, I thought...
@Plague: Ah, say no more.
Why am I not surprised that you've thought such things before, Annalee? :) Very amusing, and even insightful... in a creepy kind of way.
@Miranda Kali: Would definitely like to see more Lovecraft on the screen. Though Dunny0 already pointed out In The Mouth of Madness, there is a ton of untapped material I'd like to see someone run with. Dagon tried, but just didn't have the budget.
The one thing that creeped me out in the first remake of Bodysnatchers was the dog.
+ Watch video
@morose421: At the Mountains of Madness is still in production limbo, but that might be your next chance to see Lovecraft on the big screen.
Re-animator and it's sequels were much more for laughs then true horror, From beyond had it's moments, but it was below par. Check out "The Yellow Sign" it's an inde collection of Lovecraft inspired stories, revolving around The Yellow Sign, and the writings of Robert W. Chambers, a pseudo contemporary of Lovecraft, and a writer who delves into the Lovecraft mythos. Pretty good stuff. It's on Amazon.
@Annalee Newitz: let me just say that your Zombie-apocalypse plan ought to include NOT holing yourself up in a mall, attic, or basement. i recommend instead cruising around, raiding for food, and avoiding/taking out other survivors (i think 4 is a good number: mobile, tight, but enough to cover each other crossing a street/securing a perimeter, etc). keep a shotgun handy, as it's got better dispersal (zombies are really only dangerous in packs), but use bludgeons whenever possible to save the ammo for other survivors. and remember: if anybody in your crew gets a funny idea about saving some old person's life (or a child's), give 'em one in the back of the head. they will have, at that point, become useless.
I'll agree that the monster effects in The Descent may have been a bit cheesey but..
SPOILERS
Do you really think there were monsters down there? Recall that nobody saw them except Sarah. (Except of course right before the "monsters" killed someone.. in Sarah's presence.)
@DSTRYA: Brutally honest... I like that in a fellow Zombie apocalypse survivor. Pass the ammo.
@riotnrrd: Damn! your right! How the hell did I miss that?
@riotnrrd: Hmmm, good call. I just assumed there were monsters because why not? The psychological horror is just as intense with the monsters being real as it is without them being real.
@Annalee Newitz: It sounds like a good plan. I'm in Seattle, pick me up on the way. there is no way you'll get me in a prius though, sorry. I don't care if I'm the only one sucking gas, there is no way one of those plastic turtles can tear through a crowd of the undead.
Haven't seen a horror film since I was about six and saw "The Eyes of Laura Mars" on Channel 100, which was the precursor to HBO.
I didn't understand about special effects at the time, and there's a scene where someone's eyes get stabbed repeatedly with an icepick. All I could think about was how they stabbed someone in the eyes to make the movie.
as for "dead ringers"... i kept really really wanting to watch that again in the weeks leading up to my hysterectomy. i eventually decided it was probably a bad idea, but the bad idea bears were really cheering me on towards it.
i really only got into horror movies later in life. i was a young teen during the rise of the slasher film, but i was busy reading dorktastic SF instead of watching horror. i read plenty of horror(1) but was too scared of the visuals to watch the movies for a while. then again, i thought of myself as kind of a wimp about it, too. sometimes, i was afraid of dark spaces and what might be lurking behind the boiler or under the crawlspace in my house.
of course, when i started going into other people's basements and crawl spaces, i sort of got over it. except the time we worked in something that's at least as close to haunted as anyplace i've ever been. the house had been a funeral home. one of the previous tradesfolks who'd worked there had lived there and killed himself. and besides all the cobwebs and old cruftiness in the unfinished basement, there was a bulkhead leading into the SUB BASEMENT. it was creepy and kept getting creepier the longer we were in there. i'm not sure you could've paid me to work there after dark.
i blew the fear out of my mind that night (after managing to shower with my eyes open the whole time) by going to see "aliens", where the scary was right in front of you and got its ass kicked. positively cathartic.
as for people thinking freaky shit, it's important to recongize the difference between "hey, we're airing this stuff out and it's hilarious or ironic or maybe slightly kinky or whatever", and "yeah, but maybe i'll actually do it". up until the part where he actually kidnapped and murdered a girl, Kevin Ray Underwood wasn't apparently that much different than your average subgenius kind of internet freak. (and we'll probably never know for sure if dahmer really did post to alt.tasteless in the weeks or months *before* he was caught...)
(1) you might, someday, think "hey, i've had oral surgery, i'm going to take my painkillers and read clive barker's 'books of blood'". well, think twice before you do that. if you're anything like me, you end up having incredibly vivid dreams where you're doing unit 731 level of freaky medical experiments on unaneasthetized patients.
@Garrison Dean, King Awesome: i know a few groups of people in the seattle area who have Zombie Evacuation Plans. for large-scale organization, i'd think just taking over stepford^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H mercer island and blowing up the bridges would work pretty well to give you a defensible area.
escape by sea is hampered by the ballard locks, though.
@regis: Sounds good to me. I'm worried about floaters and the stray ghoul taking the island, but regular patrols would be good enough for that. Raze some of those big houses and you'd have farmland as well. Thanks for the update.
"Dagon" by Stuart Gordon was actually a pretty faithful adaptation of the Shadow over Innsmouth, except that Innsmouth has been replaced by Boca Dagon and it's in Spain, not New England.
Hmmm--all this talk about monsters and individuality and gore, but not a
word about evil.
I don't trust people who refuse to watch horror movies or acknowledge the darker side of human nature. It makes me wonder what they're trying not to think about.
@Dr. Spaceman: torture porn
i think its for fetishists
I thought John carpenter's remake of "The Thing" was just the coolest damn thing I had ever seen when it came out in 1982, despite the close-minded critical and commercial reception it got. And I'm glad that now finally much of the world agrees with me.
@Annalee Newitz: Awesome article Annalee! And I almost really seriously think the zombie apocalypse is coming. I will be ready though - all those zombie movies and Resident Evil games - count me in and hand me a shotgun!
yea I have seen so many zombie movies gore in the movies never phases me any more as well.
@DSTRYA:
I agree.. also: don't go around in dirty shirts only to look cool while fragging zombies. Stick to strong, resistant leather, and cover every inch of you body!