October Horror Festival

If you ask me What is your least Favourite Genre in movies?, my most probable answer would be Horror and there are couple of things that contribute to it. First of all, I rarely find them scary. I can easily watch them alone, in the night and then go right to sleep without any problem. And second and probably most importantly as I figured in past year or so, I haven't seen vast majority of them. However, since getting involved with various bloggers over this past year, I have learned of a new way to look at them. I learned that they don't always have to be scary or gory to be good. I learned to appreciate the horror elements in it more like the atmosphere and background music and make-up and such. Since I have acquired this new perspective, I have tried to give some horror movies a chance. After all, what kind of movie blogger would I be if I don't learn from these experiences and give new, different things a chance? (bad Kind...I guess) Isn't that a part of blogging oath we all have taken(WHAT??) And then, what better time to get into Horror genre than now, Halloween month when it looks like everyone is pretty much in the same mood. So, I did a mini marathon of 4 movies - just 1 movie per week. I wouldn't want to over-do it in very first attempt since I wanted to write about it too and I suspect that writing about Horror movies is a completely different beast. So, easy does it. Here we go!

Saw(2004): Main reason why I picked Saw for this marathon was because of its place in pop culture. In fact, there are three movies here that I picked mainly because of this. Only thing different with Saw was I knew that I will not watch any of its dozen or so sequels. But it seems that almost everyone agrees that the first one was great. So, I checked it out and as it turns out, it really is great. For those who do not know what this is about(anyone?), this is basically a story of a jigsaw killer who plays some kind of sick, twisted games with his victims if they want to live. His current victims are one Dr. Gordon and photographer Adam Faulkner. Both are tied in the shackles by their ankles and are given equipments enough to carry out the allocated task. Task is Dr. Gordon has to shoot Adam by 6:00 PM or else both his wife and daughter will die. As the movie progresses, we realize what this jigsaw killer has done in the past? How are Gordon and Faulkner related to it and then to each other as well? In most horror movies, we are kind of used to see the villain physically inflicting pain on its victims. What happens in Saw is different and hence brilliant. It creates a situation where victims have to do that on themselves. Even though there is enough of blood and other disturbing stuff in it, what makes it stand out to me is it doesn't rely completely on these elements to scare the audience. It builds up a real story and the atmosphere with it.

Again, there are very few instances throughout the movie where I was scared at all but I was definitely drawn into the story from the start and by revealing some aspects of the story every few minutes, it kept me interested till end. And I LOVED the twist in the end. 15-20 minutes to end when first killer is revealed, I wasn't satisfied with it and I thought that is such a weak end to otherwise much better movie but then when second killer stands up, I was actually clapping and jumping in my seat (In case you are wondering, Yes. That IS my usual response to something creepy). It is unnerving, it is chilling, it is violent and gory. It is possible that if I watch any of its sequels, I may not have this high opinion of it. I have also heard an opinion blaming it for all the crop of 'torture porn' since then. But since I have seen none, I think I will stand by and call it smart and inventive with extra points for that ending.

Rating(out of 5):

Poltergeist(1982): Second of the three movies that I saw because of their place in pop culture. Almost everyone has said that Poltergeist is like an essential movie for anything horror related. I was even told that it is downright terrifying. Again I wasn't scared but I understand that being scared of or by something is very subjective thing and I also accept that there were scenes that were creepy as hell. First of all. I didn't know what does the word mean. Apparently, it's a ghost that you can't see but can hear or feel.(So they got that right) So Poltergeist, the movie, is about a Happy looking middle class family with three kids. They start to experience few strange things in their house like an earthquake no one else in the neighbourhood knows anything about, things mysteriously move in their kitchen and most importantly, their youngest gets drawn repeatedly to TV and starts talking to 'TV People'. After a couple of days however, their world turns upside down as in freakiest of the events, their daughter gets sucked into the closet in her room. For the rest of the movie, parents try to get their daughter back, first with the help of Dr. Lesh, para-psychologist and then professional exorcist Tangina. There are lot of things to like about Poltergeist. Their setting-up of Freeling's as a loving family before things turn ugly, makes us sympathetic about their problems throughout. The scenes like their daughter getting sucked or when her mother rescues her are some of the best scenes I have seen. Character of Tangina also adds a lot to the whole mystique of the movie. And even though Spielberg is only writer, I couldn't help but notice how similar it looks and feels to his work from late '70s and '80s. But if I am being truthful to myself, I found all the praise towards it rather hyperbolic.

I did have few problems with the movie like first, Freelings have been leaving in that house for more than 5 years as there is a reference that their youngest was born in it. So, what changed that they start to experience all this now? We never know. Also, I might have got this wrong but according to explanation that Tangina gives, their daughter gets drawn because of something of the sort of 'Living Force'. So, basically because she is human. So, wouldn't anyone else in the family suffice? If yes, then why was a 5-year old child chosen? Because it will have more jarring effect on audience? There are few more but I mention these two because I think they were easily fixable. I DID NOT hate this movie, there was much to like about it. But it is safe to say that I probably didn't like it either as most others.

Rating(out of 5):

A Tale of Two Sisters(2003): Only foreign film of the bunch and off course, by that it implies this is the only film of the four that I did not see because of its pop culture presence. It also might well be the best or at least my favourite of the four as well. I remember watching this, or as it seems part of this, back at home on TV. I am sure that for whatever reason, I did not see the whole movie because I don't think I will forget watching something like this. As the title suggests, it is basically a story of two sisters who are just back from some kind of institutionalization. We never know what happened exactly to their mother but we know that she is no more. Their father has re-married and their stepmother seems to be the cause of rift between father and older sister as well as between her and stepmother too. Of course both the sisters have almost no working relationship with their stepmother but apparently older sister, Su-Mi, believes that their stepmother harasses younger Soo-Yeon. Their father also seems to carry some kind of guilt conscience that he believes Soo-Mi holds him responsible for something happened in their past - maybe him remarrying, maybe something to do with their mother's death, we don't know until the end. First almost 40 minutes or so is pretty much like a family drama with all the tensions in the broken family flaring around but then nightmares and visions start and we've got game !!

To me the best kind of horror movie is the one which uses minimum to no jump scares but still manages to be creepy and spooky. A Tale of Two Sisters is that kind of a movie. Name apparently, is taken from a Korean folklore which talks about a story similar to the one in movie. Usually, background music plays a very important part in creating the atmosphere for all the scares and when used, it is used effectively here as well. However, for a large part of its run-time, there is absolutely no background sound whatsoever and that silence makes it so much more creepier. With a little more than half hour left, there is a twist which changes everything. What I loved about it as you will probably never guess that twist but after the reveal, you realize there have been few subtle touches hinting towards it, right from the start.

Rating(out of 5):

Halloween(1978): Last movie of the lot and another one that I have heard a lot about. When I originally thought about doing this at the start of this month, this wasn't on my list. But then I remembered never having seen any of this another monumental franchise in Horror Folklore. So I decided to give this a try instead. Unfortunately, I really hoped that I had anything more good to say about this movie which I know many people consider as their favourite horror movie ever since childhood. Maybe because I did not see it as a child is one of the reasons but I just did not care about this movie at all. Or rather Halloween is exactly the kind of movie that made Horror my least favorite genre. It is very much what you can call 'By the book' movie which is least bit scary for me, very formulaic and predictable. I know that I said I am going to try to look at them with new perspective in mind. But in this case, I just could not help it. Michael Meyers is considered as one of the most iconic villains in the industry. Based on this entry alone at least, I found him dull and even stupid to an extent. How many times does Laurie have to escape from him? How did he miss her the first time? There were so many such things that happened in the movie for no reason other than 'because we won't have a movie then'. It was a disaster. Only concession that I will give it is a possibility that probably this was the first film of its kind, with slasher villains, teen horrors etc. At least I do not know if there were any movies before this. So if that is true, it will at least get some of my respect for being an inspiration to horde of movies that came out after. Not that I care about most of them either, but being the first one in the line, being influential enough that everyone wants to copy you for many years after, got to count.

Rating(out of 5):