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OT: 71st Obsequious Banter Thread: Hey, we're just one away from revisiting the Zeppinator

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Beef Invictus

Beef Invictus

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Ghosts Beer said:
Probably mentioned this before, but I took a horror film class in undergrad. Suspiria & Opera were part of the curriculum.

My lasting imprint from that class, though, was Haneke’s original Funny Games. Theater of 25 people. Movie ends. No one moved for at least 5 minutes. Utter psychological drainage.
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I'd have loved that class. Horror movies are the peak for symbolism in film, and I'm a sucker for that stuff. My favorite bit of symbolism is like a bad dad-pun, from Silence of the Lambs. After Buffalo Bill is dead and Starling is a full FBI agent, right before she gets the call from Lector, we have a scene where they are at a party. We have a shot of a cake with the DOJ seal on it. A server cuts out the slice that says "Justice" and hands it out. JUSTICE HAS BEEN SERVED. I f***ing howl laughing every time. It's so good in subtle but not at all subtle way. Horror movies rely heavily on mind tricks conjured by imagery, like how all the rape symbolism in Alien is just super unsettling.

Here's a thing I recently found that you may enjoy. Don't open it at work because it contains images from horror movies and also the tub scene from The Shining.

All hail the monumental horror-image
 
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Amorgus

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Ghosts Beer said:
Probably mentioned this before, but I took a horror film class in undergrad. Suspiria & Opera were part of the curriculum.

My lasting imprint from that class, though, was Haneke’s original Funny Games. Theater of 25 people. Movie ends. No one moved for at least 5 minutes. Utter psychological drainage.
Click to expand...
Funny Games is one of those ones like A Serbian Film that I don't know if I can deal with subjecting myself to. It's like how I put off Grave of the Fireflies forever and finally bit the bullet one day. It really was the most depressing movie I've ever watched, as expected.
 
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SolidSnakeUS

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If I had to say the one horror film that legit made me feel so f***ing uncomfortable and refuse to watch again is "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer." Holy flying f*** is that movie just so disturbing and unsettling.

Keep in mind, it's still a really good movie. I also understand that it's not really a horror movie, but it f***ing should be listed as one.
 
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Amorgus

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SolidSnakeUS said:
If I had to say the one horror film that legit made me feel so ****ing uncomfortable and refuse to watch again is "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer." Holy flying **** is that movie just so disturbing and unsettling.

Keep in mind, it's still a really good movie. I also understand that it's not really a horror movie, but it ****ing should be listed as one.
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The beginning of Michael Rooker's career. I haven't seen the original Maniac but I saw the remake with Elijah Wood and movies where you're just a fly on the wall for these horrible people's deeds is indeed intense and makes you want to shower afterwards.
 
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Beef Invictus

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Amorgus said:
Funny Games is one of those ones like A Serbian Film that I don't know if I can deal with subjecting myself to. It's like how I put off Grave of the Fireflies forever and finally bit the bullet one day. It really was the most depressing movie I've ever watched, as expected.
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The Road manages to be absurdly bleak as well.
 
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Captain Dave Poulin

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BigToe said:
Don’t have a clue who he is. I just pass along all the Epstein news I see.
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902B.gif
 
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Captain Dave Poulin

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Beef Invictus said:
I'd have loved that class. Horror movies are the peak for symbolism in film, and I'm a sucker for that stuff. My favorite bit of symbolism is like a bad dad-pun, from Silence of the Lambs. After Buffalo Bill is dead and Starling is a full FBI agent, right before she gets the call from Lector, we have a scene where they are at a party. We have a shot of a cake with the DOJ seal on it. A server cuts out the slice that says "Justice" and hands it out. JUSTICE HAS BEEN SERVED. I ****ing howl laughing every time. It's so good in subtle but not at all subtle way. Horror movies rely heavily on mind tricks conjured by imagery, like how all the rape symbolism in Alien is just super unsettling.
Click to expand...

OOF!

That is a ... bold statement there, Beefarino. Damn. I'd have to think about this one.
 
Beef Invictus

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Captain Dave Poulin said:
OOF!

That is a ... bold statement there, Beefarino. Damn. I'd have to think about this one.
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I mean as a genre, because horror movies are heavily reliant on imagery and using imagery to convey emotion; more so than other films, I think. There are obviously other examples from other genres that are just as good. Kubrick could do it in anything.
 
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Captain Dave Poulin

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Beef Invictus said:
I mean as a genre, because horror movies are heavily on imagery and using imagery to convey emotion; more so than other films, I think. There are obviously other examples from other genres that are just as good. Kubrick could do it in anything.
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You are a connoisseur of horror and have taken the time to dig into it, and I haven't, so I don't want to sound like I am on a pulpit or something. I just don't think you could place horror's use of symbolism above noir's. Noir's is more subtle - the chiaroscuro shades and shadows, especially. The symbolism in the scripts I think is especially stronger than horror. It doesn't matter, just got me thinking.

I used Film Noir in my communication class over in Thailand - it was a pretty crazy thing to do, considering their level of English, but I found a way to make it work. I was just sickened by their lack of knowledge about history, so I was able to sneak in there my Film Noir stuff. Part of that was explaining to them about the psychological damage the war had done to the guys who had been there, and the way that was reflected in the characters and overall mood in American cinema and the stories they (and the hardboiled writers) chose to tell, and how noir is one of only two art forms that originated with America (the other being jazz), and the rise of psychology and free time and spending money after the war, etc. It's a crazy rich subject matter.
 
Beef Invictus

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Captain Dave Poulin said:
You are a connoisseur of horror and have taken the time to dig into it, and I haven't, so I don't want to sound like I am on a pulpit or something. I just don't think you could place horror's use of symbolism above noir's. Noir's is more subtle - the chiaroscuro shades and shadows, especially. The symbolism in the scripts I think is especially stronger than horror. It doesn't matter, just got me thinking.

I used Film Noir in my communication class over in Thailand - it was a pretty crazy thing to do, considering their level of English, but I found a way to make it work. I was just sickened by their lack of knowledge about history, so I was able to sneak in there my Film Noir stuff. Part of that was explaining to them about the psychological damage the war had done to the guys who had been there, and the way that was reflected in the characters and overall mood in American cinema and the stories they (and the hardboiled writers) chose to tell, and how noir is one of only two art forms that originated with America (the other being jazz), and the rise of psychology and free time and spending money after the war, etc. It's a crazy rich subject matter.
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Yeah, but Noir is pretty dead and is mostly confined to a specific era. Horror is ongoing and has been reliant on imagery to generate the desired emotions pretty much since the 1920s, when a generation of WWI veteran directors used the things they'd seen to inform their filmmaking.

Have you seen Night of the Hunter? I've always felt that's a horror film with some heavy Noir influence. Which makes sense because the director was in Noir films as an actor. I also super admire how Chinatown captures that Noir feel but in color, which I consider a feat; I think black and white is generally essential for that imagery and genre.

But in Noir, I tend to feel that the images set a tone, but don't dictate what the viewer feels as thoroughly as images alone have to in horror. The actors, dialogue, and action are still heavily required.
 
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SolidSnakeUS

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The worst I've ever seen... I hate movies like "Avatar Last Airbender" and "Alone in the Dark", but they are more watchable than something like "31". "31" is a truly terrible film. It's one of the few movies I've ever tried to sit through and gave up 30 minutes in on how awful it was.
 
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Captain Dave Poulin

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Beef Invictus said:
Yeah, but Noir is pretty dead and is mostly confined to a specific era. Horror is ongoing and has been reliant on imagery to generate the desired emotions pretty much since the 1920s, when a generation of WWI veteran directors used the things they'd seen to inform their filmmaking.

Have you seen Night of the Hunter? I've always felt that's a horror film with some heavy Noir influence. Which makes sense because the director was in Noir films as an actor. I also super admire how Chinatown captures that Noir feel but in color, which I consider a feat; I think black and white is generally essential for that imagery.

But in Noir, I tend to feel that the images set a tone, but don't dictate what the viewer feels as thoroughly as images alone have to in horror. The actors, dialogue, and action is still heavily required.
Click to expand...

I haven't seen Night Hunter. I think with Noir, some of "what the viewer feels" has been dampened for us because of how desensitized we have become - to those audiences, these films were a real departure from what they were used to and were a real shock to the system. There was an honesty about human nature that ran counter to the "fantasy of cinema" and which most people didn't want to face. And in some ways, they didn't have to face it - the character who played loose with his morality (as well as the poor sucker who just had no luck) always got his comeuppance. The way they pulled the curtain back on women, portrayed as capable of scheming, and sexual beings, was terrifying for mainstream audiences to face. I think much of the effect was very subliminal, but also powerful.

The nice thing is the way the two genres merge in the work of Hitchcock.
 
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Beef Invictus

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Captain Dave Poulin said:
I haven't seen Night Hunter. I think with Noir, some of "what the viewer feels" has been dampened for us because of how desensitized we have become - to those audiences, these films were a real departure from what they were used to and were a real shock to the system. There was an honesty about human nature that ran counter to the "fantasy of cinema" and which most people didn't want to face. And in some ways, they didn't have to face it - the character who played loose with his morality (as well as the poor sucker who just had no luck) always got his comeuppance. The way they pulled the curtain back on women, portrayed as capable of scheming, and sexual beings, was terrifying for mainstream audiences to face. I think much of the effect was very subliminal, but also powerful.

The nice thing is the way the two genres merge in the work of Hitchcock.
Click to expand...

Those films can still be quite a shock. Proto-noir in the 30s could be especially gritty relative to what people expect movies were before the 70s. Villains in those movies weren't absurd in their evil. They were just very selfish and very cruel in pursuit of whatever they wanted, which made it quite believable and quite unsettling.
 
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