I love making lists. They keep life organized and help determine what to do next. I also love watching how writers work around some very real problems in a movie. Prime example "this character is dead, how do they do anything? BRING THEM BACK TO LIFE!" Always a brilliant move, because a movie full of dead people always ends well. Based on these two loves, I made my top 5 resurrection methods in movies. Enjoy.
#5: Lightning (Frankenstein, Friday the 13th part 6). It's a base element with such mystery and power, why can't it bring the dead back?! While we're at it, next we'll send the dead into space to bring them back... wait, Jason X. Nevermind.
#4: Cloning (Alien: Resurrection). Bringing something that died for good reason back from a piece of DNA found after a massive fight. This was simply genius. Sometimes, just do what you must and not what you can.
#3: Virus (Resident Evil, possible for Night of the Living Dead). This really causes one of my favorite debates in horror movies: what causes a zombie? It's side in this debate alone makes it a top 5 winner.
#2: Curse (Pumpkinhead). Bring back the dead WITH demonic power. Whoever does this deserves the butt of a gun to the back of the head. Really? Superpowered dead. If this happens to me, I have to enter it on FML.com
#1: Being peed on by a dog (Nightmare on Elm Street 4). A dog pees fire on the spot Freddy was buried and this brings him back to life. I have to give points for creativity and, somehow, stand in awe of the mythic power of this one but I really have to ask a few things. How bad was this dog's urinary tract infection that it peed fire?! What was it drinking? Why didn't it's bladder simply explode?
Monday, November 15, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Do horror movies make people violent?
One of the hot-button topics in media has been the connection between violence in movies and real life. It seems that even before Skeet Ulrich claimed "movies don't create psychos, movies make psychos more creative" that parents and lawmakers have been pushing the blame for other people's actions on movies. This really begs the question "Why?" Why are they blaming movies for someone's actions when they are obviously not in the correct frame of mind to be claiming that any external force has caused this to be.
Psychology has debated the topic of nature vs nurture for various behaviors including behaviors. In 1995, D.T. Lykken claimed proof that environment produced violent criminals. A. Raine claimed in 1993 that brain abnormalities cause violent crimes. Lawmakers and parent groups seem to be pushing on the Lykken view recently with a push for censorship in movies to show less violence.
The sad part of this is really multi-fold. First, nature and nurture have both been shown to be contributing factors in violence. By claiming that movies are the nurture that caused the child to shoot up their class, the parents are claiming they had no part in nurturing their child to non-violent resolutions. Second, the writers and directors of the most violent films I have seen do not have major arrest records for violent crimes to the best of my knowledge. They actually are fairly plain looking and calm people. Could it be that they are getting out their frustrations with the world is a healthy manor that does not hurt people? Lastly, I think of my own grandfather. We he was sent in for World War 2, my grandfather stated he would not carry a gun and was trained as a medic. In war, he saw some of the most horrific things that no movie director will ever want to recreate (because it's not art and does not make for good story?). He still never carried a gun or killed anyone. His environment pushed on him towards violence, but his upbringing was of non-violence and so he did not act on his environment. He ended up saving several (now) veterans because of this. I grant a small sample but if you look, you will find similar stories wedged between the "Freddy taught me to kill" articles.
In closing, movies do not kill people. People kill people (and monkeys, if they have a razor or gun). Movies tell a story. Before horror movies, we had some violent stories and we do not blame the Grimm Brothers for Albert Fish. Leave movies alone and take responsibility for your own work.
Psychology has debated the topic of nature vs nurture for various behaviors including behaviors. In 1995, D.T. Lykken claimed proof that environment produced violent criminals. A. Raine claimed in 1993 that brain abnormalities cause violent crimes. Lawmakers and parent groups seem to be pushing on the Lykken view recently with a push for censorship in movies to show less violence.
The sad part of this is really multi-fold. First, nature and nurture have both been shown to be contributing factors in violence. By claiming that movies are the nurture that caused the child to shoot up their class, the parents are claiming they had no part in nurturing their child to non-violent resolutions. Second, the writers and directors of the most violent films I have seen do not have major arrest records for violent crimes to the best of my knowledge. They actually are fairly plain looking and calm people. Could it be that they are getting out their frustrations with the world is a healthy manor that does not hurt people? Lastly, I think of my own grandfather. We he was sent in for World War 2, my grandfather stated he would not carry a gun and was trained as a medic. In war, he saw some of the most horrific things that no movie director will ever want to recreate (because it's not art and does not make for good story?). He still never carried a gun or killed anyone. His environment pushed on him towards violence, but his upbringing was of non-violence and so he did not act on his environment. He ended up saving several (now) veterans because of this. I grant a small sample but if you look, you will find similar stories wedged between the "Freddy taught me to kill" articles.
In closing, movies do not kill people. People kill people (and monkeys, if they have a razor or gun). Movies tell a story. Before horror movies, we had some violent stories and we do not blame the Grimm Brothers for Albert Fish. Leave movies alone and take responsibility for your own work.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Why Horror?
With so many movie genres in the world, why are we so fascinated with horror films? We hate our selves while we are seeing splatter on the screen. We cringe in fear as we hear the stingers in the music. We laugh at the completely impossible concepts presented. We ask ourselves "Why is she diving into a tank of formaldehyde?" Yet we continually pay homage and hard earned dollars to see torture-porn, 80s icons and mutated animals compliments of Hollywood.
For some, the reason is to face fear itself. Some people genuinely love the endorphin rush caused by getting sucked into a movie where a psychotic Christian Bale is chasing them with a chainsaw through his penthouse apartment. We need to know we are brave enough to stand up to the most insane traps in which Freddy and Jason put us.
We need to root for the people Jigsaw has put in his contraption. On other occasions, we need to root for Jason, Freddy and Jigsaw as they eliminate people we find utterly deplorable. These are the horror fan's Steelers, Patriots and Vikings. We understand why Hannibal Lecter kills the rude and serves the despicable their own brains. We would not do it ourselves, same as we would not kill the child molester up the road. But we can understand those people who want to do it for us. Some people may say things like "I could just kill them." but we are the fans who look at the logical and illogical consequences of that action and see what we are for it.
Most importantly, we know that horror movies are a reflection of ourselves. Alien scared us because we were scared of our body, of the unknown, the dark and things that crawled. Freddy scared us because we were afraid that what our parents did may, some day, come back to haunt us. Hannibal scared us because he showed us that not all monsters are giant lizards, they are the well educated guy up the road. The Bad Seed showed us that not all the psychos of the world are the grownups. Horror films are a reflection of ourselves. We look at them while they look at us.
For some, the reason is to face fear itself. Some people genuinely love the endorphin rush caused by getting sucked into a movie where a psychotic Christian Bale is chasing them with a chainsaw through his penthouse apartment. We need to know we are brave enough to stand up to the most insane traps in which Freddy and Jason put us.
We need to root for the people Jigsaw has put in his contraption. On other occasions, we need to root for Jason, Freddy and Jigsaw as they eliminate people we find utterly deplorable. These are the horror fan's Steelers, Patriots and Vikings. We understand why Hannibal Lecter kills the rude and serves the despicable their own brains. We would not do it ourselves, same as we would not kill the child molester up the road. But we can understand those people who want to do it for us. Some people may say things like "I could just kill them." but we are the fans who look at the logical and illogical consequences of that action and see what we are for it.
Most importantly, we know that horror movies are a reflection of ourselves. Alien scared us because we were scared of our body, of the unknown, the dark and things that crawled. Freddy scared us because we were afraid that what our parents did may, some day, come back to haunt us. Hannibal scared us because he showed us that not all monsters are giant lizards, they are the well educated guy up the road. The Bad Seed showed us that not all the psychos of the world are the grownups. Horror films are a reflection of ourselves. We look at them while they look at us.
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