Its those thoughts that which keeps you lingering in the shadows under the curtain of night. It is very hot in the summer and I have two fans going in the night to keep the room temperature as close to "room" temperature as can be. Every so often a poster will come loose or a push pin will fall and I am left with an acoustic orchestra of what could be nails dragging on wood or teeth chattering. I can also imagine that the mattress is giving under weight that is not my own and possibly some paranormal force is waiting to strangle me or pull me from the bed. I can even see the dark shadow wave over me in an attempt to cling to my very life.
I love Horror. I like it all and it's sub-genres. In particular the thrillers, psychological, atmospheric, post-apocalyptic, and especially found footage. People like to dive into their particular genre of choice in whichever media outlet serves them best (movie, tv, book) in order to indulge some escapism. It can be a way to learn and expand your mind on a subject, visit a world that allows you to break from your current life, or seek something new and exciting as an observer. I actually love the strange and unusual. Found footage movies for me are like finding some hidden secret or forgotten memos of something that might have been of great importance. It might be a witch, monster, ghost, or space aliens on that tape but it is captivating nevertheless, if it is done well. In addition to these I particularly like anything with haunted houses, possessions, or a situation in which a person or group of people are under siege. There is something about putting people at odds that can't be solved with a gun or a 911 call. My mother told me once that she is more afraid of a real person breaking into her home than a ghost that wanted to harm her. A friend of mine's mother told me that she is more afraid of the ghost than the real person.
I had watched three horror films in a single day. Apollo 18 features claustrophobic, parasitic, isolated terror in an alien environment. Another I caught later in the day was "Insidious" which is about a boy in a coma that has attracted the remnants of the dead and a particularly feisty hoofed demon. I capped the evening off with my favorite zombie movie "Day of the Dead", the original George A. Romero epic. The remake of "Day" will be shot down in a later post if I get around to it. Either way I was up for quite awhile thinking about the lack of sleep I get from watching particularly striking imagery.
I admit I am effected by shocking imagery and I love it. I love the feeling of seeing something completely different, odd, and stimulating to the point of it imprinting on my sub-conscious. The two films I remember fondly of doing such a thing was the original "Dawn of the Dead" and the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Dawn of the Dead, for obvious reasons, is pretty freaky to watch at a very young age for the first time. It wasn't so much the material, it was it's presentation. There is something to the film's commentary on humanity, how we view the deceased (which happen to be walking), and it's ever growing and gnawing feeling of hopelessness. It was watching four individuals change and, for the most part, fall to pieces as they try to cling to what they feel to be what the feel is civilization which also happens to be consumerism. Dawn of the Dead is just full of tone and atmosphere. It instills in every scene that the situation is bad and will continue to decline no matter how much fun you can keep yourself locked up with.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, on the other hand, was a completely different story. I recently purchased a copy I spent a lot of time searching for. It is a black dvd case with a silver chainsaw on the front. It is the only copy I've ever had and will own as the recent releases of the classic film have been "remastered" and air-brushed to the point of it looking like a BBC documentary. The scratches, film grain, and the colors uncorrected give the Texas Chainsaw Massacre a lot of character that adds to the mood of the film. It really bugs me when I see classics rebuffed to an akward shaky shine (see Caligula on blu-ray). Grindhouse on blu-ray has the unusual feature of turning off the digital film damage. Grindhouse, by definition, is not something that is to be seen at such high quality polished prints. The film prints used in the low-budget, dime a dozen, drive in fodder were passed around between venues so much that the film stock would literally begin to break down.
Nevertheless, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre I first saw on the Independent Film Channel (IFC). This was an era of my life I am very fond of as this was when IFC really showed independent films and classic, obscure, and underground features. The movies would be screened and later in the night it would be shown again with commentary. I happened to catch the airing with commentary. It almost made the on screen violence and insanity that much more striking as Tobe Hooper, the director, and actor Gunnar Hanson seemed to have a good time talking about their behind the scenes exploits. Again, the commentary over a film the first time around is not the best way to be exposed to a movie, but it definitely stuck with me.
Day of the Dead is by far my favorite zombie movie. It is as simply put as a movie about how a breakdown in communications, between people, can lead to disaster. Unfortunately it happens when there is only a dozen or so people left in the movie. There is a bit of social commentary as well as if the human race was ever brought back from the edge of extinction that any records of our previous endeavors must be destroyed to keep us from repeating history. It isn't a bad notion to think about and it is certainly entertaining. Not to mention Day of the Dead has some very gory and nasty parts in it that still makes me wanna look off screen when it happens.
While this has cost me some hours of rest, I definitely look forward to finding these moments again. I still have a copy of "Demons"I have yet to crack open.
