WHAT EXACTLY IS A HORROR FILM?
I love taking concepts that have developed by fuzzy, conventional, family-resemblance thinking and trying to articulate some sort of conceptual seed that they all have in common. It’s rarely successful, but always fun.
For instance, Horror: a genre of narrative whose primary hook is to act on the aversive, fight-or-flight, and panic responses. Similar to the action film, which also acts on fight-or-flight response, but tends to focus more on aggression than aversion, and offers some (potential) positive outcome as additional gratification.
Fun game! Can anybody come up with another one?
In an odd way, I think it centers around making the audience member nervous and very tense; typically, in situations they would never want to be in in the first place. There’s a very thin line between Thrillers and Horror films for me (which is why many movies are a combination of both). I guess fear could be thrown into that equation as well.
The OP brings up the fantastical elements which is a somewhat fresh and different thing to look into when considering horror genre conventions. The horror genre as it applies to film is, like film noir and science fiction, mostly derived from Expressionist modes of filmmaking, which is a non-realism, more fantastical approach. Calling horror movies fantasies is sort of interesting because often times serial killer movies (or those torture porn things) are considered “thrillers”, or even a movie like Monster is considered more like a drama/thriller. You see movies like Se7en and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer placed in the “Drama” aisle of rental shops whereas the more fantasty-based stuff that the OP cites are placed in Horror, all that Candyman land stuff.
However, like Jesse M mentioned, genre is about as arbitrary as label systems get. More than anything, genre as it applies to filmmaking refers to specific market niches in the hopes of contextualizing a movie in general (genre) so that the mass audience will know what to expect. One wouldn’t want to go to the store wanting to watch something that makes them laugh and feel good and end up with something that makes them scream and feel afraid, is really where the brunt of genre theory lays.
Also, I am pretty sure that not only has genre been discussed here before (not sure, absolutely certain), but that the horror genre in specific already has preexisting threads.
—PolarisDiB
I’ve noted PolarisDiB’s comments but I’m not convinced that there is nothing more to a genre than simple categorising for the express purpose of marketing a product. I think that a genre can be also act as a compound of moods, emotions and ideas that have asscociation with each other for good reason. The auteurs or film practionners that interest me most have a way of channeling their own ideas or emotions into a piece of work while working within recogisable genres. One of the main reasons I started this thread is because the term ‘horror’ seems to imply a specific emotion that I’m not sure exists, and for this reason I think it’s hard to define what a horror film is, at least a particularly good one that tries to convey interesting or profound ideas or emotions that have relevance to the genre (however vague you may consider genre or categorisation to be) it works within. I don’t believe that all films are profoundly unique and should be studied with exactly the level of fine detail the people who concieved and developed them may wish you to. Finally, just because threads with simiar titles or themes have probably appeared here before does not mean that nothing resembling them should ever be discussed again. Did everyone who contributed to those threads come up with penetrating insight into the kind of question I posed, and should everyone who may be interested in that kind of question religiously follow this site’s forum to avoid missing them?
Fair enough, Nick. I would say that with the large plethora of human emotions to tap from, genres stick to recognizable conventions to induce those specific emotions. Genre, fortunately, is a lot more difficult to talk about now that we’re used to genre mash-ups (the Coens, “A Romantic Comedy—with Zombies!”, action-thriller).
—PolarisDiB
I would like to add that I think that (as an aspiring writer) it is exceedingly difficult to come up with a piece of art in any medium that will not end up with traits that could form conventions, often genre conventions in other people’s minds. For an creator with a reasonable dose of artistic integrity (be cynical and think ‘earnestness’ if you must)n to their character, it is often a primary challenge to work within conventions to filter through, or as Martin Scorcese might put it ‘smuggle through’, something relevant or profound and lasting. I agree that it is difficult to talk about genre in any context, the point about genre mash-ups or hybrid genres being an interesting one, but that doesn’t mean we should dismiss the whole concept as being irrelevant.
This is true.
“that doesn’t mean we should dismiss the whole concept as being irrelevant.”
Oh I do not think genre is irrelevant, at all. I just think genre definitions (and their conventions) are quite arbitrary. Even on the point I made above about the consumer use of genre isn’t a dismissal, just a statement of one of its primary uses.
—PolarisDiB
Nick, it’s more the idea of organization that someone is suggesting when pulling the “there’s already a thread out there on this” card. There are at least a dozen ‘horror’ threads (not including specific horror film threads) already out there and none of them have been closed, so contributing to an already existing thread is encouraged.
But anyway, back to the topic. I think the horror genre is pretty representative of the emotion its trying to convey and that’s fear…horror. Whether it’s psychologically existential (Don’t Look Now), nightmare hyper-realistic physical horror (Texas Chainsaw), paranoid stalker horror (Halloween) … etc., I’m just making up ‘sub-genres’ here, but they all pursue the same goal, exploring horrifying concepts. Even something like Evil Dead 2 would still be considered part of the horror genre despite elements of humour and its self-aware underbelly.
^^yeah, but thrillers want to explore and convey ‘fear’ too, so we are back to that ol’ debate about the validity of genre distinctions eh? ;-)
a friend of mine used to argue that if it doesn’t have ‘monsters’, it isn’t horror. his definition of monsters also includes killers that are not rational and seem inhuman(e.g micheal myers etc). it seems almost tempting to stick to that definition—and certainly i’d argue there is at least some truth to that distinction. i.e nightmare on elm street is horror, Swinfan, however, is not—but there is obviously a bit more to it.
I may be a little naive when considering what to contribute to this site as (big drum roll) I don’t actually go on it very often. I started the thread on a whim, I have to admit. Also, I sincerely hope nobody thinks I’m being sniffy or superior here, but most of the threads on this site don’t really interest me that much (or maybe I’m being narrow minded or ignorant). Now, I don’t actually agree that the term ‘horror’ can be completely substitued for ‘fear’. I think that ‘horror’ can imply something more lasting than a ‘fight or flight’ kind of emotion and I’m always interested in creators who use the horror genre as such, for instance Cronenberg’s interest in the dark side of nature and tampering with nature as witnessed in ‘The Fly’. Also, no hard feelings PolarisDib; maybe I was overstressing a point in my last reply – I didn’t mean to imply any ignorance on your part. I’ll try and search around for other relevant threads to contribute to in the future, rather than just creating one at random.
@Joks: Well thrillers try to convey “suspense” not necessarily ‘fear.’ I think there’s a huge difference between those two emotions. They often cause or are caused by one another, but in general, film genres tend to be grouped according to the emotion that is meant to be conveyed. But when one’s really probes into how to classify or standardize certain films according to genre, it’s best to think more in terms of the goal of the film: is it trying to instill fear or suspense or whatever.
@Nick: Well on Cronenberg, I regard his early work as pretty much solely residing in the horror genre, The Fly included. Cronenberg works well with ‘fear’ – take Dead Ringers, not a conventional horror film per se, but certainly working within the concept of fear (or perhaps we can bring Kierkegaard into this and start talking about the ‘concept of dread’ heh).
And I’m referring to fear as a concept more than just an emotion one feels while watching a film. Films which ‘work with’ common fears, even fear of the unknown (H.P. Lovecraft built a career on such a theme) are solely confined within the horror genre. I’m a huge fan of the genre for exactly this reason. It’s focused on a singular theme, but there are countless ways to approach and explore that theme.
Re: my last post. I actually completed failed to read the guidelines before starting the thread and didn’t take into account the thing about other topics relevant to the theme I was interested in. I’ve read the guidlines ages ago but they must have changed. Please forgive me.
DECKARD: i agree that’s how thrillers/horrors can be classified but certainly not all genres.
i really hate discussing genre i must admit, because i’ve reached that point in my life where i just take it for granted. lazy i know!
No prob’, Nick. Welcome to the board.
Eh, we tend to mention redundant threads to try to keep the board a little more clean. There’s a search bar up in the right hand corner for topics you may be interested. Also, there are plenty of ongoing discussions and lots of room for your own perspective. Discussion here gets heated from time to time, early warning, never take any of it personally. It rarely is.
At worst, all bark and no bite. We’d make a pretty poor horror movie.
—PolarisDiB
I once did a blog post on horror, breaking it down into three types of fear-inducing entities (each of which is linked to a deeper existential anxiety). That stuff is here:
The Poles of TERROR, Halloween 2009
Maybe there’s something that relates to the definition, or the family of shared traits, that make horror what it is?
“i agree that’s how thrillers/horrors can be classified but certainly not all genres.”
And I agree with that!
@Nick: Don’t worry about it. Some of us come across as confrontational, but it’s all in good fun (and if it isn’t for some people, then fuck them, heh) and most of us mean well. In this thread, we were just offering suggestions for the future. We’ve all started threads that already existed multiple times and we’ve all been railed about it, heh.
Coming back to the crux of my ideas in my original post, I would say that ‘horror’ can tend to be typified within the twin poles of fantasy and extreme violence/gore in the mind perhaps to distinguish it more fully from the ‘thriller’ genre. Also, one idea at the back of my mind was that I used to have a (perhaps overly morbid) fascination and love for some kind of idea or ideal of horror that I had, and was wondering if anyone else shared the same kind of ideas enough to give some insight into what horror or the horror genre meant to them. I can appreciate that it can get on your nerves talking in fine detail about the nature or genre, but there is just something about horror, at least in ideal form, that interested me enough to start a discussion. Does anyone hav e anything else to say about fascination with horror?
I wasn’t really taking anything that personally but I was concerned that I was treading on other peoples’ feet a little. Anyway, I think it’s great when debate gets passionate enough to be considered heated or confrontational – it certainly makes a positive change from daft or frivolous posts and internet content in general.
Well, I forgot to say earlier that I wholly agree with your idea that fantasy is often heavily integrated within the horror genre. There’s always a little bit of ‘fantasy’ required to heighten a situation, stretch it just a little too “on the nose”, intensity it, turn it into hyper-reality. Even torture porn films, while striving towards a gritty realism, very rarely achieve realism, instead becoming hyper-realist in their persistent fanaticism towards violence and utter, inescapable “doom.”
Take Calvaire for instance, a recent horror film allegorically plunging the Christ story into a horror framework. I’m a huge fan of the film, some dismiss it as simply another weak entry in a long line of ‘torture porn films’, but what sets it apart IMO is that it often lapses into moments of pure fantasy. A character tells a joke about a bunch of dwarfs and foosball and then an hour later another character stumbles upon a bunch of children and a broken foosball table out in the middle of the woods (which is so out-of-place and surreal that it must be some kind of hallucination or dream or even just a directorial joke with no basis in reality) during a very intense chase scene.
It’s moments like these that just make me grin foolishly and nod in appreciation because, like all great films (no matter what the genre), these moments take advantage of the concept of film and the entire point of fictional narrative. And incorporating fantasy is a major part of that even if it isn’t a science fiction film or, say, Lord of the Rings, etc.
Or something like Inside or Martyrs, these all have fantastic elements which heighten and intensify what are already horrific situations.
Even Saw has that aspect of “self-conscious unbelievability”. The best horror films are able to constantly shift back and forth between that balance and surprise us with the unpredictability that this combination affords.
Deckard, are those french horrors/thrillers like Matyrs popular in France? do they perform well at the box office?
I have no idea. I would hope that they do (even though I’m not a big fan of Martyrs, it was definitely better than popular American-fare like Saw 5). I don’t live in France and am actually English (dad was the French/English one), but living in the U.S.
Isn’t Matt Parks the one who’s a big fan of Martyrs? Where’s he at?
^^really? i thought you lived in France? where the hell did i get that idea from??!?!!
Heh, don’t know, but it’s a common misconception. My name doesn’t help either.
This is horror…
This is not…
Discuss.
-Isn’t Matt Parks the one who’s a big fan of Martyrs?-
Nope.
metahorror: Bergman, Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist
nihilistic horror: Salo
Mark, that post is pure gold.
The closer you get to reality, the more horrifying it is. That’s what those pictures make me feel.
Major League II was a horror.
The transformation of the universe into information…
!!
…something Saul Bass knew all too much about as a graphic designer.
Nick Malings
As someone who has in the past had an enthusiastic interest in horror films, books and comics, I’m always interested in audience reaction to the genre. However, it strikes me that it seems generally undecided how you would actually define horror as an artistic, influential part of culture beyond the two stereotypyes of 1930’s Universal Dracula/Frankenstein type stuff and more recent blood and guts/torture porn material. I’ve heard it said that horror films are fantastical and indeed that the term ‘horror’ should be replaced with ‘fantasy’. However, I myself feel that the genre can go beyond fantasy into more subversive, meaningful and relevant terirtory, with the works of someone like David Cronenberg in mind. How would you define a horror film?