Reading Horror Movies
Horror films tend to be open to interpretation by the viewer. This is ultimately in my eye, what makes them so enjoyable. What one person sees as a simple boring supernatural horror, another sees as a 2 hour long metaphor about the trials of mental illness, i.e. The Babadook, a favourite of mine. Polysemy is the capacity for a piece of media to have multiple meanings; they are left ambiguous and open to many readings.
Maria Lewis writes in an article:
"Zombie classic Dawn Of The Dead was a critique on America’s commercialism, Alien looked at the masculine fear of sexual vulnerability, The Hills Have Eyes dealt with the anxieties of the nuclear age and The Babadook examined the depths of depression.
They were designed to do more than just frighten."
The four horror films described are four of favourites and its no wonder why. Good films that have a deeper meaning, that actually make to equate everything and thus make you think about it afterwards, as well as including a good jump scare or two are, to me, the best. They are my 'preferred/dominant' readings.
This idea of different readings is something that Stuart Hall, the great cultural theorist, outlined. He put films into four categories:
Oppositional reading is when the audience rejects the reading, ultimately disliking it.
Negotiated Reading is when the audience partially believes the code, but modifies it in a way that fits to their own opinions.
Aberrant readings can be interpreted differently from what was intended by their sender.
Because of this, horror films specifically can create a wide amount of reactions both positive and negative and can also be wrongly interpreted.
My thoughts
I am a huge fan of horror films. Some people have to be in a certain mood to watch horror, or only watch it with friends or on Halloween etc, but i personally find that it is my go to genre when picking a film to watch, to which i am always in the mood for. I don't scare easily, so i suppose that works in my advantage: my parents are genuine avid ghost hunters and lovers of all things supernatural; i went on my first ghost hunt at age 8. As weird as that sounds to the average person, horror movies are akin to Saturday morning cartoons in my eyes. Obviously i do get scared by them so the thrill is always fun, but alongside this i do love Rom-Coms. Movies that create emotion and feelings to the viewer are what i find most enjoyable.
A good scary movie has to be, above all, believable. I tend to steer clear of ridiculous or stereotypical scenario based movies, if they are not relatable they are just not scary. My preferred sub-genre is supernatural also, again fear of the unknown is what is most effective. A film that relies on jump-scares to thrill its audience is however also not scary in my eyes, so a good in between between realism and scare is what best suits me.
There have definitely been horror films i have actively disliked or found myself disappointed by the end. A specific one that comes to mind that i would say i disliked was 'The Human Centipede 3." Obviously i went into the film with low expectations, but quickly found that not only was the film bad and unscary, it was entirely sexist and just plain gross. The only female in the film was a hugely over sexualised 'dumb blonde' who worked as an assistant. The film even incorporated sexual harassment in a 'jokey' way. This completely ruined whatever horror they were aiming for and left a bad taste in my mouth. Over sexualisation of females is always present in horror, but in this case, ridiculously so. I recently watched a film entitled 'The Ouija Experiment", a POV, shot by a handheld film, similar to that of paranormal activity. The film was badly acted and shot, and while i did watch the entire thing, i definitely felt i had wasted around 90 minutes of my life. One film that i would say i had a negotiated reading towards was 'It Follows.' This film has a cult following, and is a film Quentin Tarantino himself said was one of his favourites, and yet i found it unbearably dull. The film is about an STI but instead of an infection that follows you, its a paranormal figure. Its clear that the film aimed to challenge the ideas of female sexuality, of promiscuity and the laws of attraction, to which i appreciate but i still found the idea and overall storyline particularly worthy of an eye roll. The idea that Quentin Tarantino, king of the high-action-slasher-with-intricate-storyline would name this one of his favourites baffles me, and makes my question why i named my rabbit 'Quentin' after him at age 13.
One of my favourite films of all time is 'The Shining.' I read the book a few years ago and have a huge amount of love for Stephen King, and so you go into the film with a certain expectation but to which Kubrick completely eradicates. I love the story, the cinematography and Jack Nicholson. It mixes the paranormal, slasher and psychological horror in a brilliant way. The film is brilliant also because of its many interpretations. Kubrick is averse to offering any explanation: “I have found it always the best policy to allow the film to speak for itself,” he once wrote, which has led to a mind-boggling array of theories about just what the film is actually about. Because of my love for the movie i recently watched a documentary about it called 'Room 237.' The documentary focuses on the conspiracy theories relating to the film. Particularly that the film is actually entirely about the holocaust. There is also a good amount of evidence. There are the film’s many references to 1942, the year the Nazis began their extermination of Jews at Auschwitz: a 42 appears on a shirt worn by Danny; “Summer of ’42” is playing on the Torrances’ television; Wendy takes 42 swings with a bat at Jack. And then there’s that gusher of blood. “That’s as good a visual metonym for the horror of the 20th century that has ever been filmed,” Geoffrey Cocks, a history professor at Albion College in Michigan and author of “The Wolf at the Door: Stanley Kubrick, History, and the Holocaust,” once said. Another theory is that the film is actually about the genocide of the American Indians and another, perhaps the most famous, is that it is Kubrick's admission to helping NASA fake the moon landing.
In terms of controversial, a film im sure many are familiar with is 'Cannibal Holocaust.' I have never watched the film down to the fact that perhaps the most controversial aspect of the film to this day is that real animals were brutally slaughtered on camera by the actors. This makes the film controversial mostly in its content as opposed to its actual message, but still a most definite oppositional reading in my eyes. At the time movies such as The Exorcist and Texas Chainsaw Massacre where shocking and controversial. The Exorcist as it is something that an audience had never seen in the 70's. Watching it now it appears almost comical but still a bit shocking, particularly with what the young actress says. I imagine that in a much more reserved society this would have been entirely shocking. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was banned in at least a dozen countries and plagued by walkouts in others but still managed to rack up $30 million at the box offices, an incredible feat at the time.
Maria Lewis writes in an article:
"Zombie classic Dawn Of The Dead was a critique on America’s commercialism, Alien looked at the masculine fear of sexual vulnerability, The Hills Have Eyes dealt with the anxieties of the nuclear age and The Babadook examined the depths of depression.
They were designed to do more than just frighten."
The four horror films described are four of favourites and its no wonder why. Good films that have a deeper meaning, that actually make to equate everything and thus make you think about it afterwards, as well as including a good jump scare or two are, to me, the best. They are my 'preferred/dominant' readings.
This idea of different readings is something that Stuart Hall, the great cultural theorist, outlined. He put films into four categories:
- Preferred/Dominant
- Oppositional
- Negotiated
- Aberrant.
Oppositional reading is when the audience rejects the reading, ultimately disliking it.
Negotiated Reading is when the audience partially believes the code, but modifies it in a way that fits to their own opinions.
Aberrant readings can be interpreted differently from what was intended by their sender.
Because of this, horror films specifically can create a wide amount of reactions both positive and negative and can also be wrongly interpreted.
My thoughts
I am a huge fan of horror films. Some people have to be in a certain mood to watch horror, or only watch it with friends or on Halloween etc, but i personally find that it is my go to genre when picking a film to watch, to which i am always in the mood for. I don't scare easily, so i suppose that works in my advantage: my parents are genuine avid ghost hunters and lovers of all things supernatural; i went on my first ghost hunt at age 8. As weird as that sounds to the average person, horror movies are akin to Saturday morning cartoons in my eyes. Obviously i do get scared by them so the thrill is always fun, but alongside this i do love Rom-Coms. Movies that create emotion and feelings to the viewer are what i find most enjoyable.
A good scary movie has to be, above all, believable. I tend to steer clear of ridiculous or stereotypical scenario based movies, if they are not relatable they are just not scary. My preferred sub-genre is supernatural also, again fear of the unknown is what is most effective. A film that relies on jump-scares to thrill its audience is however also not scary in my eyes, so a good in between between realism and scare is what best suits me.
There have definitely been horror films i have actively disliked or found myself disappointed by the end. A specific one that comes to mind that i would say i disliked was 'The Human Centipede 3." Obviously i went into the film with low expectations, but quickly found that not only was the film bad and unscary, it was entirely sexist and just plain gross. The only female in the film was a hugely over sexualised 'dumb blonde' who worked as an assistant. The film even incorporated sexual harassment in a 'jokey' way. This completely ruined whatever horror they were aiming for and left a bad taste in my mouth. Over sexualisation of females is always present in horror, but in this case, ridiculously so. I recently watched a film entitled 'The Ouija Experiment", a POV, shot by a handheld film, similar to that of paranormal activity. The film was badly acted and shot, and while i did watch the entire thing, i definitely felt i had wasted around 90 minutes of my life. One film that i would say i had a negotiated reading towards was 'It Follows.' This film has a cult following, and is a film Quentin Tarantino himself said was one of his favourites, and yet i found it unbearably dull. The film is about an STI but instead of an infection that follows you, its a paranormal figure. Its clear that the film aimed to challenge the ideas of female sexuality, of promiscuity and the laws of attraction, to which i appreciate but i still found the idea and overall storyline particularly worthy of an eye roll. The idea that Quentin Tarantino, king of the high-action-slasher-with-intricate-storyline would name this one of his favourites baffles me, and makes my question why i named my rabbit 'Quentin' after him at age 13.
One of my favourite films of all time is 'The Shining.' I read the book a few years ago and have a huge amount of love for Stephen King, and so you go into the film with a certain expectation but to which Kubrick completely eradicates. I love the story, the cinematography and Jack Nicholson. It mixes the paranormal, slasher and psychological horror in a brilliant way. The film is brilliant also because of its many interpretations. Kubrick is averse to offering any explanation: “I have found it always the best policy to allow the film to speak for itself,” he once wrote, which has led to a mind-boggling array of theories about just what the film is actually about. Because of my love for the movie i recently watched a documentary about it called 'Room 237.' The documentary focuses on the conspiracy theories relating to the film. Particularly that the film is actually entirely about the holocaust. There is also a good amount of evidence. There are the film’s many references to 1942, the year the Nazis began their extermination of Jews at Auschwitz: a 42 appears on a shirt worn by Danny; “Summer of ’42” is playing on the Torrances’ television; Wendy takes 42 swings with a bat at Jack. And then there’s that gusher of blood. “That’s as good a visual metonym for the horror of the 20th century that has ever been filmed,” Geoffrey Cocks, a history professor at Albion College in Michigan and author of “The Wolf at the Door: Stanley Kubrick, History, and the Holocaust,” once said. Another theory is that the film is actually about the genocide of the American Indians and another, perhaps the most famous, is that it is Kubrick's admission to helping NASA fake the moon landing.
In terms of controversial, a film im sure many are familiar with is 'Cannibal Holocaust.' I have never watched the film down to the fact that perhaps the most controversial aspect of the film to this day is that real animals were brutally slaughtered on camera by the actors. This makes the film controversial mostly in its content as opposed to its actual message, but still a most definite oppositional reading in my eyes. At the time movies such as The Exorcist and Texas Chainsaw Massacre where shocking and controversial. The Exorcist as it is something that an audience had never seen in the 70's. Watching it now it appears almost comical but still a bit shocking, particularly with what the young actress says. I imagine that in a much more reserved society this would have been entirely shocking. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was banned in at least a dozen countries and plagued by walkouts in others but still managed to rack up $30 million at the box offices, an incredible feat at the time.
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