The Fake Life - Love movies? We do too!

Monday, October 23, 2006

Halloween@TFL: The A-Z Of Horror - N To P

Warning: Article does contain some images that aren't offensive.

N is for NC-17!

At the start of the classification system (around 1968), 'adults only' films were rated 'X'. This classification is so iconic that it is still has cultural recognition decades after it stoppped being used. The porn industry, which has always been good at picking up on cultural trends and then cumming on them, started using the 'X' rating as a marketing gimmick, meaning the rating became synonymous with explicit sex. In the end, the MPAA replaced it with the incredibly (deliberately?) unmemorable 'NC-17' rating to distinguish 'proper' movies from the filth, but the damage was already done. The puritanical element in America put pressure on film distributors and rental chains not to run any 'NC-17' rated films, and the big chains still don't run them today.

The result of this is that releasing an 'NC-17' rated film is commercial suicide, annoying but survivable for an arthouse film that would only play in indendent cinemas anyway, but death for an expensive studio film looking for the widest release. As a result, most horror films are made for an 'R' rating. The problem with this is that the 'R' is not a genuinely restrictive rating - anyone can go to one as long as they are accompanied by an adult. This means films are cut to take into account children that might be able to see them. 'R' rated movies are still heavily censored and cut.

This is terrible for us gorehouds of course, but America's rating system is voluntary and films can be released 'unrated' in whatever form the film-makers like - something that has become very popular on DVD over the past few years to the point where 'unrated' has become a marketing gimmick like the old 'X' rating - so we can still get to see the juicy bits if we look hard enough. The real problem is that the films are being self-censored. The studios refuse to make films that will challenge that 'R' rating and film-makers will make choices on set that will ensure the rating (by making the blood any colour other than red, for example).

Quite apart from any specifics of gore that we don't see, the demonisation of the 'NC-17' rating is adding to the infantilisation of Hollywood film-making. Depictions of sex, violence, drug taking and other terrible, wonderful things are neutered. Again, this is not so much about explicitness as about films being made with the mindset of a child in mind - so complex or challenging depictions simply aren't attempted. The 'NC-17' rating is the one genuinely restrictive rating America has and should be the natural home of horror movies. 'Adult', amazingly enough, is not a dirty word.

O is for Old!

It is nothing to get too ashamed about - everyone thinks old movies are boring. This is because they are. They did not have the fancy camera moves, the vibrant colour palettes, or the special effects that modern movies have. Equally, violence wasn't explicit, acting was very stiff and theatrical, and sex consisted of taking off a glove. Film-making practices and fashions were very different than today, so watching an old horror film can be like watching a foreign language film. There is a translation necessary, both in language and culture, before you can understand it. This is especially a problem with someting like horror which is trying to be so visceral and emotional in its effect.

But, although the artform was still young back then, the film-makers were not. They knew what they were doing and they made some extraordinary horror films, if you only put in a small amount of work to translate them.

The Cat People (1942), for example, is a film that uses its black and white stock and limited budget to create horror by creating the monster entirely out of shadows. As long as you can get past the need for gore shots and Nastassja Kinski naked, the film is still mostly unmatched in its ability to create tension purely through suggestion.

Freaks (1932) doesn't star Bill And Ted, but does star a bunch of actual 'freaks' - the physically and mentally disabled, differently-abled, and other wise un-normal. It plays brilliantly on our own preconceptions of normal by making the freaks sympathetic and genuine characters while happily, possibly exploitatively, playing up how disturbing they are. The story is a very old fashioned piece of melodrama, concerning manipulative women and vengeful cuckolds and it works well in the same way fairy tales do, but the final attack by the freaks remains gripping and scary today, partly because the 'freaks' are real. A modern movie would not allow that level of exploitation, which is something these old movies have over us. These days retards and flids are played by A-List actors looking for Oscars.

Moving into the 60's, Carnival of Souls (1962) is a very weird low budget film about a woman trapped in a carnival after surviving an horrific car crash. This is a film that links the older, more gothic style of film-making with the more naturalistic and expressionistic styles of modern films. A lot of the imagery was a heavy influence on Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) which, you could argue, is the start of modern horror film making.

One last film: The Haunting (1963), whch tells of a group of people investigating a possibly haunted house. This film uses the camera in a much more modern way than the older films, moving it around, using it more freely to suggest pyschological states rather than more formally to show clear frames, but it still relies entirely on the traditional techniques of suggestion rather than explicitness for its scares. In this it is still entirely effective at suggesting that the house is somehow alive and entirely malevolent. If you can get past the (lovely) black and white filmstock, it is a film who's ability to scare has not aged a day in over 40 years.

P is for Penetration!

A young woman showers while a masked killer watches her from the shadows. Creamy soap suds drip down her thighs (though no higher - this is an 'R'), she rubs her firm breasts and sighs under her breath. Then the masked killer raises his knife and stabs her again and again while she screams. The knife goes in. And in. And in. Horror movies, not just slasher movies, are all about penetration. I would suggest that what uniquely distinguishes a horror movie from every other genre is the sexualisation of its violence.

But perhaps you think I am going too far.