Saturday, September 24, 2005

Horror Vs. Terror

Has anyone noticed that, when it comes to movies and books, the word "Horror" is vastly misused? The American Heritage dictionary defines it as "an intense, painful feeling of repugnance and fear" and "intense dislike; abhorrence." In terms of usage, we make a distinction between an acute sense of anxiety (terror) and a more general feeling of dread (horror).

In my opinion, the vast majority of modern "horror" movies are really just supernatural thrillers. They use cheap tricks of cinematography and gore to illicit periods of anxious suspence and moments of shock and surprise. The new Japanese style (Audition, Ringu, Uzumaki) takes this to a new level, and such movies are much more "scary" than they are horrifying.

My take is that terror is a state of "active fear." It's called "terrorism" because the objective of that form of psychological warfare is to keep a population (military or civilian) in a state of stress and paranoia. But that's not "horror." Horror denotes a sort of hopelessness, a realization that some fundamental attribute of your conception of reality has been blown open. Sept. 11 was a day where people throughout the country were in a state of shock. Some became angry or terrified right away, but many were simply numbed by the magnitude of the event. I remember walking around in a haze, struggling to wrap my mind around what had happened, and what it would mean. It's a dread that comes with a shocking and reality-altering realization, which makes it feel like nothing will ever be the same.

It's a feeling that's astonishingly hard to illicit in an audience through fiction. People scare easily, but making them feel "hopeless" is nearly impossible. The reverse is also true: very few pieces of fiction really distill "hope" in a way that isn't sappy or contrived.

I would argue that The Shawshank Redemption is one of those very rare hope-causing movies, and it's impressive because you feel "hope" without hoping for anything specific. The movie tells you that the friends are reunited, so it's unambiguous, but the feeling of anticipation and optimism remains.

A phrase I've heard bandied about often is "cosmic horror," which I believe was coined by author H.P. Lovecraft. It's an empty phrase, really, used to identify works of in the (mislabeled) genre of horror that try to instill *actual* horror rather than basic terror. Lovecraft mainly aimed for this sort of style, but his own host of phobias made many of his "mind-blowing realizations" tame and, frankly, kind of weird. "Oh my god, that man had sex with an ape!" "By all that is holy, that crazy shrew my friend married is possessed by the spirit of her father!" "Heavens above, my friend melted!" But his approach was a pioneering effort (not without its successes) that had a lot of influence.

I've seen a few works that quality as true works of "horror," in that they get under your skin rather than merely turbo-charging your nerves. House of Leaves tops my list for the written word, containing precious few moments of "terror" but very strongly disorienting the reader and upending the audience's expectations. Spider, the recent Cronenberg movie, was a powerfully atmospheric psycholigical film with nothing "scary" to it, but was (from start to finish) uncomfortably creepy with a fairly powerful twist. The Devil's Backbone has a handful of fright moments, but is also mainly creepy with a strong thematic story. The Last Wave (an old Australian horror film) worked mainly in atmosphere and suspense rather than in latex and polystyrene. Silence of the Lambs is a tremendous movie precisely because it causes a host of emotional responses without relying on cop-out tricks. It's a rare case of general audiences and critics converging on a "thriller."

(Because horror films *must* be suprnatural and thrillers *can't* be unless they're "supernatural thrillers." Don't even get me started.)

In a sense, there's an argument for simply not making this sort of movie. People don't typically seek out movies to be depressed - most horror movies, by contrast, tend to leave people feeling good aobut themselves as a rebound effect after being scared (skydivers commonly experience a much more acute feeling of euphoria after they land as a rebound from the sense of danger while falling). So why make truly "horrible" movies or books?

The problem is that most horror is garbage. Now, I know that 95% of everything is crap and all, but with horror, it's more like 99.5%. Most of these movies are made super-awful on purpose (and are released straight to video), while most shown in theaters exist only to scare. As a result, there's precious few well-crafted horror films made by a talented cast and crew.

Well, sometimes, it's a matter of "what kind of story is being told?" I am willing to accept as great a powerful work on the basis that it's powerful - fiction that moves a person is worthy of respect, because it makes them think. I may not like some of this fare personally, but I think the art of "telling creepy stories" has a place that justifies itself, provided it aim for the same level of abstract emotion that other great works do.

It's just a long wait between worthy candidates...

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