VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, [3], 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 07:47:24 03/10/07 Sat
Author: matching mole
Subject: Horror eras and themes
In reply to: Majin Gojira 's message, "Buffy and The Horror Film - Advice on upcoming essay" on 14:27:44 03/03/07 Sat

I'm mostly going to comment relative to 'classic' horror, mostly because of familiarity - I don't have a very good knowledge of modern horror movies.

There are at least a few parallels of the inversion of the damsel in distress mentioned by purplegrrl in older horror films. The precode era (early 1930s) in Hollywood is well known for films with strong, unconventional for the era, female characters. This is less true for horror films than for dramas and comedies and, interestingly, it is the horror films of the time (Dracula, Frankenstein, King Kong) that are the best known today. One precode horror, 'The Island of Lost Souls' does have an enterprising heroine who organizes a rescue mission for her fiancee.

Similarly, some the RKO films produced by Val Lewton in the 1940s had female central characters who are strikingly different from the stereotypical victim. Both 'The Seventh Victim' and 'I walked with a Zombie' feature independent young women in central roles. As a caveat I should point out that Lewton's films are far from typical horror - they are usually quite subtle and have very little violence, almost all of which occurs off screen.

Horror has been described as the fear of the other. Often that 'other' isolates the main characters from the world either literally or figuratively. Knowledge that the world is not what it seems is a secret that socially isolates the scoobies in the early years and this is a very common theme in horror. On effect of this is that over time - the 'other' becomes more familiar. The increasing moral complexity of the supernatural in BtVS reflects this decline in 'otherness'.

One film that I feel deals brilliantly and disturbingly with these themes is another precode horror, 'Freaks', directed by Todd Browning. This film subverts the audience's conception of the 'other' twice in less than 90 minutes.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

  • Re: Buffy and The Horror Film - Advice on upcoming essay -- andyplanz, 13:07:25 05/02/07 Wed
    Forum timezone: GMT-8
    VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
    Before posting please read our privacy policy.
    VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
    Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.