Don’t go in the water, the basement, the woods, and oh yeah, stay away from storm drains.
Sometimes movies strike a nerve by using a common, generally harmless object, activity, place, or person, which they amplify to capture our vulnerability. For most of us, it’s a level of anxiety that we can eventually laugh off, but for others the fear can have a profound effect on daily life.
Jaws – When Steven Spielberg’s summer blockbuster came out in 1975, the documented fear of sharks increased considerably. There were news reports of people who would not swim in the ocean, some even felt nervous about going into large lakes where no sharks could possibly exist.
There are several frightening scenes in Jaws, but one of the most terrifying is in the first few minutes when a young woman goes swimming alone in the nighttime water. We see her nudged, jerked, pulled, and dragged with tremendous force and speed until she disappears below the surface, her ear-piercing screams silenced. Incredibly, we don’t see any sharks at all in this horrifying scene.
Sadly, after the film’s release, there was an increase in shark hunting, including harmless, smaller sharks that were not carnivorous. The public’s fascination with sharks continued to increase over the decades, but that fascination is rarely positive. Films like Sharknado and events like Shark Week perpetuate the fear factor. Spielberg even apologized for the uptick in shark hunting.
It – Stephen King’s epic tale of childhood friends confronting monumental horror in their small town of Derry, Maine was filmed twice: as a four-part television movie in 1990 and as a two-part cinematic film in 2017. Both adaptations have merit and were praised by critics and audiences alike. Each had its own outstanding boogeyman known as Pennywise the clown, an ancient, evil presence who not only fed on the children’s fear, but on the children themselves. Some people have always been afraid of clowns, but after seeing It, or even anticipating the remake in 2016, the fear became more imbedded, resulting in a rash of clown horror movies. Time magazine featured an article that same year reporting several creepy clown sightings across the country that became known as the “clown hysteria.”
When I was growing up, if asked to name a clown, I would respond Bozo. Today’s younger generations would certainly say Pennywise.
The Blair Witch Project – This is a 1999 tale about three college film students who go off into the backwoods of Maryland to film a documentary about a witch who has cursed the region by inflicting harm directly and indirectly. It started the “found footage” craze. Filmed with a shoestring budget, it utilized the internet and a fake documentary as promotional devices to lure in viewers.
The Blair Witch Project used the fear of the unknown to scare its audience. Deep, dark woods, ominous crude symbols hanging from trees, and mysterious, disturbing sounds make up the horror. There are no hulking monsters, rural cannibals, blade-wielding psychopaths, no colorful graphic violence, and yet it is one of the most terrifying films ever made. The film leaves its mark in our psyches through the power of the internet – if it’s online it must be true, right? – and leaves anxious hikers and campers with the fear, rational or irrational, of what could actually happen to them in the woods.
The Ring – Based on the equally frightening Japanese film Ring, The Ring is a 2002 modern horror classic that unravels a mystery of why people are dying seven days after viewing a bizarre and upsetting video. The cursed video is watched by the niece of the film’s leading character, a journalist played by the consistently great Naomi Watts. The niece’s subsequent death sets off a race for time for the protagonist and her young son.
One of the most horrific scenes comes near the end when a young girl in the video, with long black hair hanging like curtains covering her face, climbs out of a well and moves toward the television viewer. She then literally crawls out of the tv set with jerking, insect-like movements, causing the character viewing her to die of fright, his face grotesquely contorted. It has become an unforgettable and iconic moment that causes horror film lovers to stare nervously at screens even before they turn on their televisions.
The beauty of horror films is that there is an endless supply of everyday fears to draw inspiration from. Here are a few more for your consideration.
Hell House LLC (2016) – Some of the creepiest clown and cellar scenes I’ve ever witnessed.
The Birds (1963) – Fluttery, massing creatures that are out of control, or are they?
The Conjuring (2013) – A potpourri of common frights including a haunted house complete with boogeymen in bedroom closets, flying objects and possessed humans.
The Exorcist (1973) – Caused quite a sensation when it premiered by upending the power and comfort of the Catholic church with its devil-possessed 12-year-old and seemingly powerless priests.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my October offerings – sleep tight, dear readers – and I look forward to bringing you more of my observations and thoughts from the world of cinema.
Have a happy and safe Halloween, and please save me some Nestle Crunch bars.
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