Film: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) Directed by the legendary Wes Craven.
This movie changes the game of slasher killer. Instead of having a real person going around killing people, the killer is in the character's dreams and can't be proven to be a real killer. He is in certain people's head and only they can experience him. Craven brings in the supernatural into the story by having Freddy be a literal dream killer. Doing this can make a viewer question what they are truely afraid of. Is what they are scared of real or is it all constructed in their mind. The "monsters" like the Boogyman and whatever it is that lives under the bed, don't harm us in real life; which implies that people just construct it in their minds. The character of Freddy is be believed by others, not real and that the kids made it up. Except for the part where he kills them. There is also the big question about how much of our dreams really affect our life, "If we fall off a building and die in our dream will we die also?" This film takes that question and answers with a crazy "yes".
The special effects are awesome in this film. Freddy walks through a jail cell!!! Even for a crew in 2011, making this happen can prove to be a bit challenging. There's maggots coming out of Freddy, bugs crawling out of Tina, the carpeted stairs become gooey, and of course a load amount of blood. Even Freddy's makeup is crazy good. Compared to the trailer and pictures for the new Nigtmare, I think this Freddy is way more scarier. The burns on his face are horrific! His face seems to show what is supposed to be muscle and bone while the new Freddy's face is more like donor skin graphs were placed. There was a sheet that was moving and no one was moving it! Effects that would seem to be so simple for us were difficult in the past but sometimes (this is one of those times) they turn out to be better than the present.
The camera work was really good also. Sometimes the viewer is Freddy, sometimes the characters are put in our face, and sometimes the viewer is placed in abstract angles and places. When Tina wakes in the beginning, she awakens suddenly to the camera. During the night when Freddy tries to break through the ceiling, the camera is also at a high angle on the same plane as the ceiling. These types of angles and placements can create suspense, the awkard placement of the viewer being the killer which would imply that the viewer is killing all these people, or can also place the viewer in a position of isolation from the characters so to make them feel like they cant get any help. There isn't a camera shot that does not work for this film. Everything from the story, effects, and camera work is done smoothly and all of it flows so well together. This is a masterpiece.
Wes Craven is brilliant! I love this movie! I will be buying this movie!!
*Side note: When Glenn dies all that blood must have come from everyone Freddy killed cause on human being can't have that much blood in them.... :)
Film: The Omen (1976) directed by
The Omen is a great horror story of the Antichrist being born during our time. Many interpret the book of Revelations in the Bible to say that when the end of the world comes and Jesus returns, the Antichrist will be living among us. For those that do read the book that way the idea that the son of Satan is living in as a child among us, is very terrifying. Hence, a perfect horror film. Horror films are all about playing out people's worst fears and this one without-a-doubt, is doing exactly that. When thinking of this subject, one tends to ask questions. Why is he here? What will he do while he is here? Who will be siding with him in his endeavor? The answers to these questions can be seen throughout the film as if to be the director's own opinion of what it will look like.
The imagery in this film was wonderful! At one point in the film when the photographer and Mr. Thorn are climbing a fence that I thought about The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. It appeared to have that eerie sense among the ends of the fence poles. The eeriness of the film translates with the camera work also. There were many high angle and low angle shots and also tilts. It seemed to give the viewer a sense of being a higher being. The bird's eye view can give the viewer the sense that they are like God watching from heaven. Tilting the camera at an angle can skew what's going on especially if what is happening is something that seems to be crazy.
I enjoyed this film alot! Many viewers are used to seeing or thinking of Satan to be in the form of a man rather than a child. We are so used to thinking about how children are so innocent and a clean slate waiting to be formed in to young people, and in this film the child does not have any innocence (just like in "Let the Right One In"). It can be really scary to think that children already have the mind of adults and think such horrible things.
Film: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) Directed by Philip Kaufman.
This movie was creepy good. Not quite what I expected it to be, which was good. The title lead me to believe that it would be about aliens but thankfully it wasn't (kinda). The actual body snatchers came from outer-space but it was the government who was in control of it all. Once again, big brother just can't keep his hands off our lives. :)
And also the generic story of humans not being able to escape the "monster", and it's great. Not only can the characters escape from the snatchers in the town they are living in but the "disease" is also being transported on boats out of the city which implies that the government is spreading it all over the country. Nowhere to run to! At first I was a little sad when I saw that the two main characters were going to escape on a ship. But all was restored when I witnessed the crate of creepy pods were being loaded on that ship. After that moment I knew the younger looking Donald Sutherland would have to become one of the emotionless zombie people walking around (Spoiler Alert!: he did.).
I really liked how the "alien" in this film wasn't really an alien and how the government was trying to take over people. It gave a new idea to the alien type film. Instead of the aliens being hostile towards us, "Big Brother" was enlisting the help of some unknown plant to take over the world. It makes one think about how much trust to put into our government and how much we should trust them with our lives.
