Film Fright

Watoosa has just posted a write-up about scary scenes from books, and she has twisted my arm to do the same for films. I'm pretty malleable, so here goes.

In its early scenes, F. W. Murnau's silent film, Nosferatu, suffers from having been made in the days of slow film speed. The movements of the characters and vehicles look very choppy and (as a result) comical. The effect enhances comedies, and when I first watched this film I began to think that it would undercut the horror. But when Max Schreck makes his appearance as Count Orlok the vampire, the laughter stops. He's truly disturbing. From that point on, the technological limitations of cinema actually make Nosferatu even more unnatural and frightening.

The rumor/urban legend about Nosferatu is that Schreck really was a vampire. This legend is sent up by Shadow of the Vampire, which I think is one of the great combinations of horror and comedy. John Malkovich plays Murnau as an artist obsessed with his craft who passes off the obviously vampiric Schreck as simply a "character actor." Willem Defoe is wonderfully over-the-top as Schreck.

Another great horror/comedy combo is Simon Pegg's Shaun of the Dead. It's a brilliant and hilarious send-up of the zombie genre, but it's as much a celebration of those films as a spoof (the same is true of Pegg's even more hilarious Hot Fuzz). The scene in which Pegg and his best mate are throwing vinyl records at a zombie and then begin arguing over which ones are worth throwing and which worth keeping is a scream.

I know M. Night Shyamalan has turned out to be little more than a two-bit hack, but darned if I didn't have a fantastic time watching Signs. I had enjoyed The Sixth Sense well enough on video, and Unbreakable was interesting, if a bit slow, but I was a bit apprehensive about Signs because I didn't think M. Night would be able to show the aliens without being campy. Still, the previews lured us in, and it was one of the best "rollercoaster" experiences I've ever had in a movie theater. Everyone was shrieking and laughing and jumping out of their seats. The scene where Gibson is debating with himself about whether or not to look in the pantry where an alien has been trapped is masterfully done. The ending is hokey, but the ride is such a thrill that I don't care.

One of the best movies I've seen in the past year--period--is Pan's Labirynth. It's an odd mix of a gritty look at the brutality of life in Spain under Franco combined with an Alice-in-Wonderland fantasy (where said wonderland is a bizarre and sometimes terrifying nightmare world). After several months, I'm still trying to make sense of it, but the imagery is amazing. And if you can watch the scene that features this thing without soiling yourself in terror, you should count yourself lucky.

Finally, I think perhaps the scariest movie I've ever seen is the original Night of the Living Dead. This film isn't exactly "scary" as much as it is extremely creepy, so much so that I woke up in the middle of the night after having just seen it and experienced a residual sense of dread (and I never have nightmares from movies). There's just something disturbing about zombies--almost human, but not quite, and chilling in their utter relentlessness. This movie's low budget somehow gives the whole thing a greater sense of realism. It's easier to forget you're watching a movie. None of the actors are recognizable, and the music is just plain eerie (lots of bizarre pedal tones on an organ, as I recall). One great thing about it is that one of the protagonists is actually smart. He assumes leadership, keeps his cool, and makes wise decisions while everyone else goes straight into "disaster-flick irrationality mode."