Comment on a kind of film and television works

Andrew chow's column: About horror movies.

Horror film is the earliest film type, and it is also the type despised by the most serious filmmakers. "Please Close Your Eyes When It's Dark" made tens of millions of box office results that week, but it didn't seem to be envied by the director. A cutting-edge director said privately that Forrest Gump just did what others didn't want to do.

Forrest Gump's horror films make more money than one, and he is the standard-bearer of China horror films. Of course, he is far from Wes kleven's standard. Kleven is the leader of the Hollywood horror films that created the series of "Ghost Street" and "Scream", but he won a little respect from his peers, relying on the hard-won opportunity to direct "Hit My Heart" for Meryl Streep.

The secret of making money from horror movies is actually very simple. All you need is prop knives and plasma, plus the oldest soundtrack that creates gloomy effects. You don't have to invite any big names (many stars are too lazy to appear in this kind of drama), and you don't have to make up endless lines that are unexpected and abusive. A typical horror movie is like a roller coaster in an amusement park. It needs to provide young lovers with an opportunity to find excitement. To put it more bluntly, it is to make excuses for boys and let their girlfriends drill into their arms.

If the horror film is well received, it needs to expand the audience from teenagers to a wider range. In the way of expression, we can't be satisfied with the knife falling and blood splashing. It can develop in two directions: first, outward, creating a terrorist atmosphere; The second is inward, to tap the terror psychology. Once you get out of kleven's circle, you will meet many famous names in film history.

The earliest horror film was 1896' s The House of the Devil's Country by Melia. Mary shelley's dr. jekyll and mr. hyde has been put on the screen again and again since 19 10. In the early 1920s, a group of German films, which were good at photography, scenery and character design, raised horror films to the artistic height of expressionism, among which the most famous ones were Mona's Nosfaratu (1922) and Wiener's Dr. Carrigari (19 19). In 1930s, German filmmakers began to immigrate to the United States, which gave birth to the horror movie craze in Hollywood, among which The Devil Doctor and dragula series became classics handed down from generation to generation. The Phantom of the Opera is obviously the inspiration for China's nocturne from 65438 to 0937.

This kind of horror film rarely has bloody pictures, everything is outside the camera, and the composition and light and shadow on the picture are often amazing. Long shadows and gloomy old houses all originated from this classical tradition. This beautiful horror film has been fully reflected in Coppola's Four Hundred Years of Surprise (or dragula's Story) and Burton's Sleepless Valley, which has been well received by China audiences.

The most famous example of psychological horror movies is probably The Silence of the Lambs. The devil is inside, not outside. This is the evolution of the theme of horror movies. In Kubrick's The Shining, the old-fashioned fascinating story is interpreted as self-lost, and family members meet each other hand-to-hand, which is a highly concentrated theme.

When a horror film (or a thriller with more horror elements) causes widespread repercussions, it often touches the social and psychological heartstrings. On the surface, Jaws is just a story about a shark devouring tourists at the seaside, but the shark in Spielberg's lens symbolizes natural forces beyond human control, just like Moby Dick in Melville's works. Similarly, the monsters in "King Kong" and "The Devil's Doctor" project the contradiction of human fear and sympathy for the unknown.

Speaking of horror movies, Hitchcock's Psycho must not be left out. This masterpiece not only vividly studied Freudian psychology, but also reached a new height in characterization and lines. In addition, it presents the murder scene in the bathroom in an almost rough way, paving the way for cheap horror movies later. More interestingly, this film is based on real events. Therefore, a real tragedy, Marek Gajue or Henan Pingyu, adapted into a movie may become a bloody movie like texas chainsaw massacre in Texas and Texas, or a masterpiece that profoundly reveals social psychology. The key depends on the director's intention and skill.

-

Decoding western horror movies

The definition of horror movies can't be said that "horror movies are movies that make people feel horrible"? In fact, it is not the patent of horror movies to make people feel scared and panic. In many other types of movies, there will also be many paragraphs that make people feel adrenaline surge and shortness of breath. A film critic used the words "deep sadness and fear" when talking about the scene of chopping fingers in piano class. This is probably because the meaning of the word "terror" itself is too vague, and it seems that all negative emotions can be related to it. What is terror? What is its core meaning, if any? How can we arouse people's fears?

The characteristics of horror movies:

1. Only in horror movies, the protagonist is in an absolute inferior position.

2. None of the heroes in horror movies are evil and negative.

Horror movies contain the idea that "evil is invincible". This may be the source of depression, depression and terror.

We don't watch horror movies to see how the protagonist finally escapes or fights back. We want to experience the panic and discomfort of disaster from the helpless death and desperate escape of the protagonist. Then why do we like pain? In the fear of death, in the complete loss of rational control, there must be temptation; It is as deeply rooted in instinct as lust, which is unreasonable. There may never be a real horror movie, because no matter how many people die, the most damned hero, or the hero we want to die most, can't escape. The terror was dispelled, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief and continued to live well.

Classification of horror movies:

1. serial killer

This is one of the classic modes of horror movies. The famous Halloween series (Moonlight Panic) can be filmed from 1978 to 1998. "Scream" became an instant hit and went to continuous shooting for three episodes in one breath. I really admire that Hollywood can form rules and routines in the general plot structure and even scene selection of movies, and it can also let the audience join in again and again. Comparing the fifth episode of Halloween with Scream, everyone can see the similarities between them. Let's take these two movies as examples to reveal the basic mode of serial killer horror movies:

A. First of all, it's always a scene where the killer exerts his power, which is basically independent of the main plot. After some fighting, the killer himself died at the hands of the hunted. C. It all happened on the high school campus, involving several couples, and the climax of the murder occurred at a party and so on. Even in the use of the lens, this kind of horror film has many rules to follow. For example, the hero, who has been scared and at a loss before, faces unpredictable situations alone and is in danger alone. Killer is a charm punishment? What's the matter with you? What's the point of keeping a low score? What's the trouble? What about bad mother's rehabilitation plan? In the fence? Is it worthwhile to make yellow locust with squid? Product? Forgive? /p & gt；

"Scream" has some originality, such as the dialogue that satirizes the routine of serial killer horror movies. But on the whole, it is still a new medical form. For such a horror film, whether the plot is clever or not is only a secondary issue. The key is to show the killing process and the emotional tension of the victim in the face of death. The audience just want to see a man who is struggling to survive being beaten to death. The stronger the desire to live, the greater the possibility of living, the stronger the fear and pain of death, and the more excited the audience will feel. In this sense, the words that have nothing to do with the main plot at the beginning of the film are the essence of the horror film that verifies identity.

2. Ghosts and monsters

Needless to say, the biggest feature of this kind is that the villain is not human. Whether it is a monster, an evil spirit, or any horrible outer space creature, it can belong to it. Famous ones are Kubrick's The Shining (known as the scariest horror film in history), The Exorcist and The Devil's Baby. The famous Alien series can be regarded as the first film of this kind. However, Alien itself does not seem to be a horror film. Because the female Rambo hero does not show fear of death, the taste of horror movies is not pure.

Because the evil side of monster horror movies belongs to things beyond reality and reason, its routine and the sense of terror it causes are very different from those of a real-life horror movie.

A. Scene features: castle, mansion, hotel, mental hospital or empty spaceship. Claustrophobic space, countless doors, dim lights, a person. The director always tries his best to make the scene of the film extraordinary, which is simply a nightmare.

B. Control characteristics: hallucination. A simple montage can make the audience fall into the dream of the screen. In some films, monsters don't appear at all, and all the panic only comes from their own hallucinations. At this time, the negative forces did not condense into a real object, but became as ubiquitous as air and became an overall malicious environment centered on the protagonist. Take Ghost Ship as an example, the whole ship in which the protagonists are located is depicted as a living body with the will of the devil. The protagonists were controlled by hallucinations, then went insane and committed suicide one by one. This is actually internalizing the dispute between good and evil into people's spiritual consciousness.

True horror movie fans probably don't agree with the "Ghost's Sixth Sense" which was fired a few days ago. This is even an abnormal phenomenon in all horror movies. This is not a gloomy story, and the ending is almost clear. All the ghosts in the film are just poor people with scary looks, and there is no evil tendency. In fact, the director is telling a non-horror story in the form of a horror film. There are only a few surprises brought by audio-visual stimuli in the film. The director took advantage of people's terrible psychological stereotype of ghosts and subverted it at the same time. The foundation of terror has been removed. At least in the traditional sense, The Sixth Sense is hardly a pure horror film.

3. The difference between the horror films of mental patients and the first category is mainly in the story mode. There are fewer characters in the film, the relationship is not complicated, the scenes are concentrated, and there are no redundant events and scenes. The importance of the plot and the depth of characterization in the film are more than those in the previous two films.

The classic is the Oscar-winning film Dangerous Tears (also known as Dangerous Ten Days). This film fully embodies the characteristics and techniques of psychopathic horror films from character modeling to plot arrangement.

A. Plot: There is no exaggerated and terrible modeling in "Dangerous Tears", and there is no sudden strong voice to test the audience's nerves. Its horror is hidden in the sudden change of plot and atmosphere. At first, this woman appeared as a kind person, but she turned into a demon without warning. I believe all the audience will be impressed by her sudden appearance in front of the writer's house on that rainy night of lightning and thunder. Her expression became cold and cruel, showing her paranoid heart that had disappeared from human nature. The gap in atmosphere gave the audience a powerful shock. A story with a smooth narrative and a dull beginning suddenly falls into an exaggerated, irrational and unrealistic scene, and the dramatic changes make people feel reasonable in logic, so the audience is guided to a state of truth and illusion, and thus integrated into the terrible world on the screen.

B. Symbol: Julia Roberts made a film called Sleeping with the Enemy in his early years. The story in the film is very general, the highlight of which is to combine her husband's abnormal cleanliness with his inhuman side, making it a symbol of him, making the uniformly brushed medicine bottle and neatly hung towel a harbinger of evil arrival, and making ordinary things an unrealistic symbol of the devil.

C. Because the story of this kind of horror film is closest to reality, it is possible to contain and expose some social problems, thus obtaining the so-called "meaningful" theme. We can say that "Dangerous Tears" shows the influence of the media on the public, and "Sleeping with the Enemy" tells a story about domestic violence. However, because the film is doped with impurities in addition to the purpose of creating terror, if such a theme is unnecessarily emphasized, the horror will be greatly reduced.

Conclusion: In fact, we can see that no matter what kind of horror film, the source of terror is the same-darkness and powerful promotion of evil-the same characteristics of horror films. Different horror films only focus on the specific techniques because of the different villains: some are addicted to the psychological details of the murdered characters; Some are good at creating illusory scenes; Others make a big fuss about the cross-conversion between reality and nightmares.

There are many topics about horror movies that have not been touched by this article, such as some "marginal" horror movies, such as Seven Deaths, The Silence of the Lambs and so on. The complexity of their meaning and structure has surpassed ordinary horror films, and they are no longer pursuing the sense of terror at the physical and subconscious levels, but are more inclined to the fun of thinking brought by complex images. And Japanese horror movies ...

Let's stop here. It was dark and windy outside the window. Turn off the light quickly ... Yes, is that face on the glass my shadow?