What is "Horror"?

hybridtheory said:
Anyone seen Tetsuo: The Iron Man? Cause you might want to put that in contention for most disturbing horror ever. I'd label it as Japanese Art Horror. Lots of cool stuff done with stop-motion.
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Seen it, how about Eraserhead, that's creepy. Did you see Irreversible or Man Bites Dog yet?
 
went to the indie movie rental store but totally forgot about those! Ended up renting rosemary's baby and kiss kiss bang bang, which if anyone hasn't seen the latter, I highly recommend it, and i was doing some old school horror research with the former. (plus the gf had never seen it.)
 
i wouldn't say that I "loved" tetsuo, probably more mortified and disturbed, but i picked up irreversible last night, they didn't have man bites dog, but i was excited to see "contains horrific scenes of violence and sex" on the cover.
 
Agh I really want to pick up Tetsuo, but I keep getting burned by those Tartan Asian Extreme releases (Some of the movies are quite crappy for the price)

Also "The Gate" was awesome. I never saw the second one though. I just remember seeing the tape in blockbuster as a kid and being like WHAAA?
 
Yeah, I saw the second one. Nowhere near as good.

That's a great example of PG-13 horror, though. I love that movie so much.
 
Well, I just finished Irreversible. And I have to say, I am disturbed, not as much as Tetsuo, but still, it left a mark. The murder scene was definitely brutal but ridiculously realistic, i wonder what the effect was that they used, cause it worked.

But since this is a horror thread, I'm going to say that it is NOT a horror movie. Though horrifying, it doesn't contain anything would qualify as a monster, just humans doing very awful things. If i had to put a genre label on it, I'd say it's an "art-thriller".

I also wonder what kind of crazy rig they had to do all that camerawork.
 
I haven't read anything on this thread, but it just strikes me so funny that this issue would come up.
It's not like it's hard...what ever scares the sh#t out of you is horror.
I can understand the "purpose of art film" thread, but come on. There are many levels, but doesn't it all boil down to fear?
 
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There really isn't a clean line between thriller and horror. But now it's pretty much agreed that--

You got a killer running around with a butcher knife - Thriller
You got a demon running around with a butcher knife - Horror.
 
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Matthew B. Moore said:
I haven't read anything on this thread, but it just strikes me so funny that this issue would come up.
It's not like hard...what ever scares the sh#t out of you is horror.
I can understand the "purpose of art film" thread, but come on. There are many levels, but doesn't it all boil down to fear?
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Yes. I believe it boils down to whether or not you have goosebumps and a feeling of fear or dread.
 
Seriously, though--

If people are entering shorts that follow in the vain of SAW or HOSTEL, we'd might as well call it THRILLER fest.

Already seeing that people are planning on doing ultra bloody shorts...
 
I mean, this scares me, but not people like my mother.

Bette-Midler-AKA-Brenda.jpg


I know it's all comes down to the individual, but can I assume there is fear for most every one when an image like this pops up?
courtney_love_on_drugs.jpg
 
Kholi said:
There really isn't a clean line between thriller and horror.

You got a killer running around with a butcher knife - Thriller
You got a demon running around with a butcher knife - Horror.
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seems like a pretty clean line to me! :)
 
A killer running around with a butcher knife is Horror/thriller. There is not a clean line between the two. Halloween has a killer with a butcher knife and it is definitely horror. I think people are gettinjg confused and trying to draw lines where there is not a line. The Net=Thriller Halloween=Horror

From Demons, to stalkers with knives...horror is simply inspiring a feeling of fear of life and limb, dread, and terror in the audience. it does not matter what medium existes in the movie to cause the feeling, as long as it is caused.
 
msconce said:
A killer running around with a butcher knife is Horror/thriller. There is not a clean line between the two. Halloween has a killer with a butcher knife and it is definitely horror. I think people are gettinjg confused and trying to draw lines where there is not a line. The Net=Thriller Halloween=Horror

From Demons, to stalkers with knives...horror is simply inspiring a feeling of fear of life and limb, dread, and terror in the audience. it does not matter what medium existes in the movie to cause the feeling, as long as it is caused.
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Halloween is supernatural. A lot more supernatural than SAW would be.

In Halloween, the killer is beaten and everything else, but still persists on. In a thriller, generally once the killer swallows chunks of broken ceramics from a coffee cup sprinkled in his drink by the scared wife character, he's dead.

That's what I mean...
The thread was meant to give people a clear idea of what kind of entries constitute as horror. Msconce... your Hero fest entry wasn't even considered a hero entry by a few people, because it had a ninja in it and you had to defend it, right? Why suffer the same fate because it's not so clear what the judges consider horror and what isn't.
 
Meh, screw it--

Whatever works for whomever. I just hope I don't end up with a dead project again on this one.
 
i agree kholi, that's what i was trying to get at before with the scholar definition i gave earlier in the thread. In order for it to be considered horror, the vehicle that is horrifying can't be explained by science today.
 
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