Am I the only person here who doesn't like my horror films to be full of stupid, cheesy jokes and absurd plotlines?
There's a COMEDY section in the video store- and half the movies in the HORROR section should move to it.
It's fine if there are a few jokes, here and there, to break some tension (I suppose)... but really, the point of horror films (at least in my opinion) should be to cause tension. I want to be scared. That's what horror means to me.
...While I'm on the subject, do you guys know of any scary horror films? Stuff that has very little or no comedy whatsoever?
Gigli comes to mind...
I'm with you ZMF. I like my horror films to be just that: HORROR. I want scares not laughs.
This is the main reason why I rate Evil Dead 2 as the worst in the series. The first is straight horror, the third a comedy action romp with little horror. Evil Dead 2 is a mix in between which doesn't quite work for me....well actually at all.
Transylvania 6-500
Fearless Freep wrote:
> Transylvania 6-500
>
Awful!! Anyone remember Saturday The 14th? Very bad. I would also like to see a pure horror flick, with no comic relief...just straight chills and chock full O' creepiness.
I think the humor in ED2 works out because its DARK humor :). loved it.
>Am I the only person here who doesn't like my horror films to be full of stupid,
>cheesy jokes and absurd plotlines?
I don't like jokes that seem out of place, but if something funny happens and it's believable in the context of the story, then I don't mind. The first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer did this perfectly in my opinion.
>Anyone remember Saturday The 14th? Very bad.
Mmmmm, Kari Michaelson in her underwear...
I wouldn't have minded seeing Cabin Fever without all the humor in it. I just want to see if it would be any better that's all.
Ya sure. Not much of a horror movie but signs can freak you out. It's kind of an old movie but My favorite thriller.
The part that freaked me out the most was the foot around the corner, or the alien on the roof. Plus I watched that movie in pitched darkness while home alone At night. Which I usually am home alone. But there are many others.
Omen 1, 2, 3, 4
The shining
rose red
The exersist
ect
But then there are those movies ment to be horror and just stupid or horror and comedy mixed like
Army of Darkness
chuckee ( or how ever the hell you spell it )
13 ghosts
ect
There you have it. I'm bored now.....
Horror and comedy compliment each other and if done well can be effective. I'm terrified in my daily life...I moslty watch movies for fun or escape. I don't like any movies that take thenselves to seriosly...but farces can be annoying when the jokes constantly betray the story and theme of the film. The other thing is that Horror like comedy is based on surprise--it's hard to say "Boo" 620 times in a two hour movie and expect the "534th" Boo to be as effective a the first.
Your Horror Host,
Mr. Lobo
Evil Dead series dropkicks the horror genre straight in it's nutsack because of the humor.
Granted, it got progressively more slapstick in it's later incarnations but still retained the twisted grotesque humor that makes them all classic. How serious does a horror flick need to get before it devolves into an emulated snuff flick? Thats about as unfunny as you can get when it comes to "serious horror" right?
I guess it all comes down to what entertains you or ruins your experience in a specific film.
I'm not a big fan of humor in horror movies. If I'm watching a horror movie, I want it to be dark, disturbing, and relentless. Many producers, directors and screenwriters say that if you don't relieve the tension with some humor, people will start laughing at the parts that aren't supposed to be funny. It's some sort of psychological thing . . . like you can't be subjected to too much stress without your mind craving a little humor. So you end up laughing when you shouldn't. That may be true for some (or most) people, but I prefer pure horror without the humor.
Dame we got a lot of haters on Evil dead here.
This is just a personal thing, but I find most horror to be somewhat funny anyway. Even when something is genuinely creepy, you can still hear me giggling maniacally-- I guess I've just got a sick sense of humor. So I don't mind my horror spiked with humor; I rarely differentiate in the first place.
Hmmm... that's an interesting dilemma...
The Dawn of the Dead remake was one of my favourite movies this year, but it was because of the Humour that was used with the underlying theme of apocalypse.
Cabin Fever's only redeeming feature was the ending. It actually had me in tears.
But I also like horror without the humour. Just look at Scream 3: It was so stupid because it was made with too much [attempted] humour and it just was pulled off really badly.
Lately I've been getting into Japanese horror/thriller. Mainly because alot of it is straight out scary without the laughs. Even if some of the plot points are silly and funny if you stop to think about it [killer doll my ass]
I want horror in my humour, and humour in my horror: the two mix really well... but I don't want it mixed all the time. Give us a straight out horror flick everynow and then and I'll be a happy man.
I'm totally with you. Two popular movies that simply didn't work for me are "Army of Darkness" and "Dead Alive." I liked "Evil Dead 2" even though it was more campy than the first one. But the humor in ED2 was still pretty sick whereas "Army of Darkness" and "Dead Alive" are just absurd. You might as well be watching "The Three Stooges." In my book, when it comes to horror, dark and disturbing is always better.
Humor has its place in horror, but it should know its limits as well. I enjoy witty horror films such as Dog Soldiers, Evil Dead 2 and most of Peter Jackson's early work. Still, if I'm in the mood for something genuinely creepy and disturbing, the last thing I need is some idiotic one-liner dropped in exactly the wrong place.
I love humor/horror movies like ED2 and Army of Darkness, but when I'm in the mood for sheer creepiness I usually watch Japanese movies. My favorite is "Ringu"- WAY WAY WAY better than the Americanized version "The Ring". Another decent one is "The Eye" (also Japanese). I find that foreign horror movies don't try to incorporate humor and love stories as much as American flicks do.
i have to agree with kory. i go to the japanese horror when i need a serious scare. also kory try the JU-ON series for some scares. i just bought from ebay its really good.
"I know I know ive been exposed permeant psychoses..
at least the colors are nice"- Aeon Flux
PANCAKES PANCAKES PANCAKES
I was seriously disappointed in The Eye, because we all saw it five years ago when it was called The Sixth Sense. The Pang Bros. borrow whole-cloth from Shyamalan - sometimes line for line. That is, until we shift gears about an hour into the film and it becomes a direct rip-off of The Ring. And to wrap it all up, we have a ten-minute finale lifted straight from The Mothman Prophecies. I actually found it impossible to view The Eye as its own film; it's like watching bits and pieces of three or four other, better movies stitched together as awkwardly as possible.
Rich Andrini-
Thanks- I'll have to check those out!
Max Gardner-
I agree that "The Eye" isn't the best one I've seen, but I found it to be better than all those american flicks put together. Ours seem so cookie cutter- the best example being "Ringu" (the original) vs "The RIng" (american remake).
1st of all: I wouldn't call AoD and Braindead/Dead Alive horror movies.
2nd: I like humor in horror movies most of the time. But sometimes scary movies are nice too. You've probably seen them already but it can't get any darker and more mysantrophic as the first 2 Hellraisers. Sheer terror, suffering without a drop of relief.
Edit: Wow sorry guys didn't notice the date ;) I'm digging up old topics here excuse me
Post Edited (07-03-04 16:50)
The Innocents (1962), with Deborah Kerr. Nary a giggle or comic relief that I can recall in that.
peter johnson
The one thing I don't like about "The Bride of Frankenstein" is Una O'Connor's comic relief character. She really seemed out of place in the movie. It should have been serious start to finish.
Everybody calls "Bride of Frankenstein" a masterpiece for its humor, but I hate it for that very reason. The humor just didn't mesh well with the horror in that movie.
On the other hand, I think "Evil Dead" and "Evil Dead 2" are terrific because of their comic aspects (I think "Army of Darkness" entered the boundry of straight comedy film), and those two early Roger Corman movies, "Bucket of Blood" and "Little Shop of Horrors," are also great for it.