So i`ve stumble upon this one a few months ago. Although i consider myself a fan of the horror genre, i haven`t seen this one up to now. And i know, to expand my shame more, i haven`t seen a lot of classic horror movies. But i`m getting there, one by one.
This movie is exactly what i had to see to understand more why i love horror movies. Because not even to this day i have no idea why i am attracted to this genre. From ghosts, to zombies, to monsters, to gore, to all sorts of horror, i like the rush that it gives me, i like to feel the scare, i even like the ones that are so bad that make me laugh and even see what it coming next.
Even to this day i can remember my first horror movie. I was around 6 or 7 and it was summer. I know this because i was sleeping in the kitchen (it was way cooler that any other room in the apartment) and i had my sofa all made up. And i remember that we had this box that contained a tv, a radio and a tape recorder all together. And the tv, even though it was small, it was a color one. So it was late, and i was with my mom, and i was browsing through a tv magazine and i saw this really weird title “the night of the living dead” and i said to my mom “let`s watch this one!”. And we flipped the channels and watched it. I remember that i was so amazed by the movie that at the end i started crying and my mom asked why was i crying, and i just said “i don`t want all the zombies gone!”.
In “Why horror?” Eli Roth mentioned that children love fairy tales and that the fairy tales are dark. As i child i didn`t read fairy tales. I read my first Grimm tale when i was around 12. So i have no idea what made it click to me.
I know that after i watched “Jaws” i refused to enter water. And i live near the sea. And it`s a sea, no sharks, nothing dangerous was going to come from beneath and bite my leg off. But the fear that it gave me, and those two notes, God! Every time i went to the beach i heard those two notes in my head. It was horrifying. Even now, as an adult (as i like to consider myself) i still hear those notes.
I like that in “Why horror?” they explain that going out on a date to see a horror movies, the chances of hooking up are bigger than going to see a love story or whatever else. But i didn`t like the part where they said that the statistics show that men like women who got scared more to those that enjoyed horror movies. There i have it! Next stop: let`s get me some cats!
As “Why horror?” clearly states, we can see horror in all forms of art and culture (paintings, literature, music, clothing style, video games and so on). It shows how every culture see death, how they react to it. It has also a feature with female horror directors, to open your mind and make you see that even women like horror and they can even make them!
I can say that this movie is one of the best created, documented and expressed up to now, that helps horror fans not to feel so stigmatized by others, by all those that think that if you watch horror it must mean that is something wrong with you.
You just have to watch this. If you are at the beginning of your “horror watching career” it may give you some great tips on what to watch next movie night.
Picture from IMDB.
