• WokePalpatine [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    16·
    3 days ago

    It’s annoying because horror movies have allegories already, but they could be about bigger things than the trauma of them. I read someone trying to defend modern horror movies like this by saying Night Of The Living Dead is about the trauma of racism. No, it’s about racism itself, not the black character’s trauma from it. The fact that so much modern horror is filtered through a single person’s emotional response to bigger topics every time really homogenizes things to a degree I don’t appreciate.

    • Andrzej3K [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      8·
      3 days ago

      Yeah I think you’re into something with the individualistic aspect of a lot of modern horror — it’s all become quite solipsistic when there used to be something more social about it? But then you could say that e.g. Get Out fits into either category I guess.

      The other thing I’m not a huge fan of is the way some movies will use trauma to ‘elevate’ the horror, when the whole point of the genre imho is to diminish trauma/general badness into something we can laugh at or get a thrill out of. It’s the difference between making entertainment for traumatized people and making traumatainment for sheltered people.

  • ClassIsOver [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    3 days ago

    “Dawn of the Dead is about mindless consumerism”

    Yeah, but it’s also about a bunch of dicks hiding in a shopping mall where zombified people are bound to be, which is a shitty strategy if you’re trying to avoid people.

    • Andrzej3K [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      13·
      4 days ago

      Oh there are lots of great movies under the ‘elevated horror’ umbrella dgmw. It’s just that many of them really really insist on their own brilliance while explaining their conceit to you again over and over again as if you were too stupid to grasp it the first eight times.

        • Andrzej3K [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
          2·
          3 days ago

          If we’re talking ‘elevated horror’ that still delivers the goods without getting too patronizing or up itself…

          • It Follows
          • The Babadook
          • ‘Us’ leans a little heavily on the convoluted allegory, but Jordan Peele’s movies are otherwise actually pretty great
          • Many people would accuse Ari Aster of exactly what I’ve been complaining about, but I really like his work lol. I think because he never really hammers a central thesis; his films are more just kaleidoscopic head fucks
          • Andrzej3K [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
            2·
            2 days ago

            The Haunting of Hill House was such a great bit of telly. I enjoy most of Mike Flanagan’s work, but that one is in another league entirely.

            Edit - it occurs to me that The Haunting… is very very much about trauma, but it’s about the trauma of living in a haunted house, and the impact that has on a family. Obviously you can read things into it, but it doesn’t feel like straight allegory