Horror in the 1970s

By way of Italy, the slasher film made it's way to America, and paved the way for more freedom in what was allowed shown in theatres to wide audiences. The masterpiece of transformational disgust, The Exorcist, certainly one of the finest Horror films, emerged in this decade. I think the 70s, more than any other, saw filmmakers pushing the envelope; think of Jodorowsky and his surreal masterpiece, The Holy Mountain. The vectors of violence, corporate greed, guru madness and spiritual seeking, all converge here in this wild festival of bizarre visuals, the like of which were never before or after seen. Argento in Italy went along similar lines, though in a more traditional Horror vein, and produced masterpieces in both supernatural Horror and giallo, Suspiria and Deep Red, and several minor ones as well. Some other mentionables, Black Christmas , The Wicker Man and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The 1970s were a pinnacle for me in originality in the Horror genre.

Red Herrings

Argento movies are generally smart enough to play around with the red herring aspect so crucial to murder mysteries. People accustomed to how the cliched idea of a red herring works, might be thrown off and think, well it's too obvious this guy's the murderer so it really isnt him. Then start following false clues that point to another red herring. This was the case in Black Christmas, with Peter, the piano student, and it turned out he wasnt the killer.

In Sleepless, there's an object that the killer drops at one murder scene then it's revealed in another that a character is missing said object. So as an observer we think, hmm, is this missing object a sign that one of the characters in the current scene is the killer or just planted disinformation to throw the observer off? Turns out the object was a clear-cut clue to killer's identity.

When the red herring theme works well, the watcher, reader, is kept off balance. It also helps if there is an interesting story behind everything, well-drawn characters, well-placed clues.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/novels/red_herrings.htm

Horror Notes

1) A good working definition of horror could well be: that which remains after all attempts to "draw the line" have been exhausted.

2) When a person's sense of justice is satisfied, this is in indirect proportion to the amount of horror involved.

3) The universe/god does not draw the line on that catastrophic and hypothetical asteroid following a direct path toward earth, hellbent on our removal from existense.

4) My mother did not draw the line on the overwhelming volume of mental suffering her suicide would cause her family.

5) Someone else's tragedy is another's movie of the week, to varying degrees of intensity, depending on your cable network of choice.

--How the reader or watcher's imagination works with the medium presented, is the key factor to being truly horrified.. In other words, horror is almost entirely personal. There are aspects we share, if you give credence to jungian archetypes, but ultimately we color our own world with our very uniquely tuned senses and memories of past events, and horror films and novels will always be sifted through this personal mind set.As for the "boo" factor, it can be cliche, and it is in most horror movies, but certainly the most stand-out horror films use it in new ways-- something carefully planned (like Regan McNiel doing the spider walk down the stairs, truly creepy moment in The Exorcist)-- with well-prepared backstory, atmosphere and score. Something truly shocking rather than this overused one: "Oh it was just the cat!" We briefly recover, then, the killer strikes.