Have you ever felt so lonely that you could map it on your body?
Tonight I went to hear Nathan Ballingrud and Paul Tremblay read at Pandemonium Books & Games; they were great, I got signed copies of Nathan's Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell (2019) and Bracken MacLeod's 13 Views of the Suicide Woods (2017), and a man in the audience recognized me from my jacket photo (and then said nice things about my writing), which I was not expecting. I had hoped to come home and write about a movie, but in fact my brain appears to be toast, so I am sitting on the couch beside a dozing Autolycus, discussing horror movies with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch. I am not confident that I am really equipped to fill out the meme about horror movies that's been going around my friendlist on Facebook, but I have decided to give it a shot anyway.
Horror Movie I Hate: Motivational Growth (2012). It took me forever to remember it, in part because I have been fortunate enough to see very few movies in any genre that I truly hate and I suspect in part because I had repressed the experience, but we were subjected to this 104-minute exercise in pseudo-existentialist audience exhaustion as a last-minute, four a.m. replacement for The Hands of Orlac (1924) during SF37 and even Jeffrey Combs voicing a sentient blob of black mold could not save it. It just kept not stopping. Rob refused to leave the theater because he was afraid that if he didn't see it end, it might never be over. I feel bitter about missing out on Conrad Veidt to this day.
Horror Movie I Think Is Overrated: I do not generally find it useful to think of a film as overrated when all that means is that other people like it more than I do, but I did not enjoy An American Werewolf in London (1981) at all. It had been talked up to me as a comedy; it upset me badly with its gross-out effects, its protagonist's terror, and its bloody ending; I was watching it with someone who loved it; it was awkward all round.
Horror Movie I Think Is Underrated: I don't think I can cite Jennifer's Body (2009) since that film currently seems to be undergoing a renaissance, so on the grounds that I still find myself recommending it to people who have never heard of it, let's say Demon (2015). It remains the best dybbuk film since Michał Waszyński and it's even on Kanopy.
Horror Movie I Love: Psycho (1960). Much to my surprise. I didn't think I would hate it when I finally managed to see it in an irony-free environment, but I didn't think I would watch it three times in the same forty-eight hours. I still haven't managed to write about it because I loved it so much; some movies I can't stop talking about, some I don't know where to start. It's like I'm afraid of getting them wrong. I suspect this of being some permutation of Tiny Wittgenstein, but it's kept me from writing about more than one film for years. Psycho is not at the top of the list, but it's frustratingly included.
Horror Movie I Could Watch on Repeat: I have watched The Legend of Hell House (1973) at every possible opportunity since being introduced to it and expect to continue to do so, partly for its parapsychological weirdness, partly for its radiophonic soundtrack by Delia Derbyshire, greatly for Roddy McDowall. I love that it is explicitly a Christmas movie. I love that its ending goes so far over the top that one of my other favorite character actors cameoing as a corpse registers with a shrug of sure, why not? while still being emotionally poignant to me. Besides, it got into my fiction while I was asleep.
Horror Movie That Made Me Fall in Love with Horror Movies: Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). I do not think that I ever actually saw a single movie that made me fall in love with horror movies, especially since there are so many different kinds of horror movie and I have an evident affinity for some and a much more tenuous relationship with others, but if I had ever been tempted to say categorically that I didn't like horror movies, early imprinting on Peter Lorre's Dr. Einstein would have demonstrated otherwise. When my husband just now told me he was about to microwave a pizza instead of putting it in the oven, I responded instinctively, "Oh, Johnny, not the Melbourne method." If you would prefer a less funny answer, Cat People (1942).
Horror Movie That Changed My Life: Shaun of the Dead (2004), although technically it was an on-set photo that did it. I found one character's death scene so emotionally upsetting, it really helped to find a production photo afterward in which the actor looked at most mildly dubious about his violent and wrenchingly mistimed disemboweling. I don't want to say that I had never thought about practical effects before that, because I have written proof that I did, but I think I thought about them differently afterward. It's been useful.
Guilty Pleasure: I have no movies I feel bad about liking! If I have to pick one that sounds unlikely, Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) is a deliberately, splatterily over-the-top Goth-punk neo-Jacobean Grand Opera Guignol and I own both the DVD and the soundtrack. I think I was supposed to like it ironically, but unfortunately I tend to like things either unironically or not at all, so here we are.
strange_complex linked me a Twitter thread on the Great Selkie of Sule Skerry. That's one of the oldest songs I can remember knowing; my mother used to sing it to me as a lullaby. I wonder if there are any selkie horror films. Stolen skins would do it.
spatch. I am not confident that I am really equipped to fill out the meme about horror movies that's been going around my friendlist on Facebook, but I have decided to give it a shot anyway.Horror Movie I Hate: Motivational Growth (2012). It took me forever to remember it, in part because I have been fortunate enough to see very few movies in any genre that I truly hate and I suspect in part because I had repressed the experience, but we were subjected to this 104-minute exercise in pseudo-existentialist audience exhaustion as a last-minute, four a.m. replacement for The Hands of Orlac (1924) during SF37 and even Jeffrey Combs voicing a sentient blob of black mold could not save it. It just kept not stopping. Rob refused to leave the theater because he was afraid that if he didn't see it end, it might never be over. I feel bitter about missing out on Conrad Veidt to this day.
Horror Movie I Think Is Overrated: I do not generally find it useful to think of a film as overrated when all that means is that other people like it more than I do, but I did not enjoy An American Werewolf in London (1981) at all. It had been talked up to me as a comedy; it upset me badly with its gross-out effects, its protagonist's terror, and its bloody ending; I was watching it with someone who loved it; it was awkward all round.
Horror Movie I Think Is Underrated: I don't think I can cite Jennifer's Body (2009) since that film currently seems to be undergoing a renaissance, so on the grounds that I still find myself recommending it to people who have never heard of it, let's say Demon (2015). It remains the best dybbuk film since Michał Waszyński and it's even on Kanopy.
Horror Movie I Love: Psycho (1960). Much to my surprise. I didn't think I would hate it when I finally managed to see it in an irony-free environment, but I didn't think I would watch it three times in the same forty-eight hours. I still haven't managed to write about it because I loved it so much; some movies I can't stop talking about, some I don't know where to start. It's like I'm afraid of getting them wrong. I suspect this of being some permutation of Tiny Wittgenstein, but it's kept me from writing about more than one film for years. Psycho is not at the top of the list, but it's frustratingly included.
Horror Movie I Could Watch on Repeat: I have watched The Legend of Hell House (1973) at every possible opportunity since being introduced to it and expect to continue to do so, partly for its parapsychological weirdness, partly for its radiophonic soundtrack by Delia Derbyshire, greatly for Roddy McDowall. I love that it is explicitly a Christmas movie. I love that its ending goes so far over the top that one of my other favorite character actors cameoing as a corpse registers with a shrug of sure, why not? while still being emotionally poignant to me. Besides, it got into my fiction while I was asleep.
Horror Movie That Made Me Fall in Love with Horror Movies: Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). I do not think that I ever actually saw a single movie that made me fall in love with horror movies, especially since there are so many different kinds of horror movie and I have an evident affinity for some and a much more tenuous relationship with others, but if I had ever been tempted to say categorically that I didn't like horror movies, early imprinting on Peter Lorre's Dr. Einstein would have demonstrated otherwise. When my husband just now told me he was about to microwave a pizza instead of putting it in the oven, I responded instinctively, "Oh, Johnny, not the Melbourne method." If you would prefer a less funny answer, Cat People (1942).
Horror Movie That Changed My Life: Shaun of the Dead (2004), although technically it was an on-set photo that did it. I found one character's death scene so emotionally upsetting, it really helped to find a production photo afterward in which the actor looked at most mildly dubious about his violent and wrenchingly mistimed disemboweling. I don't want to say that I had never thought about practical effects before that, because I have written proof that I did, but I think I thought about them differently afterward. It's been useful.
Guilty Pleasure: I have no movies I feel bad about liking! If I have to pick one that sounds unlikely, Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) is a deliberately, splatterily over-the-top Goth-punk neo-Jacobean Grand Opera Guignol and I own both the DVD and the soundtrack. I think I was supposed to like it ironically, but unfortunately I tend to like things either unironically or not at all, so here we are.
strange_complex linked me a Twitter thread on the Great Selkie of Sule Skerry. That's one of the oldest songs I can remember knowing; my mother used to sing it to me as a lullaby. I wonder if there are any selkie horror films. Stolen skins would do it.
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I wonder if there are any selkie horror films.
That does seem like an obvious genre, especially for a modern film where the selkie was the protagonist and her human captor the villain. In any case, I don't know of any, but there is one fascinatingly bad Polish horror rock musical about cannibal mermaids, called The Lure (2015) - it's deeply odd and sort-of worth seeing.
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It's the movie that made me really notice him after decades of character-actor drifting around the edges of things. I regret nothing.
I also loved both the 1942 and the 1982 version of Cat People (the soundtrack of the 1982 version was amazing).
I have not seen the 1982 Cat People, but I've heard the music. I saw the 1942 film at a point in my life when I still saw very few movies; cats were already important to me and it left a lasting impression. "She never lied to us."
In any case, I don't know of any, but there is one fascinatingly bad Polish horror rock musical about cannibal mermaids, called The Lure (2015) - it's deeply odd and sort-of worth seeing.
I really want to see that! I believe I would actually enjoy it.
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Aw, that's great.
It just kept not stopping.
Oh, dear. I think we've all been there with something. And also with just having to hang on in there because surely it will end soon/do something/improve, and nope.
You seem fully qualified to do a Horror Movie meme to me. (Does one need qualifications to fill out a meme? I presume at least having seen more horror movies than me, which wouldn't be all that hard, although I'm working on making it a higher bar. ;-p)
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Thank you!
Oh, dear. I think we've all been there with something. And also with just having to hang on in there because surely it will end soon/do something/improve, and nope.
We thought it was a short for the first forty-minutes. It wasn't!
You seem fully qualified to do a Horror Movie meme to me. (Does one need qualifications to fill out a meme?
Probably not! But I don't feel that I have seen so many horror movies that I can be comprehensive about my choices and besides I don't tend to have single exemplars of anything. I had a terrible time answering the "underrated"/"overrated" questions and "that changed my life" took absolutely forever. It's just not how I think about movies.
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We thought it was a short for the first forty-minutes. It wasn't!
Oh, that's even worse!! Oh dear...
(Btw, me not having my Dracula icon any more this morning to use on my reply to this post led to a rather silly sequence of events where I sort of accidentally got myself a paid account trying to find out whether or not I could get a paid account, because last time there was no way for love nor money. I feel rather guilty about it, but I suppose it does DReamwidth good and in the meantime, I shall enjoy my icons. Which is to say, it's not really your fault at all that I now have 100 icon spaces. Well, 22 filled, 78 to go...)
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That strikes me as a good rule. Thank you.
and in the meantime, I shall enjoy my icons. Which is to say, it's not really your fault at all that I now have 100 icon spaces. Well, 22 filled, 78 to go...
Oh, good! Because that's a lot of icons.
(Why was it not possible for you to get a paid account the last time you tried?)
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Why was it not possible for you to get a paid account the last time you tried?
I am not 100% sure because it was a while ago, but they didn't seem to have any way for people outside of the US to pay them at the time. They had more credit card options at least this time. I wasn't sure if it was real or it would kick me out for being British again, but it didn't. They took my money and gave me icons. Also polls, but I think we know what I was accidentally paying for here.
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Mazel tov!
It is important to be able to deploy Silver correctly in a conversation.
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Awesome! I look forward to the results. Good luck with elections!
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I still don't tend to think of myself as a major horror watcher, but I had a lot of trouble narrowing some of these categories. It did take me forever to remember one I hated, though, which really does feel lucky.
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Have you ever seen UNDER THE SKIN? It's an indie Scarlett Johansson, and Pat loves that movie. I've watched it with him two or three times, and it terrifies me. I've told him I won't watch it again, so now he watches it alone.
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It's one of the earliest movie I can remember watching, along with Singin' in the Rain (1952) and Splash (1984). Our copy was taped off the TV and I didn't realize until I was in grad school, when a friend gave me a DVD, that it had either a Halloween setting or a prologue outside the Brewster house.
Have you ever seen UNDER THE SKIN?
No! I've heard very good things about it, but never seen it. I'm still not up to speed on contemporary movies.
What does Pat love about it? Or what terrifies you?
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I find it terrifying because it's creepy as fuck.
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Omg, you saw Nathan Ballingrud. I loved his North American Lake Monsters! I persuaded multiple friends to read it just so we could talk about the stories. And I've just bought Wounds but haven't read it yet.
... I'm just so delighted you got to see him. And Paul Tremblay! His A Head Full of Ghosts scared the absolute bejeebers out of me. :D
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He warned at the reading that Wounds is a very different kind of collection from North American Lake Monsters and it is, but I read it last night and I really enjoyed it; it's not a novel but a linked cycle of stories all revolving around hell and love, angels indistinguishable from demons, an order of monks who make pilgrimage through hell in their boxes of black iron. Ballingrud name-checked both Clive Barker and EC Comics when discussing them. They would be excellently illustrated by Wayne Barlowe.
... I'm just so delighted you got to see him. And Paul Tremblay! His A Head Full of Ghosts scared the absolute bejeebers out of me.
They make a great double-act! I also loved A Head Full of Ghosts. I think it's amazing that it's being adapted for film by Oz Perkins.
(Do you travel at all for conventions? They will both be at NecronomiCon Providence in August.)
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That could be a heck of a film to watch with a fever.
It must have been edited to hell and full of commercials!
Is that an experience people even have anymore—seeing the full version of a movie that they originally encountered cut for commercials? It certainly shaped my experience of childhood and even adolescent movies on TV! (After that I stopped having a television.)
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That sounds incredibly confusing.
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I was shown it by friends who said almost nothing about it beforehand except that they thought I would like it, which, they were so right.
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Same with me about liking things unironically or not at all, but I think it's a matter of definitions. I'm sure there are things I like that I also think of as kind of silly or overwrought, or that have elements of those things--it's that their silliness or overwoughtness don't bother me, or maybe I even like it. Liking things ironically seems to involve a kind of detachment that I don't have when I like things.
That's cool that someone recognized you from your cover photo! And even cooler (but not surprising) that they're a fan.
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Only Angels Have Wings (1939). Bound (1996). Caged (1950). Remember My Name (1978). Border Incident (1949). Splash (1984). The Hitch-Hiker (1953). Not Wanted (1949). The Bigamist (1953). Some of these movies are very important to me; some I just wanted to talk about; I haven't managed it with any of them. It's frustrating.
Liking things ironically seems to involve a kind of detachment that I don't have when I like things.
I'm not even sure what it would entail. I generally feel I can tell when I'm reading a narrative against its intentions (cf. movies where I value different traits than the filmmakers or the system within which they worked), but I don't think that's the same thing.
That's cool that someone recognized you from your cover photo! And even cooler (but not surprising) that they're a fan.
Thank you!