Microcinema Flashback - A Cry For Help... (2001)

I've always envied the horror film genre. Their fans are the most loyal and most forgiving. The market place may increase as public taste fluctuate, but they never dip into obscurity. I think you can be pretty successful if you can shoot good low-budget horror. Unfortunately, I've never really liked the blood and guts horror flicks. Just not my thing.

In this article from October 2001 I ask for help on understanding the appeal of this odd, but loyal film genre.

*****

A Cry For Help... As Blood Spews From My Neck.
by Pete Bauer

I need help... understanding... education. I have to admit something that may offend some of you... but I hate horror movies. Not scary movies, not spooky movies, not boogy-man movies, but the blood splattering, in your face, knife-plunging, decapitation gory movies. I know there are a lot of people in this world who find some sort of entertainment from such films, otherwise the local video chains wouldn't be stocked with Children of the Corn VII! But, I just don't get it... never have. And I need you fellow horror-film fans to explain it to me.

I remember when Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and other flicks came out. I saw a few, but always found myself spending more of my time closing my eyes during the bloodfests than watching and finding enjoyment from it. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm too in touch with my sensitive side. Maybe I need an injection from the Wes Craven testosterone factory.

Don't get me wrong... I love suspense movies, scary, creepy, watch-out-for-the-bad-guy-behind-the-door films. The original Halloween is one of my favorite films of all time. So, it's not that I dislike the genre, just the more excessively bloody versions of it. Halloween worked so well for me because the graphic events are more implied than visual. It made me imagine... create what's going on as we hear the knife stabbing the older sister... we only see the knife through the eyes of the child's mask and since I have to fill in the gaps with my imagination, it makes it much more real than watching some clever special effect happen in front of me.

After the initial attack on Halloween night, the setup of impending evil, the rest of the movie is really a stalker movie. He follows Jamie Lee around, standing ominously across the street in shadow or near the clothes lines... scares the living crap out of you. Even the last act, where all of the bloody mayhem ensues, is handled with restraint and is incredibly effective as we see this evil finally unleashed.

I guess my problem comes from the point of the attacks in these types of films. Cheaper versions of the genre just throw a bunch of scantily clad beauties in a central location and let the hacking begin. Obviously this works well. This standard storyline is repeated over and over again by just about every level of filmmaker and it always makes money.

But, again, I just don't get it. I get offended seeing a knife plunge into the chest of a woman who's only crime is that she's in the wrong shower at the wrong time. I get offended when I see a guys neck slashed, blood spurt out and his head fall next to his lifeless body. Part of me has attached some sort of humanity to these characters and their loss, no matter how annoying the character is, is still a loss. That's just the way I am, I guess. I don't see them as plot devices that need to be hacked into oblivion, but people being killed. And, people dying gruesome deaths offends me.

Maybe I'm just a frickin' wuss! Maybe I need to go through another round of puberty. But, that's how I react to gore-fest films. Now, I avoid them at all cost. I remember back to something my Dad said to me when I was young... "watch out what you put into your brain because you can never get it out." So, I weigh the value of allowing certain images into my head and seeing a water-logged Jason return for one more vivisection just doesn't seem a logical use of my brain... don't think I gain anything from experiencing the imagery.

Again, help me here. I'm not judging, I'm not criticizing, I'm just trying to get it. I'm trying to understand where the enjoyment is for fans of horror. Is it that you don't attach yourselves to the characters and just appreciate the effects as a fellow filmmaker? Does it tickle some dark fancy within you? Is it "just a frickin' movie" and I should get out of my cinematic diapers? Give it to me straight. I can take it. I know many of you make horror flicks, and from the response, apparently they're very successful. I'd love to see the works of Timberwolf Digital or Eric Stanze or a variety of other filmmakers out there because I LOVE low-budget films with an edge... as long as it's not the edge of a large kitchen knife with blood dripping from the end.

Hell, I'll admit it... part of me is a hypocrite. My first film was a Super 8 slasher flick where we got all excited that we were able to get a knife with blood on it to look real. So, I've been there as a filmmaker making the best effects we could with bailing wire, some chewing gum and loads of food coloring. And I envy people who can make films in the genre with continued success, on any level, not so much because of the story that they're telling, but because they have tapped into a profitable niche market. If it was in me, I'd make a billion lesbian vampire flicks and retire... but I just can't tell that type of story. It's not in my genome.

So help me out... help me understand what so many people see that I, apparently, just don't get. I'm a fellow filmmaker with a cry for help. Just educate me before you dissect me and feed me to your relatives at the next holiday gathering.