Easter Horror Finds

Today, I was feeling nostalgic for my childhood. You know, all the chocolate bunnies and marshmallow eggs (and the newly discovered chocolate covered Peep...heaven), egg hunts, and my little sister bawling her eyes out every time my mother tried to get her to sit on the Easter Bunny's knee for pictures. Honestly, who can blame her? A giant bunny is a scary thing...and why does he always have giant teeth? The two buck teeth may be cute, or the better to eat the children with...

Of course, I thought I couldn't be alone in finding some of the more secular Easter imagery more than a little creepy. As it turns out, there are several horror movies with the Easter season theme. Here are my picks:

1) The Critters movies



This movie series did for Easter what Gremlins did for Christmas. I love how the sequel openly attacks the bunny. Like I said, I can't be the only one who found the giant rabbit creepy...

2) Monty Python and the Holy Grail



Okay, this is not a horror movie nor is it explicitly Easter themed (except for the, you know, Holy Grail part), but this might explain where my fear of the Easter bunny came from.

3) Donnie Darko



Again, not exactly horror, but this scene still freaks me out. Scariest bunny I have ever seen in a movie, hands down!

4) The Wicker Man



This film (the 1973 original, not the Nicolas Cage remake) is still to this day one of my favorite horror movies. It actually lends itself very nicely to the pagan roots of Easter, especially the celebration of Spring. Creepy, creepy stuff.

5) The Night of the Lepus



I've never actually seen this film, but it is on my list to watch now. Come on, rabbits turned killers? I love movies where mother nature fights back. Makes me all teary eyed for the first time I saw that tree scene in The Evil Dead.  Ahh, memories...

Happy Easter egg hunting everyone!

Oh, and if you see me around, congratulate me on running my first 5K! Yay, me!!

John 3:16

Insidious; Or, R-Rating Manifesto, Part 2

This entry almost wasn't. For one thing, it is a bit contrary to my last entry, in which I expressed my reservations in watching Insidious, a PG-13 horror movie. Also, I just couldn't find the words. However, after talking to a friend of mine today (love you, Jordan, but we have to disagree here), I felt I had to defend this film.

The film in question is Insidious, James Wan's latest stab at the horror flick.



I railed against PG-13 horror movies, yet I still was first in line to see this movie on opening night. And, no, I still haven't changed my stance on the rating system. I even have one more point to make: There are no giggly thirteen year old boys and girls taking up the theater! I was easily the oldest person in the room, next to my father, who was kind enough to take me out for the evening. Everyone else was clearly in middle school, probably have been dropped off by his or her parents to meet friends for a night out. Needless to say, the evening was filled with talking and laughing and screams at odd places, all punctuated by the glow of several tens of cell phones being flipped open during the show. Thanks, by the way, to Memphis Malco for sending ushers in to quiet everyone down; otherwise, the movie would have been miserable. After the ushers coming in a few times with stern warnings, the movie theater was nice and quiet.

But, I was going to say, before Truth broke in with all her loud children (can you tell I've been teaching Frost this week?)

Wan hit it out of the park with Insidious. From the previews, I was expecting the run-of-the-mill paranormal movie, which would have been great for me, but what I got was so much better. From the opening credits, with the oversized lettering and screeching, dissonant music, I knew I was in for a much different experience. Insidious is made by people who love horror movies, who both take the genre seriously and have fun with it. It reminded me at times those in-your-face horror movies of the late 60's and early 70's, films like The Legend of Hell House, which involved another group of people battling the supernatural (seances and nerdy scientists included), or even the earlier films of someone like William Castle, who took out life insurance policies through Lloyd's of London for audience members concerned about seeing his movie Macabre. Those are the kind of films that enjoy the genre, even exploit it. Those are the kinds of films that have fun with genre, and as a result, the audience have fun too.

More than that, though, Wan manages to take the horror genre seriously at the same time. I loved the concept of "The Further," and while many critics might say that the last act of the film seems to be a poor fit for the rest of the plot, I disagree. Any writer or director who takes on horror needs to address the Other, the idea that there is something beyond our physical realm. After all, how can you accept ghosts, or vampires, or even things that go bump in the dark without exploring their realm? H. P. Lovecraft did this. Stephen King had done this. All masters of horror have achieved that "master" status because they were willing to explore their own version of "The Further."

Is this movie perfect? No. It has its rough spots, but it was also everything I wanted in a good, enjoyable horror movie. I'll be watching Wan to see what he comes up with next.

The R-Rating: A Manifesto

It’s been awhile since I’ve been really excited about a movie. You know, what I mean. The kind of movie that you count down the days until opening day. The kind of movie that you will happily pay the nearly ten bucks it takes to see a first-run movie instead of waiting for Netflix to make it available. The kind of movie that is a pure fun, popcorn and candy movie. When I first saw the trailer for the new film Insidious, I was excited. I immediately told my husband to pencil April 1 into his calendar because we would be going to see that movie opening night.

            Then, I noticed the film was rated PG-13, and I know I shouldn’t let something that small affect how I rate my movie-going experience, but it did. That kid on Christmas morning excitement that I had felt just moments before had completely dissipated.

            Here’s the thing.

            I don’t believe in the PG-13 horror movie.

            I want to, I really do. It’s not that all PG-13 horror flicks are inherently bad. In fact, there have been a few notable exceptions within the past year. Both Devil and The Last Exorcism were rated PG-13, and both were incredible films. Both films also were attached to master filmmakers, M. Night Shyamalan and Eli Roth, respectively. Here’s the thing, though. Both films had great scripts and great actors, too often a rarity when it comes to the horror film. Some might even argue that these two films don’t even belong in the horror genre—that they are more of character analysis—even a social commentary—with a strong horror element.

            For a PG-13 horror movie to really be excellent, it has to rely on spot-on storytelling because it can’t rely on the gore factor. It has to play with your mind and really pull you into the world it’s created. And, even more difficult, the PG-13 horror movie has to make you jump in your seat without actually showing you what is behind the curtain. Not an easy task.

            More often than not, when I see a film that is billed as being “horror” yet is rated PG-13, I assume two things: 1) I won’t get to see any of the blood, and 2) the characters are going to be talking in a squeaky clean vernacular. In other words, no guts, no glory.

            I’ve heard people argue for the other side, spouting the praises of the PG-13 horror movie, saying that it forces the filmmaker to rely on more sophisticated scares rather than buckets of fake blood and goo. It’s a good theory. After all, I’m all for sophisticated scares. I love it when the filmmakers take the genre seriously, but I also love it when they have fun with the genre. I can see the merits of both Audition and Pirahna 3D (both rated R, by the way), but I don’t think that an R rating equals lazy storytelling. Don’t believe me? Paranormal Activity, a movie that showed nothing in terms of graphic violence, was rated R for language. It managed sophisticated scares and a realistic setting (because what other twenty-something wouldn’t pepper a little R-rated language into his or her day-to day existence? Don’t even get me started about the characters in most PG-13 horror films, who all talk like they grew up watching too many Dawson’s Creek reruns).

            What does bother me is the way most PG-13 movies handle their storytelling. Too often, it feels as if these films want to be proper horror movies but are too afraid to cross the border into the dark. Case in point: this year’s Twilight, er, I mean Red Riding Hood. Believe it or not, this film is listed as in the horror genre by IMDB. I, too, was under the assumption, after watching the trailers, that this would be a horror film that went back to the roots of the familiar fairy tale. I was wrong. What I wanted was the original fairy tale in all its Grimm Brother’s glory. What I got was pretty people in a pretty place with a drop or two of bright red blood. (By the way, isn’t blood supposed to be dark red, almost black? Only Argento can get away with the day-glo stuff.)

            Maybe it’s just me. But I want an R rating with my horror. I’ll even say I wish they’d bring back the X rating (or is it NC-17 now?), but just give me a film I can sink my teeth into. Is that so much to ask?