What is horror? - Misinterpreting a genre
- Ricardo Vazquez
- Mar 28, 2019
- 3 min read
This past weekend I went to go see Jordan Peele's newest film 'Us', and lo and behold, it truly blew me away as I anticipated it to. However, I noticed that before the film even ended, people began to get up and leave the theater. I thought to myself: "Did we watch the same movie?" and "What was there not to like?"
Then I asked people around me in the cinema and my friends what they didn't like about the film and I received the same answer from almost everyone: it wasn't scary. This made me rethink how I viewed the film. I came to the conclusion that not only was Us scary, it was terrifying. Now, let me explain what I mean.
My initial question was why did people find Us not scary? It's a fairly simple answer actually: everyday moviegoers love, I mean LOVE, jump scares. I noticed that when the film used jump scares, the movie received a bigger reaction from the audience. A few years ago I went to go see 'The Conjuring 2' in the cinema, and that film had many jump scares and a bigger reaction from the audience. *Strong opinion incoming* I feel that jump scares are cheap and overused in films especially today, but everyday moviegoers love to feel startled...but that's not real horror in film.
Horror in film, by definition, is "designed to frighten and panic, cause dread and alarm, and to invoke our hidden worst fears" (www.filmsite.org). Take films like Us and another film I recently saw called 'Climax', into another perspective. Those films may not have jump scares or scary images like we're used to seeing in horror films, but the ideas presented on screen (and how they're presented) is where true horror originates. Climax is about a large group of dancers who are drugged and "trapped" in one location, while Us is about a family discovering their doppelgängers on their vacation. Both films exhibit "what if" questions, while presenting them in disturbing and unsettling ways. After viewing both films, I felt a sense of disgust for the rest of the night. However I noticed that I kept thinking about both films for days and asked myself: "why are these films bothering me so much?", and that's when I knew the filmmakers did their job right.
Theoretical questioning within horror movies are super important. Take for instance Jordan Peele's previous film Get Out, which is about a younger black man who goes to his white girlfriend's house to meet their family. (Spoilers for Get Out even though I would assume many have already seen it) The main protagonist, Chris, discovers that the family is more than just a regular white family, but they kidnap and essentially kill black people for their bodies. Get Out has little to no jump scares (which I loved), but after watching the film I felt very uncomfortable. Similar with Us, it made me think of a "what if" question and the fear of being the only minority in a room was Jordan Peele's actual fear. He presented to his audience how he, himself, would feel in situations as so.
Aside from Peele's films, some of the greatest horror films of all time have little to no real jump scares. But instead present an idea, a nightmare, in a cinematic way to both entertain audiences but also make them squirm in their seats. Movies such as 'The Shining' or even 'Halloween' use so many techniques to build suspense and introduce terrifying ideas in creative ways. In Halloween, we hardly see Michael really do anything until the 3rd act of the film.
A recent film I finished is a true nightmare I had about a Google Home device listening to me 24/7, just planning on when and where it'll turn evil on me. It's by no means "scary" nor did I intend for it to be as such, but I did want to exemplify horror from my own perspective and make my audience, and yes you guessed it, ask the "what if" question.
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