[kj] OT: Scary/horror films vs. "disturbing" movies

[Steve Hackett]

I'm tempted to get your book Jim - Amazon reviews were glowing - assure me you didn't write them!
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jim Harper 
  To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!) 
  Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 8:20 PM
  Subject: Re: [kj] OT: Scary/horror films vs. "disturbing" movies


        Apologies for nitpicking Ollie, but Oldboy is South Korean rather than Japanese. It is an exceptional film though.

        The actress in HENRY's protracted home invasion/rape scene (the one Henry and Otis watch on video) had to have therapy sessions after the days spent filming that scene. It's certainly disturbing enough viewing. It's another obscure horror film that Martin Scorsese appreciated before it was widely accepted (that's why McNaughton got the job directing Mad Dog & Glory).

        Jim.

        NOW AVAILABLE: Flowers From Hell: The Modern Japanese Horror Film, by Jim Harper (Noir Publishing).

        "Fascinating overview of the Japanese horror boom... Comprehensive, in-depth and slickly presented."- DVD Monthly.

        Available from Noir Publishing, Amazon.co.uk, Waterstones and all good bookstores.

        --- On Mon, 8/9/08, B. Oliver Sheppard <bigblackhair at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

          From: B. Oliver Sheppard <bigblackhair at sbcglobal.net>
          Subject: [kj] OT: Scary/horror films vs. "disturbing" movies
          To: "A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)" <gathering at misera.net>
          Date: Monday, 8 September, 2008, 7:12 PM


I think HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER was one of the first that 
bridged the divide between scary versus horror in a more mainstream-y 
way than previously. For example, remember the movie _SEVEN_, lauded at 
the time, with its Nine Inch Nails, etc. soundtrack, as being one of the 
finest in that kind of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS genre?

You have that type of film, whose prototype might be Hitchcock's PSYCHO 
or even Fritz Lang's "M."

Has anyone seen the very good Australian horro movie WOLF CREEK? I 
thought it was a fine, new addition to the horror genre, complete with 
an anti-charismatic villain a la Leatherface or Freddy Krueger, but it 
seemed "fresh" somehow. Some folks complained the first half of WOLF 
CREEK was slow and/or boring. But, to me, it was a deliberate, 
suspense-building build-up, for the last, truly scary third of the film.

And then there are just fucking disturbing, unnerving, unsettling 
movies, which I heistate to call horror films: Pier Paolo Pasolini's 
SALO: THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM from 1974, stull banned in many countries, 
after which the director was murdered. Criterion just re-released a box 
set of this, which I promptly purchased. This and movies like Jean-Luc 
Godard's WEEKEND (which, like WOLF CREEK, has a slow buildup to a really 
disturbing last fourth or so of the movie), or SWEET MOVIE, or some 
Japanese movies like OLD BOY, AUDITION, ICHI THE KILLER -- or IN MY 
SKIN.... these blur the lines between horror and sheer, unsettling mindfuck.

Sorry, Leigh, for overlooking your mention of the excellent original 70s 
BLACK CHRISTMAS, a true horror classic.

-Oliver
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