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This is a slight departure from my usual thread format, in that it doesn't necessarily discuss a philosophical underpinning of horror fiction. Instead, it's more of a good old fashoned discussion thread.
I don't know why, but the other day while I was driving home, I started thinking about "The Fly II" (the modern, 80's remake, not the VIncent Price 1960's version). Specifically, I was thinking about the scene where the Son of Brundle discovers his beloved Golden Retriever companion has been used as an experimental test animal in an attempt to get his father's teleporters working again. The pitiful thing pulls itself from its cave into the light for callous onlookers to observe. It drags its hideously deformed body to the meagre rations the cruel industrialist exploiting it & Son of Brundle, and throws its head back and howls in pain and despair. Such an effective scene, on so many levels. It's got shock value, because we kind of know what happened to the baboons Seth sent thru the pods in the first film, but we aren't sure exacxtly what we're going to see here. A slow, suspense building reveal, and the result is rather disgusting, so it works from a gore standpoint as well. Cringe worthy, because we can't help but empathize and imagine what being in such a state must FEEL like. And sad, hitting all the sympathy buttons because it's a lovely Golden Retriever dog we're to imagine in this state. I once read a quote from Stephen KIng (I think) who said if you want to lose an audience's sympathy with you as an author or film maker, kill a dog or a kid. I don't think the film maker's choice to do harm to the dog completely loses the audience, but it certainly pushes their buttons and gets a strong emotional reaction. Of course, the scenes where Stoltz euthanizes the deformed dog, and the end where Wealthy Indistrialist Scumbag ends up in the Pit of Exploitation being gawked at, now himself hideously deformed, are paler echoes of that original scene's impact. But on the whole, it was a pretty poor film overall. Nowhere near as good as its predecessor.
As for good ideas, there was a film called "Meat Market", which posited a zombie outbreak in the usual manner. The twist was that our human survivor protagonists run into a group of vampires (hot lesbian vampires) that are none too happy with the zombies themselves, because they're eating the food supply. The humans find themselves in an uneasy alliance with the vamps, trying to unravel the reasons behind the outbreak, and see about ending it. This was a really badly made film, acting & effects wise (I mean, a head shot was depicted by an actor pointing a gun at a zombie's head, the camera panning past the zombie's head, and someone throwing cranberry juice against the wall). But the strength of the idea was such that it inspired an equally bad sequel, "Meat Market II". I said in an old thread on Ye Olde Other Site long ago that this was one film I'd actually LIKE to see remade, because the idea was so damned good, and the flaws probably easily cured.
Someone at Ye Olde Other Site, I think it was Greg David, said that as horror fans we're kind of like the parents of retarded children. We're so accustomed to our films & books just sucking so bd that when one actually has even the slightest nugget of goodness in it, we gush just as the parent gushes over their kid getting even the slightest thing right. We tend to love movies that are undeserving of that love, based sometimes on ONE GOOD SCENE or ONE GOOD IDEA, no matter how much else of the film is dreck, or how poorly executed the greatest of ideas is.
List some examples here, and maybe expand on why the scene or idea is worthy and the rest of the film isn't.
I don't know why, but the other day while I was driving home, I started thinking about "The Fly II" (the modern, 80's remake, not the VIncent Price 1960's version). Specifically, I was thinking about the scene where the Son of Brundle discovers his beloved Golden Retriever companion has been used as an experimental test animal in an attempt to get his father's teleporters working again. The pitiful thing pulls itself from its cave into the light for callous onlookers to observe. It drags its hideously deformed body to the meagre rations the cruel industrialist exploiting it & Son of Brundle, and throws its head back and howls in pain and despair. Such an effective scene, on so many levels. It's got shock value, because we kind of know what happened to the baboons Seth sent thru the pods in the first film, but we aren't sure exacxtly what we're going to see here. A slow, suspense building reveal, and the result is rather disgusting, so it works from a gore standpoint as well. Cringe worthy, because we can't help but empathize and imagine what being in such a state must FEEL like. And sad, hitting all the sympathy buttons because it's a lovely Golden Retriever dog we're to imagine in this state. I once read a quote from Stephen KIng (I think) who said if you want to lose an audience's sympathy with you as an author or film maker, kill a dog or a kid. I don't think the film maker's choice to do harm to the dog completely loses the audience, but it certainly pushes their buttons and gets a strong emotional reaction. Of course, the scenes where Stoltz euthanizes the deformed dog, and the end where Wealthy Indistrialist Scumbag ends up in the Pit of Exploitation being gawked at, now himself hideously deformed, are paler echoes of that original scene's impact. But on the whole, it was a pretty poor film overall. Nowhere near as good as its predecessor.
As for good ideas, there was a film called "Meat Market", which posited a zombie outbreak in the usual manner. The twist was that our human survivor protagonists run into a group of vampires (hot lesbian vampires) that are none too happy with the zombies themselves, because they're eating the food supply. The humans find themselves in an uneasy alliance with the vamps, trying to unravel the reasons behind the outbreak, and see about ending it. This was a really badly made film, acting & effects wise (I mean, a head shot was depicted by an actor pointing a gun at a zombie's head, the camera panning past the zombie's head, and someone throwing cranberry juice against the wall). But the strength of the idea was such that it inspired an equally bad sequel, "Meat Market II". I said in an old thread on Ye Olde Other Site long ago that this was one film I'd actually LIKE to see remade, because the idea was so damned good, and the flaws probably easily cured.
Someone at Ye Olde Other Site, I think it was Greg David, said that as horror fans we're kind of like the parents of retarded children. We're so accustomed to our films & books just sucking so bd that when one actually has even the slightest nugget of goodness in it, we gush just as the parent gushes over their kid getting even the slightest thing right. We tend to love movies that are undeserving of that love, based sometimes on ONE GOOD SCENE or ONE GOOD IDEA, no matter how much else of the film is dreck, or how poorly executed the greatest of ideas is.
List some examples here, and maybe expand on why the scene or idea is worthy and the rest of the film isn't.
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