Is The Vanishing a Horror Film?

This film is considered a horror by many critics, but is it a horror film really? It doesn't have the standard jump scares of a Michael Myers film or the the disfigurement of a Silent Hill film or even the gore of a Saw movie. However, it has enough going for it to make it a horror film.

The first scene that bothered me and I could see it beginning to classify as a horror film is when Raymond is practicing abducting random girls and drugging them. The fact that he bought a house, made sure people couldn't hear anyone scream, practiced luring women into his car and drugging them, and then asking women and getting more comfortable with it before he actually makes his move. In the article "The Horrific in Sluizer's the Vanishing", the author makes an argument that Raymond isn't a monster. Just by the fact that he is practicing what he wants to do before he makes his move, that classifies him as a monster to me. 

The last scene of the film where Raymond is showing Rex what he did to Saskia creates the feeling of a horror film. He is casually burying someone alive! He hears Rex screaming and he just continues to bury him. The fact that he lets his family live on the land where he buried two people alive is sickening. 

Ultimately, I think people find situations that are completely plausible to be some of the best horror films. Psycho, even though it's a bit of a stretch, is completely plausible and it was one of the best horror films in my opinion. Another film that follows under the reality factor is a film called The Strangers. 

This film is about a couple out at there cabin home and three people decide to terrorize them. They destroy the car, burn the cell phones, and there is no one around to hear them scream. At the end of the film the couple asks why they did this and one of the  "strangers" simply says, "Because you were home". 

Many films that have this reality factor seem to bother people more than something like Halloween with Michael Myers. When exiting a film like Halloween, you can exit safely thinking it was just a movie. But a film like The Vanishing and The Strangers have that "It could happen to me" factor that chills everyone down to the bones. 

Killer of Sheep Hard to Watch?

It has been said that Killer of Sheep is difficult to watch. I watched this film with that in mind and for a good chunk of it, I had no idea what they were talking about. There wasn't anything difficult about this film. Then we follow the main character, Stan, to his job.

If the film is new to you, Stan works at a slaughter house. While they prepare for the slaughter, I started to get a bad feeling in my stomach. After this scene, I realized why people thought it was difficult. This film shows actual slaughter of sheep.

Even the idea of slaughtering animals makes my skin crawl. For how desensitized I am to horror and gore, anything that has to do with animals makes me almost sick to my stomach. The music is blues and as disgusting as this scene is, the music makes it almost harder. The juxtaposition of the music and the scenes leave it very misleading.

Aside from the graphic slaughterhouse scenes, the film shows how some people grew up in the time and since it was so different from other people of that time, I can see why people would think it was difficult. The children would play in the streets, throwing rocks at each other as a game. Seeing the struggle of the people in this film could really disturb some people, but the part that made this film hard for me to watch, was the slaughter house.

All in all, I can see how this can be hard for people to watch, but the basis of the story didn't bother me any.

Is Awara a Musical?

As I was watching this film, I thought back to all the musicals I have ever seen. Some that I truly loved, Sweeney Todd, Singin' in the Rain, and Rocky Horror Picture Show, I tried comparing Awara to and it didn't really fit. Throughout the whole film I thought about this topic. I had convinced myself that it was infact a musical. The more I thought about it, I have to disagree with myself.

Even though there are random songs throughout the film that keep the plot going, there are many examples of the songs being completely diegetic. The first example was the first song. At this point I was already convinced that it was a musical. When the camera scrolls over to the couple and she asks why they are singing that specific song, I was surprised that they had the music diegetic.

When I look back on the other musicals I love, the music is never seen as diegetic. They acknowledge that it happens, but it's just more like conversations to them. When you look back on much of American musicals, the people that are having a conversation with the singer end up singing as well, like it's completely normal.

In Awara, there are more than one example of diegetic singing. When Raj grows up to teenish years and he sees Rita singing and dancing in the main room, the fellows around can hear her singing and acknowledge it. The characters here the music as well. It isn't just conversation to them. It's entertainment to the fellows in the room.

I said before that I disagreed with myself at the end of this film. I was so convinced that it was a musical because there was music in the film. When I took a second to think about the article that we read and the context in which they were singing, I came to the conclusion that this film, Awara, is not a musical, but a Hindi film from the 50's with music.

Women in "Detour"

It seems that women are treated and represented in not the best light during film noir. They always seem to be up to no good or just another punching bag. In the early scenes of Detour, the main character Al Roberts seems to treat his lady like she was a goddess. He listened to her every word and was willing to travel to L.A. just to get her back. When he met his friend, Charles Haskell, the viewer sees that Haskell thinks of them as toys more as actual people. He mentions throwing a girl out of the car while in motion because she started attacking him. He has the standard attitude of a man of the time. I could easily imagine him smacking a girl in the mouth with a .45 (Play It Again, Sam reference). 

When we meet Vera, the viewer gets a different representation of a woman. She's strong and very willful. She is out for herself and that's all. She's the boss and she makes sure that Al knows it. 

She is completely in control the entire time, up until she tries to steal the fortune from Charles Haskell Sr. This was the first time she really showed anything other than anger and ferocity. "You hurt my hand and I'm going to get even." She isn't as strong and you can see how desperate she has become for the fortune.  

Ultimately, women are represented as cruel, strong, and threatening. Vera is the only woman with a very strong role and she ends up dead after breaking under all the stress of the plan she was trying to hatch. 

Is "Freaks" a Horror Film?

I have spent most of my youth studying horror films. They vary from psychological thrillers to gory blood fests. Over the time, the genre of horror has changed quite a bit. While I was searching for the film, Freaks, I noticed that every title had horror in parenthesis. After watching the film, I can see why many people of the time considered it a horror film.

To conservative people of the 1930's, seeing real "freaks" could be extremely scary. If I'm not mistaken, this was the first time people that were really mentally and physically disabled were featured on the big screen. Many people of the time have never seen this before, so it could honestly be very jarring.

Since I am very desensitized to horror, this film didn't strike me as falling under that category. But, of someone that isn't exposed to something so strange and real, I can see where it would be "terrifying".

Slapstick Comedy

One of my favorite types of comedy is slapstick. As I was growing up, my father and I would watch Abbott and Costello movies and laugh at the back and forth dialogue and the classic scenes where Costello would see something and react in a very outrageous way such as in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Costello sees Dracula, goes running in the opposite direction, and runs right into Abbott.

There are some very similar scenes in Sherlock Jr. One that made me chuckle was the classic slip on the banana peel. He tried to coax his peer to walk across the banana peel and fall to lessen his chances with the lovely lady, but instead he accidentally walks on it and falls to the ground in a very comedic way. Another scene that I really enjoyed was when he falls asleep during the showing of the movie and his dream self waltzes onto the screen and into the movie. Each scene change would cause him to fall in some way and I thought it was very effective in this scene. Although the compilation of him falling was very amusing, I don't think it really added to the story any.

Overall, I think the stunts are fun and quite edgy for its time. Compared to the kind of comedy we see every day, this is very different and sadly I don't think most people would enjoy it. Not many films do slapstick these days since our society is so strongly focused on spoken words. I really enjoyed the film and found it to be amazingly done for its time.

Introduction

Hello! My name is Megan Hoard although my nickname is Bailey (it's a very complex story). I'm a third year Exploratory student at UC and I want to get into the EMED program. I decided to take this class because I really enjoy films and film classes and I like to open up to films I wouldn't normally watch. I'm a huge horror fanatic and a self-taught special effects makeup artist. I spent the last three Octobers working in a charity haunted house acting and turning people into monsters, but sadly had to leave after money became an issue and I've been a freelance makeup artist since. Last October I worked with some professional makeup artists in Indianapolis for the Zombie Run.

I spend too much time watching films on Netflix. My favorite directors are Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, and Guillermo Del Toro. This makes it easy for me to pick my favorite movies. The top three are The Shining, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, and Pan's Labyrinth. As you can guess, horror is my favorite genre of film. It is the majority of films I will watch in my free time, but because of some film classes I have learned that I shouldn't judge a film by the genre or even the title. Films have become quite a large passion of mine. I have made some short films that I never thought were very good, but I continue to try and create in my spare time.