Alfred Hitchcock vs. Gus Van Sant Psycho Majority of people love to sit down and watch a good old classic movie, like a horror movie. What comes to mind when we think of classic horror black & white, and poor quality film? The one movie that comes to mind is the infamous Psycho directed by the king of suspense Alfred Hitchcock. Psycho was released in the 1960and was filmed in black and white. There was no rating for the movie at time of release; In recent years Psycho hit the Big screen again, but with a new director Gus Van Sant decided to remakes, version of the infamous Bates motel.
Back in 2nd grade most of my generation thought of vampires to be scary creatures that lived in the dark and sucked blood of any human they could to stay young. Fast forward to 2010 and you get over a million teenage girls screaming the name Edward during nonsense vampire movies. The way we view vampires has changed drastically over time. Thomas Foster states that these blood sucking demons such as Dracula are evil and that evil has everything to do with sex. (Foster 16) Although in many cases evil does have to do with sex such as rape, I don’t believe it has everything to do with sex.
I don’t know, maybe I am (or was) just uptight. However, I did like movies such as, “The Shining” and “Poltergeist”. They scared me because of the super-natural aspects involved. They were good ghost stories and I do like that. No crazed individual was causing all of the chaos.
Two authors that discuss this method of giving deeper meanings to stories are Stephen King (in his essay “My Creature from the Black Lagoon) and Gloria Steinem (in her essay “Wonder Woman”). By comparing and contrasting the contents, styles, and purposes of King’s and Steinem’s essays, it is evident that both authors believe in this “never judge a book by its cover” attitude. Stephen King knows quite a bit about writing horror novels. After all, he has written over one- hundred books, many of those eventually being transformed into movies or television shows (p.582). In “My Creature from the Black Lagoon” King discusses his thoughts on horror films and challenges the reader to change their initial perception of the term “horror movie.” Most Americans think of a movie with lots of blood and monsters when they think about horror movies.
Why Do People Love Horror Movies? For years people have been scared senseless by horror movies, yet we continue to watch them. Horror movies are extremely popular throughout society today. But what is it about a good scary movie that makes us decide to go to the movies and see the new “Friday the 13th” movie and not “When Harry Met Sally?” Maybe it’s the rather eventful way a horror movie portrays the night life, or the feeling you get in your chest when you clearly know someone is about to die, or even the raw sex appeal a horror movie depicts to both men and women. The night life portrayed in a horror movie is definitely more lively than that of the life many of us live every day.
Just because someone has a strong desire to watch horror films doesn’t mean they are complete freaks because many just love the adrenaline rush that these types of movies give off. Linked to a horror film would be much like the movie called Strangers. This movie was well played for its exhilaration it gives to the people. Movies of this type generate people to use their imagination, but can be looked
The suspense and chill of a good horror film is a feeling everyone experiences in their lifetime. The two conflicting emotions of being entertained and being vulnerable appeals to the human person and allows that person to become entranced. Whether it is the classic slasher flick or the psychological thriller, the horror genre continues to stay popular. So, what makes a good horror film? There are many elements that people expect to see in such films.
Introduction: Many people believe that vampires come from the same place. Some think vampires are a myth. Most people think of vampires as mean, scary, blood sucking creatures that only come out on Halloween Night. That is not true. Vampires are actually half human and half vampire.
“How does ‘Shadow of a Vampire’ appropriate the earlier texts of Nosferatu and Dracula and create something new?” Shadow of a Vampire (2000), directed by Elias Merhige, is a film that recreates the making of the 1922 film ‘Nosferatu’. Shadow of a Vampire distorts the reality of what actually went on whilst filming Nosferatu yet appropriates the text to make it entertaining and scary. As Nosferatu is based on Dracula by Bram Stoker, Shadow of a Vampire also becomes an appropriation of this text, mainly using the elements of gothic to create what is essentially a horror movie. An appropriation that adds to the scary nature is the behaviour of Nosferatu director Friedrich Murnau. Murnau’s behaviour is questionable from the early stages of the film.
In contrast to the novel Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley, the movie had background music to each scene that set either an anticipant, nervous, worried, happy, or excited mood for the viewer. For example, before the monster would kill someone, the music in the film would go from pleasant to fast paced and terrifying. This music very adequately portrayed the horror genre of the story Frankenstein. The novel, although I am sure was meant to be terrifying, did not as effectively convey the emotions of terror that the screen play adaption was successful in doing. However, it must be taken into consideration that it was probably a very scary story years ago, but today horror stories are much more terrifying and intense than Frankenstein