I like all horror including the so-called “B-movies”. Why don’t we talk about those horror movies with too much of fantasy in them…too much “Harry Potter” type fantasy I mean…ohhhh the horror of those kinds of movies:)!!!

I love horror movies with fantastical elements the best. I’ll take fantasy (vampires, ghosts, paranormal, witchcraft) over reality (psycho killers, stalkers, mad men) any time. It’s my favorite part of the genre.

Very well written. “Carnival of Souls” is a feeling. The feeling of the unknown, the surprise.

The Hammer movies are perfect.

Thank you.

Angelabsurdist, when Candace Hilligoss goes into the dressing room and the sound stops, that’s the kind of eeriness that costs a film nothing to do but produces such a great effect. You can see the clip here from a post I did three years ago on it.

It begins…

I’m so ready! Last night Laura watched Comedy of Terrors while I was writing. It’s all so very exciting.

Greg’s not lying. We did talk about that. I remember.

And we talked about my cholesterol but I figured I’d leave that part out.

Exactly why I love horror as well. I don’t mind ones that make you jump, especially if they have fun with it, but excessive blood/gore is just too much (maybe I’m just too sensitive). I love feeling that dread, and Carnival Of Souls is a terrific example of this. Love this season!

Kevin, blood and gore, especially in brief exposure, certainly add something to the best horror but the worst horror always tries to compensate with excessive gore. It’s usually a sign of a lack of imagination.

You are dead right about low budget horrors being better. After all, the genre is about death and decay. Brightly lit, perfectly edited, extremely well dressed and coifed beautiful people, facing carefully spaced and choreographed scares, goes against the grain. Note the inexpensively made classics like The Thing From Another World, Dr. Terrors House of Horrors and Corman’s own Galaxy of Terror.

(The same is true of noirs, scruffy, offbeat quirky pictures like Raw Deal really stand out. I like that Claire Trevor film far better than Key Largo which she also starred in in the same year.)

Note the inexpensively made classics like The Thing From Another World, Dr. Terrors House of Horrors and Corman’s own Galaxy of Terror.

The Thing from Another World, especially, relies on dialogue and the thing, mostly unseen, hidden away but always lurking. When you don’t have the budget for the big effects you’re forced to rely on suspense and dread and it turns out those are much more effective anyway.

Speaking of the feel of horror, I need to buy me a copy of Whale’s THE OLD DARK HOUSE and watch it this month, probably the closer to Halloween the better. It would be perfect for Halloween night. Too bad it falls on a stupid-ass Wednesday.

Bill, have you seen it? It’s a great movie, if you haven’t. A personal favorite, in fact.

Greg, I have to say that I thought TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY had one of the worst screenplay adaptations I’ve ever seen. I saw this at a regular shopping center multiplex, and it was clear from comments afterward that the main reaction was, “Why did this film get such good reviews?” But we can talk about that later.

I’d be interested in a discussion of why people like horror films. Atmospheric movies like I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE or Robert Wise’s THE HAUNTING, of course. Those I get. But hard-core horror? A friend once suggested that he liked the adrenaline rush a horror film gives. I find the sudden rush of adrenaline acutely unpleasant. Maybe that’s the difference. Horror movies aren’t much fun if you identify with the victims.

Arthur, RAW DEAL is great. The TCM festival showed a beautiful print. If you can see this on the big screen, don’t miss it.

Kingrat, I know a lot of people who didn’t like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy because of the way it paces its reveals, which is kind of anti-thriller but that’s the feel, the hypnotic type of feel that I’m talking about that I liked so much. Nonetheless, that’s why I wrote “For the telling of the story, I prefer the miniseries but for the feel of the story, I prefer the movie.” I think for a clearer, more straightforward rendition of the story, the miniseries can’t be beat. But for an amazing look and feel (well, to me at least and Kimberly, too, if I recall) the movie version is great. I don’t have much more to say on it than that, though. Just the look and feel won me over.

Now as to horror, the real reason for this post, you’ll have to tell me what you mean. I assume, though I could be wrong, that you’re talking about things like Halloween, Friday 13th and Evil Dead. Movies like that. I must say, I like the haunting, low-level movies like Carnival of Souls much more but I can definitely see what you’re friend is saying except that I’d say it’s thrilling because you identify with the victim. The Friday 13th movies bore me because the victims are just ducks in a shooting gallery but in Halloween Laurie Strode is someone you want to live and so each time she gets attacked you feel anxiety followed by relief at her escape. It’s a mix of feelings, definitely, but one I find exhilarating at times.

Greg, You captured exactly why I love the old classics so much…atmosphere. Even as Universal evolved into b movies in the 1940′s there are still black and white moments of chills that capture that atmosphere and take me back to a time of childhood memories. The days of seeing a movie that scared me ended decades ago but the classics still deliver a precious gift.
I remember seeing Carnival of Souls when I was 12 years old at 3 in the morning. It was the end of a long Halloween night and the last time a movie ever truly scared me.

Brian, that feeling of fear at a horror movie probably left most of us long ago but the chilling feeling from heavy atmosphere never goes away.

I love The Haunted Palace-it is one of the best HP Lovecraft movies ever made (even if for marketing reasons they pretended it was Poe). When Price says, “We don’t really understand it ourselves-we just obey” I can feel the Cthulhu creeping up my spine.

The two recent films by the HP Lovecraft Historical Society (the 45 minute silent The Call of Cthulhu and the longer talkie The Whisperer in Darkness) are both dripping atmosphere as well.

I look forward to more haunted posts…

tdraicer, I recently purchased a whole collection of Lovecraft to start reading over the coming months and look forward to reading those stories. I haven’t seen either of the films you mention though so I look forward to catching up with them. Thanks.

Excellent piece. You’re bang on about atmosphere being the key to good horror films. Even action/sci-fi horror films like Alien and Predator work because they establish a sense of dread before they get to the shooting and bloodletting. Director Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie) did atmosphere better than anyone in the 1940s, and, as others have mentioned, Wise’s The Haunting is one of the best at this. For my money, the quickest way to create dread in a horror film is to shoot it in black and white. Even the creakiest Universal horror films from the ’30s have atmosphere in spades. My favorite recent horror film that scores high on the dread-o-meter is an Australian film called Lake Mungo. I’ve got a piece on it here:

http://www.jettisoncocoon.com/2011/07/film-review-lake-mungo-2008.html

Cary, I love Tourneur’s work. I think my favorite is Night of the Demon, even with the ridiculous demon being shown in the end (I’m with the “I wish they hadn’t shown it” camp).

Greg, recall the original Frankenstein? That 1931 big budget film wasn’t graphic, but it was really quite scary. Back then graphic gore was not yet in Hollywood’s repertoire. Bride of Frankenstein was also pretty good. Both films had a lot of atmosphere.

Recall it? I love it! That and James Whale’s Old Dark House and The Bride of Frankenstein. Absolute masterpieces, each and every one of them. Whale was a great filmmaker and those movies never get old with me (well, close actually, with Bride because my youngest loved it and watched it a million times, but still).

There are so many fascinating sub-genres of horror … Lately I’ve even been trying to take the plunge into “giallo” — but found it to be a little too rich for my blood most of the time … I love the atmospherics and bright colors — and sometimes wonderful scores — and sometimes even the over-the-top eroticism of films like “Black Belly of the Tarantula” which I just watched yesterday — but the level of gory violence & the stupid scripts just undermine the experience for me — even though for many people, those factors only enhance it I guess …

By the way, Arthur, if you liked “Raw Deal”, you should check out the Robert Wise- directed noir “Born to Kill” — which features another really stupendous Claire Trevor performance — & is a very entertaining film from beginning to end — filmed in part on location on the ocean side of San Fran (where I live)

I still haven’t fully immersed myself in Giallo Horror although I liked Cat O’Nine Tails enough to do a full spread of it on Facebook, which didn’t get much of a response. I’m guessing it’s not among the most popular of the genre.

Can’t recall the name of the movie, but one of those European 1960′s films such as Barbara Steele would star in had a scene which is very memorable-a servant girl in a dark lodge is hypnotized by a witch who suddenly appears-the witch causes the girl to step up to a fixture with protruding spikes and impale herself through the throat. The girl is horrified, and tries to fight against the witch’s control…but fails and dies.
Atmosphere-I couldn’t finish watching “Young Adult” as the atmosphere of the piece, with Charlize Theron’s character so desperate and needy, willing to do ANYTHING to get back together with her ex…I couldn’t hardly breathe.

Barbara Steele has the famous end in The Pit and the Pendulum where she’s left to die in the Iron Maiden and, of course, her witch’s face has been spiked in Black Sunday.

By the way, that ending of The Pit and the Pendulum is a real shocker.

Not much (ok at all) into blood and guts horror. Love the moody, creepy, uncertantity and shadowy effects of the older movies. Trust me, my imagaination goes farther when you don’t show me what is going on. When you show me, it ruins it. Give me the shadow of the vampire over the bed of the sleeping damsel, and I scream when she does. Simple. *G* There is a movie with a very young Jack Nicholson who gets seperated from his unit. THe title escapes me, but there is a scene where an old lady is being dragged into a chapel, and she is screaming like a banshee because she knows if she crosses the threshold some sort of damnation and brimstone will appear. THe music and atmosphere creeeps me out everytime I see it. Oh, it was “The Terror” how could I lose that? you do get the wrath of God, but it is really built up before hand. She deserved it though.

Heidi, I love so many of the AIP films, including The Terror and like I said in the post, Roger Corman is a lot better than most people give him credit for.

Great piece. I would agree that atmosphere is everything. I Walked With A Zombie, The Seventh Victim, The Innocents as many other films all build up a sense of dread. Even a brutal film such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the 1974 version) had that build up but somewhere along the way that has been traded in for torture porn. Hopefully that will fade by the wayside and a return to form will take precedence once again.

Gene, it’s interesting because so many of the movies now considered to be classics started with sullied reputations as exploitation slasher flicks of which Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a prime example. But now, looking back on it, it’s amazing how much of a build up there is, how much formal suspense technique is used before everything explodes. Even the ending is a study in restraint by many modern standards. I mean, in a modern piece, the truck driver would have easily been hacked up to pieces while Sally ran but instead, Leatherface just bounces around with his chainsaw as she rides off to safety.

Maybe the horror genre has become too bloodstained to return to more atmospheric moods. The Woman in Black was a good effort, but probably too sanitised for the hardcore horror fans ( or fiends?)
Atmosphere is indeed the key, and what’s atmospheric about a chopped head? Personally i love a good ghost story, and The Innocents is still the best in that genre, although the Haunting isn’t far behind. I’d almost label Vertigo as a ghost story, but that probably stretching it. Garuanteed goosebumps every time though, while with Psycho, the granddaddy of slashers, the effect has waned somewhat over the years. Maybe because Vertigo is a tragedy, and Psycho more of a shocker.

Emgee, I heard a lot of good and bad about The Woman in Black and never got around to seeing it. I remember when it came out, I kept wanting it to get rave reviews to justify a return to more atmospheric horror. When it didn’t, I felt disappointed.

Psycho, if I am not mistaken, was actually the first slasher film. Hitch though the consummate filmmaker did introduce us to graphic gore. Interesting that you should mention Vertigo as a horror. Then let’s also bring in Pandora And The Flying Dutchman, A Portrait of Jennie and The Picture of Dorian Gray. If not horror then “near-horror” so to speak.

Arthur, I know that techically Peeping Tom came out a few months before Psycho but, regardless, Psycho provides the archetype. Peeping Tom’s killer has a knife on a camera tripod while Norman has a butcher knife he repeatedly drives into his victim’s torso. And it has the lost son/protective mother connection that two later seminal slashers, Halloween and Friday 13th used in their story lines. Well, with Halloween it’s just the lost son part but still, Psycho provides the blueprint for the genre in a way Peeping Tom never did.

Have not seen Peeping Tom. I will look it up. By the way, you know that much of Psycho was also lifted from Orson Welles Touch of Evil which also starred Janet Leigh who was attacked in a hotel which had a repressed, retiring front desk clerk.

I absolutely Love the old fifties and sixties horror films especially the Hammer films with Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and other such great actors of that time. Roger Corman had Great talent with all of his gothic horror films of the sixties.
Most Hammer movies of the fifties and sixties were fantastic when I was growing up.You never get to see them much anymore. I sure wish to god that TCM would play them this year during the month of October and Especially Halloween. Like a marathon, Especially like Night of the Silicates(Island of Terror); The Gorgon; The Beast must Die, and such Classics like that. The older Black and white 30′s and early forties movies are okay but not as great as the fifties,Sixties and early Seventies movies.

[...] other day, Morlock Greg wrote about the delicious atmosphere of good horror movies. He was speaking generally, of course, of a sustained mood and feeling but I’d like to narrow [...]

Arthur, strictly speaking i called Vertigo a ghost story, since the male character is basically in love with a phantom. Which brings up the question: are ghost stories part of the horror genre? But then The Ghost and Mrs. Muir or the Uninvited are horror movies?
And if The Old Dark House, basically a parody, is a horror movie what about all those Abbott and Costello movies?

Emgee, those are fascinating questions. Though not an expert, I would venture to say that strictly speaking a horror movie is one that induces horrific, shocking reactions not only in the characters but also in the viewers, and not just once or twice but several times at least. A horror movie also contains terror, that is, the repeated, fearful expectation that something horrible is about to happen.

Arthur, i’d say that is a pretty bulletproof definition. Although, would that still label Bride of Frankenstein as a horror movie? Nothing all that terrifying happens, unless the creation of the bride can be seen as such. Of course, people’s nerves were more easily rattled back then.

“Nor is there a holiday for westerns, spy thrillers or war films.”

Actually, there do seem to be a lot of war movies shown around Memorial Day.

Emgee, you do have a point. Regarding movie months, I just learned September was scifi month. TCM should perhaps try to encourage a month for every genre.

“The whole look of the film has the sounds and styles of the seventies have such an authentic feel to them I can’t help but be transported to another point in my life.”

Yes! You mentioned the La Mer sequence, and both that and the snippet of Sammy Davis Jr.’s cover of “Spinning Wheel” did the same thing for me that you talk about. I hadn’t heard either version of those songs before, and though the whole movie had that fantastic ability to take me back to the ’70s, when each song kicked in, the atmosphere really brought it home.

The feel of the entire film was so wonderful that I just got lost in it to the point of not caring that I couldn’t totally pin down the plot. Kind of relieved to hear that I probably wouldn’t have been able to anyway!

Thanks for the heads-up about Lake Mungo! At first I thought it was set in my favourite Australian city, Perth, but that’s actually Lake Munga, where I was terrorized by black swans trying to get the bird feed from my hand. Maybe one of them was really Natalie Portman in training for her role, who knows?

I also enjoyed the feature version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, even though there were a few plot elements that didn’t become clear until I’d mulled them over in my head following the screening, but there’s nothing wrong with a film that makes you use your noodle to untangle its well-woven web. I was pleased with The Woman in Black, it did a great job of creating a dread-filled mood, and Daniel Radcliffe showed he does have a career beyond Harry Potter, I look forward to seeing more work from him down the road.

I love the point you make here, and totally agree with you. October is the month where I actually make a list of movies I have on DVD that I want to watch before Halloween because they give that fall feel that Halloween should have. Recently, I saw on TCM (for the first time, too) The Legend of Hell House. The movie itself wasn’t great, but I thought about buying it because the atmosphere was possibly the best ever for a haunted house movie shot in color. The use of fog machines, old mansion decor, the black cat running around, and the little chapel. It’s all great. The original “Halloween” (even though it was filmed in California) feels exactly like Halloween day when I used to go trick or treating – which makes the movie even scarier, becasue it could’ve happened in my neighborhood! Carpenter brings similar, spot-on atmosphere to Assault on Precinct 13, The Fog, The Thing, and Escape From New York. The Exorcist may be the best though, because it takes a D.C. apartment and gradually changes the atmosphere of that entire neighborhood from normally to eerie in such a masterful use of events and effects to Reagan’s room bring cold breaths and lighting effects to key moments. Great stuff!