I recently read some disturbing news. In celebration of the 35th anniversary of John Carpenter’s ground-breaking horror classic, Halloween (1978), a number of younger viewers were exposed to the film for the first time. The results were poor to mixed. Some lauded the film’s creepy atmosphere. Others paid respect to its obvious cinematic influence. Most, if not all, were simply not scared.
I’ve seen Halloween over 30 times. I know the dialog and the shot compositions by heart; every musical cue and hokey sound effect. The film never terrified me, but remains an omnipresent experience — a movie built on mood and great suspense. In many ways, it’s been elements have been recycled hundred of times. But its primary success was never recreated, but only distilled to a series of cheap jump scares and cliches — even in its own sequels that followed. It remains a film that plays with our imagination. We don’t even witness an actual murder until the film’s half-way point. Instead, we’re expecting danger mainly because our hero, Doctor Loomis (Donald Pleasance) is so adamant; constantly dispelling diatribes of doom and destruction like a death rattle. “I spent eight years trying to reach and another trying to keep locked up because I realize that what was behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply…evil.”
After 35 years, we, as audiences, have been prevue to all kinds of evil — sans the obligatory warning signs. It’s all on the screen, albeit films like Saw or Scream. With each new level of gore and shock, we’re slowly conditioned to it. As an end result, earlier films that laid the groundwork feel tame in comparison.
I’m constantly lauding about old movies to younger generations, who see films that exist outside of their existence as some sort of ancient relic long past their relevancy. Horror films are probably the most prone to being dated. For example, I was never frightened by the classic Universal monsters like Dracula or Frankenstein. They were released decades before I was born and prayed on imaginations so far as to not show any murders or even vampire fangs. We were completely dependent on mood and atmosphere. And I still love those films for it! Scary? No, but fascinating and stimulating!
Whenever people ask me about films that scared me, I was always ponder about the films of my youth when I was most vulnerable and impressionable. I would think back to my initial viewing of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985), Child’s Play (1988), The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (1992), or most of the classic Disney animated films. None of these films are considered scary today. At least, not very scary.
I believe that part of our gradual evolution includes are fortitude against fear. It seems every generation is a little stronger and braver than the last. I also suspect this is partially due to parents becoming more lax in shielding their children from horrors. As a result, we’re hardened at an earlier age. For example, I had no choice but stay up past midnight to watch my first Nightmare on Elm Street film. Today, you can find it on Sunday afternoon cable — immediately after church in a fitting bit of irony.
Freddy and Jason were icons that played with our nerves. Today, some regard these films are tame or even laughable. The sad fact is that films that once scared the bejesus out of a generation have been copied and surpassed — not so much in craft and ingenuity, but in sheer ferocity and aggressiveness.
Despite my own resistance to scare tactics, I still love films like Dracula, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, The Omen, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, and Alien even if overexposure and carbon copies have diluted their impact in some sense. Unlike dramas or comedies, horror will forever be subject to the harsher scrutiny of time. Each decade will present a higher threshold of fear. Perhaps Halloween’s legacy will be its influence rather than its enduring play on our nervous systems.
As audiences depend less on imagination to achieve thrills, they also seem to go into theaters and to Netflix with a deeper defense mechanism — as if they’re daring to be scared. You can almost feel people sitting down with the brows furrowed and their arms crossed, demanding to be moved at all. This heavy barrier gives classic horror an unfair disadvantage. When a movie like Jaws first opened, there were promises of suspense and thrills, but no one had yet decreed it as one of the most frightening films of all time. Now, the label has created an unfair expectation on fresh audiences.
If I had to pick the scariest film of all time, I would lean towards something much more recent, 2005’s The Descent. I’ve seen the film twice. Both times it prayed on my fears of claustrophobia and ugly, dangerous monsters. There’s one moment that scared the shit out of me during both viewings! Even now, I hesitate watching it for a third round, but one day (or night I should presume) I will. In 30 years, will audiences find that film hokey and unimpressive too? If so, I hate to see what cinema has in store for next Halloween
Stay scared, good screening to you — and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
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