The AFI 100 Years List for 2008... (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

Sad but true.

 

[george kaplan]

I can't agree with that. I think lots of critics would call Psycho a good film, just to name one example.

 

[Adam_S]

Halloween is a good horror film, but I wouldn't classify it as a thriller. in most people's minds horror divides into a couple categories, teen girls screaming and blood spurting everywhere at random (preferablly in the thousands of gallons) for 89 minutes or films of Dread like Sixth Sense, The Ring, and Psycho.

Very few of the semingly endless schlocky film variety are films anyone but a fanboy have any desire to see, most are mainly useful for mocking and nothing else--in most people's minds.

I think there are at the very least fifty great horror films and that horror should have been one of the categories, and yes they could include films like Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween, or Friday the 13th that most people. There are as many crappy romantic comedies as there are horror films but they managed to find fifty mostly great films for that list. They could have done the same for horror

 

[Michael Elliott]

Which is my whole point in regards to critics and "fanboys" as you put it or "normal people" as I put it. You claim most are used for "mocking and nothing else" but I'm fairly certain you've seen very little of them and what you have seen are probably from MST3K (or something like it).

I don't have any problem with this because I'll be the first to tell you that the genre has turned over a lot of shit over the years and continues to do so. I made my "bottom 10" of 2007 list earlier today and seven of them were horror films. You've seen my reviews in the Track thread and you probably noticed that the majority of BOMB and one-star ratings come from horror movies.

The main issue I have is that your comments "mocking and nothing else" have been true since 1910 and Edison's version of FRANKENSTEIN. I think today most people would agree that BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN is a great movie and Karloff is brilliant as the monster but in 1935 critics would throw the "mocking and nothing else" comment at it. Critics hated ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, DRACULA, FRANKENSTEIN and pretty much any horror film that today is considered a classic. The Val Lewton's of the 1940's were booed by critics but today they are held as classics. The Hammer and Universal films of the 1950's were hated by critics but today are considered classics. Heck, even PSYCHO got some very bad reviews when originally released. Let's not even go into the subject of John Carpenter and stuff like THE THING.

The point is that the genre has always been looked down on by critics and movie fans yet years later people come around and call the film a masterpiece. These critics and movie fans should probably take notice when the films are released and not wait ten years to praise them.

 

[Adam_S]

for the most part this is true of a lot of genres, Science fiction, fantasy, even westerns--critics only like dramas in the contemporary moment, and this is always universally true, without fail, unless an unavoidable genre landmark comes along that blows everyone's minds (Dances with Wolves, Unforgiven, Silence of the Lambs, Sixth Sense, Lord of the Rings, Saving Private Ryan).

looking at the films in the aggregate past is when the standouts and classics of the genre have a chance to rise from the ashes, and you see the great films like Island of Lost Souls and the Val Lewton films begin to get appreciated for being the excellent films (as well as genre pinnacles) that many of them are. It's unfortunate this can't be seen during the moment, and more unfortunate that horror is being ignored by these lists because it is probably the most shat upon genre (guilty of that myself).

Another great film not on the Rom Com list I just thought of, Joe v. The Volcano.

I like a lot of the great horror films I've seen, but I'm not crazy about very many and I don't feel a need to seek out every horror film, when there's so many other films I've not seen. I can only watch about 250 films a year (can't do the amount you and Joe manage) at best and that severely limits my repeat viewings more than I'd like and the result is I mostly see the best of sampling of all. so I've not seen more than 2/3 of the films on most of these lists of fifty for all the genres, I've a sort of well rounded sampling of most genres, but hardly an in depth knowledge of any of them, except perhaps animation.

 

[TravisR]

That's crazy talk. For what it's worth, I can see how a person wouldn't call Psycho a horror movie but personally, I consider Psycho and Frenzy as the only two horror movies that Hitchcock made.

 

[george kaplan]

I'll just say that if you're going to restrict your definition of 'horror' films to ones like Elm Street and Friday the 13th, then perhaps critics don't embrace that type of horror film. But to claim that critically acclaimed films like Psycho, Frankenstein, Rosemary's Baby, Jaws, The Silence of the Lambs, Alien, The Birds, etc. aren't horror is something I certainly don't agree with.

I do think that most of Hitchcock's films are more mystery than horror, but I'd certainly put Frenzy, Psycho and The Birds in the horror genre.

 

[Michael Elliott]

Just for the record, I don't consider the Val Lewton films horror either. I think these fall into the strange case of a producer hating horror films but being forced to make them so he made them 95% drama and 5% horror.


I personally don't have a problem with anyone calling these horror films. If AFI did do a horror list then these are certainly the movies that would be on it. I doubt something like ZOMBIE, F13 or some Franco film would make the list because they've yet to be accepted by the critics.

ROSEMARY'S BABY and THE EXORCIST, to me and probably me only, are dramas. I think both work on the fear of a sick child and the "horrors" it has on the mother. With TE, you could have had the child sick with cancer, STDs or whatever and the story wouldn't have changed because it was on the mother. I think TE is nothing more than exploitation on a mainstream crowd. There's no doubt the mainstream had never seen anything like this before but to me it was the director doing pure exploitation. The horror of this film is the mother dealing with a sick child. The exploitation is the puke, cussing, Satan and all that stuff.

In the case of Friedkin it's interesting. He has stated countless times that THE EXORCIST isn't a horror movie yet everyone considers it one. The director's CRUISING is a thriller or mystery yet I think it's nothing more than a slasher with the masked killer stalking gay men instead of your typical masked killer stalking sex crazed teens. This is where I might be a hypocrite because CRUISING and PSYCHO have a lot in common. Both deal with murder, a hidden killer and the investigation.

Which brings me to my point of which genre to throw the films. PSYCHO deals with a murder by an unknown killer and the investigation into it. How is this film any different than countless mystery/noir/detective films from the 30s and 40s? Take out Arbogast (sp?) and add Moto, Chan or Boston Blackie and you have a "mystery" film from the 40s. I'm not sure if it's the music of PSYCHO, the shadows, the scares or what but I don't think it was ever sold as a horror film.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

Absolutely agree with Psycho and The Birds - clearly horror in my mind. But you're the second person in this thread to class Frenzy as a horror, and I'm curious why. It has been a few years since I last saw it, but I definitely remember considering it a thriller rather than a horror.

 

[george kaplan]

Well, Frenzy is a story of a serial killer stalking young women. Aside from the fact that he's strangling the victims instead of slashing them, I don't see much genre difference between this and the slasher films.

I guess it might help to get a definition from those who view F13, etc. as horror films and don't view films like Frenzy or Psycho as horror. I guess if you define horror as "lots of blood spurting from a series of graphic killings", then yeah, Frankenstein and Frenzy etc. aren't "horror", but to me that's a definition of "modern slasher" film, not a definition of "horror" film, and would have to conclude that there was no such thing as a horror film before 1970s.

 

[TravisR]

My own definition of horror movie is very broad. I'd consider a movie a horror movie when something supernatural happens or where people are being murdered (of course, you apply common sense to that- Reservoir Dogs has people getting killed but it's not a horror movie) or where it's just plain spooky. Everything from the Universal Monster movies (sorry AFI, eventhough it uses science fiction elements, Frankenstein isn't a sci-fi movie) to Val Lewton movies to Rosemary's Baby to Friday The 13th to The Ring. I'm not demanding that my definition has to be followed, I'm just stating what I think constitutes a horror movie.

And 'thriller' is just a term that studios want applied to a movie so it doesn't get lumped into the horror ghetto.

 

[Michael Elliott]

I think the problem is that PSYCHO influenced the horror genre so much that people automatically say it's a horror film. The critics, director, studio and stars never called it horror in 1960. Perhaps it's became horror since then due to all the horror rips but... THE VIRGIN SPRING probably had the biggest influence on the 70's horror/exploitation film yet no one has gone back to label the Bergman film as horror.

I'm not sure if it has to be a serial killer in order to be a horror film but I've always felt Hitchcock deals in thriller and mystery. Had VERTIGO kept its original title then I think it would be labeled as horror more often. REBECCA deals with a lot of horrorish elements. ROPE deals with rather twisted killers. STRANGERS ON A TRAIN certainly has a psychopath just as big as Norman Bates.

I showed my girlfriend SEA OF LOVE last night, which she enjoyed but I found it funny because she said "it's just like those Hitchcock movies you took me to".


Re: The courtroom genre list

I'm certain TO KILL.... will win but I really hope INHERIT THE WIND makes the list.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

We've been through this one a lot and everyone has a different opinion, but I still consider PSYCHO a horror film (and THE BIRDS too; FRENZY is borderline at best, more of a thriller). Or I should clarify a bit more and say that PSYCHO's certainly got elements of a horror film in it, such as the dark stormy night, the haunted looking creepy house against the moonlight, the keeping of a skeletal corpse in the basement, the entire ending and eerie music when Norman is revealed, and so on. It doesn't really matter that much in the end what the director says he wanted to make, or not - especially when you consider that horror was always considered something to be "ashamed" of. The end result is what it is. I know you've said you don't think THE EXORCIST is a horror film either, and that William Friedkin himself called it something else, but it's one of the greatest horror movies of all time.

But I do draw the line when George considers DELIVERANCE a horror film.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

While I agree with you on PSYCHO, I think the point of horror not being respected goes further than just these types of safe "A" titles. There are certain films like PSYCHO, or others like BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, which some of us consider "horror movies for people who don't like horror movies". Meaning that there are others - and yes, some gory slashers, even - which are perfectly "good horror films", though certain snobby elitist critics would never concede it. THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE is a good example of one with a gruesome scenario.

 

[Robert Crawford]

When you browse the AFI catalog and look up "Psycho" it's listed as a horror film with a sub-genre listing of suspense while "Vertigo" is listed as a romance with its sub-genre suspense and "The Birds" is listed as horror. By the way, "Frenzy" is listed as a drama with a sub-genre listing of suspense and the same with "Strangers on a Train". Also, "Rebecca" is considered a drama while "Bride of Frankenstein" is horror.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

Sounds right to me, Robert!

But all the same, it's always iffy when trying to pigeonhole certain films into one specific category. It happens a lot of times and I think most movies have multiple, workable genres they may fit into.

 

[Corey3rd]

AFI has once again done what they do best - "educating the rubes about great films." If anyone has a mild interest in cinema, they won't be "surprised" by what ends up on the 10 Top 10 Lists. Nobody will be rushing to their Netflix account to queue up.

AFI could easily shine a light on films that have become obscure over the past few decades. Movies that don't even get the love on TCM. But why sacrifice their chance to break out the Star Wars clips. They just track down the usual suspects. And what is the point of putting up an obscure title on the nomination list since odds are over half of the voters have probably never seen it.

There's going to be no real educating from AFI, merely another excuse to put their stickers on DVDs.

 

[DonMac]

They omit the Horror genre, yet include the Sports genre even though there are far more great Horror films than there are great Sports films, plus the total of Sports films ever made is pretty small compared to most genres (especially Horror).

 

[Corey3rd]

It comes down to the TV special. Do you not think they want the montage of great sports movie moments? Not like they can run a tribute to great throat slashings. They want the homerun from the Natural and the "Adrianne!" moment from Rocky on the special.

 

[Jacob McCraw]

No Kingpin on the sports list; for shame!