The Vanishing: Is This Horror?

This week’s movie The Vanishing brought a question to what constitutes as Horror. Defined by Caroll’s Taxonomy of Horror this movie along with Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho wouldn’t be considered as horror due to their not being any form of a supernatural creature. I can see Caroll’s point of view considering something that can’t be explained and is a threat to your wellbeing can instill the feelings of dread not only for the victim but also for the audience empathizing with the victim.

I on the other hand do still constitute this movie as being a part of the horror genre. The one scene within The Vanishing that convinced me of this being a horror movie was the first scene of Raymond performing experiments upon himself. Especially with him inducing himself to sleep with the chloroform which involved him timing how long he was unconscious the amount of chloroform he allowed into his system and calculating the distance of how much he can travel while the victim is unconscious. With someone such as Raymond able to go to these limits and having this level of intelligence can clearly make him a much more dangerous threat to other people especially since his motives are curiosity is what I believe is what makes this movie horrifying.

The Killer of Sheep: I find myself getting Lost

This week’s film Killer of Sheep is certainly different in the way it’s presented as a film which made it somewhat difficult for me to follow. Immediately as the film began we see a father scolding his older son for not defending his younger brother from a fight that he supposedly started. This scene ended with the boy getting slapped by his mother, it’s after that we don’t see any references back to this situation ever again nor are we introduced to any main characters. Its only after this we are then introduced to our main character Stan where we are informed that he is having issues sleeping at night; this is brought back up again in the film twice by his wife however for the audience we are never informed nor clued into what could be directly linked to his insomnia. 

Not really clued into the purpose or reason of Stan spreading what appears to be Rosin Paper.

I can only imagine my difficulty in following this movie originally was I’m used to structure of films where at some point within the movie it’ll inform all of the audience for most if not all central plot points within the movie. It was only during the first 15 minutes of the movie I had to change my viewpoint and mindset to stop treating this as a structured narrative but more along the lines of a documentary.

The Good The Bad and The Ugly - The Antihero

Clint Eastwood has always been known for his tough characters with his really deep gruff voice. It is with these characters ranging from his westerns to his more modern character portrayals. These characters are so endearing to the audience because these are characters of action and realism that don’t need to rely on having drama to develop their character but already have traits that are already defined like acting on their own instincts to survive. This message is backed up by even Talloc’s famous quote in The Good The Bad and The Ugly, “When you need to shoot, shoot don’t talk” this line right here perfectly describes Clint Eastwoods character he doesn't waste time with exposition he just reacts to the situation .

Always Prepared...

Another appealing factor to these characters is that they themselves are experienced so one of the factors that can be skipped over while telling their story is how they developed their skills. Another creation of this archetype of hero is the hero is willing to put whoever is in his way through physical / psychological trauma. This can be seen in The Good The and The Ugly it can also be seen in Dirty Harry with his famous “Do you feel lucky punk?” quote. This factor has even continued on into even modern films like Taken where Liam Neeson is willing to subjugate a man he’s captured to electric torture to get the information on where his daughter is.

A Good Form of Intimidation...

I personally have always loved these kind of characters just because of how real and down to earth they are the world itself isn't black and white it’s very grey.

Awara: Something Different

This week we take a look at the Hindi film Awara. This movie being made out of the glamour’s of Hollywood gives this movie along with Indian movies and Bollywood movies present a different type of aesthetic feel. The evidence to support this is seeing how much of their own culture is presented throughout this film where as in Hollywood films they usually try to either Americanize them or just have the culture be relevant to the setting of the film. We see this especially within the dream sequence for Raj where it showcases an abundant amount of Hindi deities.

More evidence of this is shown in their cultural exhibits of song and dance which is not an uncommon thing within their culture. Another major difference between this film and a film produced by Hollywood is that all characters have very expressive emotions that are over the top on purpose rather then what would be in Hollywood which is either overacting or just plain bad acting. The last difference I can recognize is with how many actual normal people there are within the city where a movie or a TV show produced by Hollywood would have every character be extremely gorgeous which is counteractive with the immersion of the audience to the movie.

Detour: A Movie of Mystery

This week we take a look at the dark noir film Detour. Regarding how women are represented within this film; I can only classify them as schemers. Let’s first take a look at the main characters love interest Sue. After a night of them performing at their usual joint they begin talking to each other about their current standing within society considering they are looking to make it big. Sue has come up with a plan for her to go to California hoping someone will recognize her talents in L.A. Though our main character tries to persuade her not to go and instead just marry him; she refuses however until they can become famous.

Our next female character Vera is once again evidence of a women searching for something way above her normal means. It appeared originally that she would be of some use to our main protagonist with her knowledge of not only Haskel Jr. but also on the arts of evading the law. However when she finds out about the fortune that is connected with Haskel Sr. it just goes to show her true nature, she’ll perform any means to have her scheme realized. It can go from the extremes of toying with our main protagonist with blackmail.