Hello my dear readers, I'm back with another blog! Today I wanna talk about my research that I did for the sub genres that I discovered in the Horror genre. As I had said previously in my last post, I wanted to start doing reviews for finding and picking the genre/sub-genre I want to use when I create my film opening and write my CCR. By the end of my research for this week, I'll more than likely have chosen my final genre that I want to use for my film opening.
To start off, I wanted to look straight into one of my personal favorite subgenres of Horror which is the Psychological category. This can be seen in many movies that were made from famous books like Stephen Kings series of horror books such as Carrie, IT, and The Shining. The main things that these films have in common, is that one of the main characters in the cast usually has a mental breakdown or is mentally conflicted with the main antagonist or the implications that the villain had put on that character. For example, in The Shining, Jack Torrance the main protagonist finds and lives in a hotel for Christmas with his family. However, as the story progresses, there is a winter storm that proves to be a problem and the family and the guests staying in the hotel are stuck there. Jack goes through a mental breakdown after realizing he can't leave the hotel and his other vulnerabilities such as alcohol abuse, past trauma, etc. This in turn, would cause him to go into a complete rage and try to kill anyone he sees in the hotel with different weapons he finds towards the end of the film.
Moving on, the next subgenre I really thought was interesting and cool to see in films is the Arthouse genre. Arthouse, also referred to as elevated horror, is a subgenre of horror that revolves around the idea of having very psychological themes and atmosphere to create a certain style for this subgenre. This can be seen in movies such as The Black Phone, in which, the main character is a young boy who is kidnapped by a buff and very strong man who wears a strange mask and would keep the young boy in his basement to torture him both psychologically and physically. These films can go both ways, either they can have a short, and simple plot with good cinematography, or they can have a complex plot with stunning visuals to compliment the already amazing plot in that film. By focusing on the visuals more in these kinds of horror movies, it allows for the watchers to have a much more immersive experience rather then sticking to a more basic and traditional horror movie style. For me, the idea of focusing on the visuals, cameras shots, and production of a horror movie is much better only because it can make the movie seem much more scarier than what the plot actually makes it sound like.
Next, I went to look another subgenre of horror that I'm very familiar with and it's called killer. This subgenre of horror is the most basic and well-known type of horror around the world. Although it's the most typical genre of horror, I still find it to be very entertaining if it's made correctly. What I mean by this is that the movie doesn't have to have a complex plot or have very action-packed scenes. I'm saying that the movie shouldn't have corny jokes that are outdated or overused. This is probably my biggest pet peeve when it comes to any other show/film that are made more recently since they try to appeal to younger audiences and most of the time, they use jokes that aren't that funny and for me personally ruins the whole movie experience. Especially, if the movie is a horror film that's supposed to focus on scary events rather than making corny jokes and try to make the audience laugh. Anyways, movies that are typically in kind of horror genre would be Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street which follow the typical tradition of having very scary elements of a horror movie and show little to no joyful or not-so scary scenes to always keep the audience on their toes. These kinds of movies will always have a special place in my heart when it comes to watching horror films even if they may seem cheap and bit old.
Finally, I wanted to end off with a pretty crazy subgenre to talk about, so I decided to research on the Splatter subgenre. Now the idea of Splatter is obviously very graphic and is only for mature ages. This subgenre can be seen with movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Final Destination, or Saw. Now, I have only seen a couple of these movies that are in this subgenre and I can definitely say that they are not for those with a weak stomach as many grotesque things happen that I would not talk about. Of those handful of movies I had saw, one of the ones that I saw that seriously gave me nightmares for days and it was The Human Centipede. Now if you don't know what this movie is, I really wouldn't recommend this to people if you're easily scared. Essentially, two Americans are kidnapped and drugged by a psychotic German doctor Josef Heiter, who wants to surgically connect them together to have them share one digestive system. I know, terrifying, right? I would never wish this kind of thing even on my worst enemy. Anyways, its movies like these that made me really enjoy the horror genre because of the genuine fear that would strike me when watching it. So, when I got the chance to, I decided to add this as one of main subgenres that I find the most interesting and best, in my opinion, subgenres of horror. Overall, this kind of subgenre seemed to me at first very weird and I never thought of finding this interesting or so myself watching any movie that was in this subgenre. But yet, here I am talking about it right now and I can say that it for sure changed the way I see things. The only thing I would say is that The Human Centipede is probably the only movies to truly strike true fear into my heart and when I heard that there was trilogy of this I felt disgusted.
To sum it up, I really did enjoy looking over my favorite genre in the filming industry. I loved how there are so many different subgenres of horror and that some types have certain aspects they focus on rather than having typical horror scenes. This research also allowed me to see how horror has evolved into something more than just your basic slasher film and turned into something like the Black Phone in where they would mainly focus on visuals instead of the horror to give the audience a more dark presence. Overall, I would totally recommend these kinds of movies and subgenres to someone who loves watching horror films like myself.
Until next time,
yours truly,
Nikolas Velez
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