“ The First Movie I ever saw was a horror movie. It was “Bambi”. When that little deer gets caught in a forest fire, I was terrified, but I was also exhilarated.” - Stephen King (Writer, Author).
The Survival of a movie or an idea born from the struggle of a restless mind depends on the willingness of audience to accept, feel and experience the cinema.
This is possible only when there is a mutual respect between audience and director. That is, when a director is loyal to the genre tropes and respect the interests of audience and when audience are also willing to explore the artistic depths of a film maker.
A horror movie demands viewer's attention and most importantly his readiness to get scared. If you are at a magic show , you are there to enjoy the mystery, not to unravel it . Imagine going to to horror movie with your friends ; you may enjoy it ,but you paid to get scared right..?
Surrendering your senses to an art form , is the highest tribute we can pay.
Sometimes we will get a right director who respect our Intellectual capabilities and leave hints (like Easter eggs in popular movie franchises) all over the cinema.
Easter eggs : Easter eggs are hidden details in a movie, often provide extra information about a character or serves as a hint or as a reference to shared cinematic universe. I will give you simple examples ; There is a Nemo(Finding nemo) toy in "Monster Inc." movie and an X symbol appears in background ,every time when some body dies in movie The Departed.
The Haunting of Hill House , A Netflix series ; is one such example of sheer brilliance ,There are at least 33 hidden ghost sightings in this series . I didn't even knew this, when I was watching and thus I watched it again.
This shows how much these directors respect the Intelligence of audience.
Lets get back to where we stopped…
Subgenres of Horror :
We have covered , The para normal ,Gothic , Sci Fi Horror genres.
Non Super Natural Horror :
Also known as Slasher Thrillers . These movies are generally deals with “ A killer is on the lose ” Theme and includes serial killers , mass killings, honor killings.
Another distinct feature of this genre is, it often coupled with court room and investigation themes
Movies to watch :
The Psycho -.1960- Alfred Hitchcock
The Silence of the lambs - 1991
Hannibal - Film series.
Scream - Film series
Seven - 1995 - David Fincher
The Sacrament - 2014.
Insomniac - 2002 - Christopher Nolan.
Splatter Punk : Also Known as Gory/ Torture Horror.
The name says it all ,These movies offers a violent, gory and blood splattering content to the viewers.
The themes include psycho killers, survival games ,Torture and explicit obscene content. They are mostly Unwatchable , Hence They are often targeted by critics for their impact on viewers/society.
But Audience are thinking otherwise; That's why, it is the most successful sub genre in Horror and became a mint for producers. Many franchises (movies with more than one sequel) were born and you can see the love of audience on this genre on Halloween day every year.
Beside U.S.A , Japanese and Koreans are famous, for this kind of movies.
Takashi Miike (viewers discretion is advised while watching his movies) from japan got himself a top hat in this genre and in fact he invented a (un official) new genre in Asian and world horror cinema, called Weird Horror/ Weird Asian horror.
Movies To Watch :
*** Some of These movies are very hard to watch and haunt you forever, please be careful.
The Texas chain saw massacre - 1974 - Film Series - 8 movies till date , remade in 2003 and recent entry is Texas chain saw 3d - 2013.
Saw - film series - From 2004 to 2021 (SPIRAL(2021) is the part of Saw universe).8 movies.
Hostel - film series - by Eli Roth - 2005 to 2011 , 3 movies.
Green Inferno (2013)- by Eli Roth. it is a fest of cannibalism; Goriest of all these movies. Don't watch it***.
Audition -1999 - By Takashi Miike.
I Saw The Devil - 2010 - Kim Jee-Woon South Korean splatter fest , remade as Ek villain in Bollywood (To ruin it).
Body Horror -
Deals with violations and horrible modifications to human body and the Troubles faced by it.
Japanese movies in this genre are pretty creative, The movie Uzumaki (2000) from Japan , deals with a man's dangerous obsession with snails and spiral patterns.
Themes include Forceful body modifications, Infections, Amputations, Gene mutations and Failed plastic surgeries etc.
Zombie horror and medical horror are also parts of this sub genre.
Movies to Watch :
***These movies are disturbing ,grotesque (Puke makers :) ) and Hard to Forget. so please be advised.
The Thing - 1982 - John Carpenter.
Uzumaki - 2000 - Japanese Film.
Slither - 2006.
Tusk - 2014.
Starry eyes - 2014
The Perfection - 2018 - Netflix movie.
These sub genres are widely popular and recent movies are often based on these.
But The expansion of horror genre is unstoppable and going beyond the creative boundaries, Makes it capable to produce a several hundreds of sub genres to serve many more intriguing art pieces to its loyal fan base.
