It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve been busy, and it looks like things won’t slow down anytime soon, but it’s all good. Why? Because it looks like I’ll be done with Dr. Morbid this week, and I aim to buckle down and make sure it happens. :D
Yep, I’m still on a horror kick, and it looks like it’s not going away anytime soon. This year seems to be the year for me to rediscover my roots, and that’s not only with regard to genre (horror), but also fiction form (short stories). Lately, I’ve been reading nothing but anthologies, both literary fiction and genre fiction, and it’s a refreshing change of pace.
So I’m going back and doing some retreads of comfortable and familiar things – never mind the fact that they make me shit my pants every time I watch or read them. Like this one, which I’m dedicating to Lisa, who swore to watch it when I recommended it to her.
Yeah, yeah, you can make a laundry list of haunted house clichés just from seeing the trailer, but this movie remains my top haunted house film ever because of how well-made it is. Setting, atmosphere, the use of background music and sounds (like disembodied voices), acting (it’s George C. Scott, fer chrissakes!), and above all, pacing and subtlety, which I didn’t see in the more recent The Woman in Black. I think aspiring horror filmmakers intent on pursuing ghost stories should study The Changeling.
And for everyone else who haven’t seen this movie:
Spanish with subtitles produced by Guillermo Del Toro and directed by Juan Bayona. Another movie that uses horror elements incredibly well despite plot holes, and it’s genuinely frightening as well as sad and heartbreaking. I’d share links to a couple of the freakiest scenes in this movie, but I’d be spoiling things for you. It’s very much an underrated horror film that doesn’t rely on gore and violence.
And those are today’s retreads. Once my brain finally catches up with me, I’ll post something more substantial, but I enjoy sharing stuff like this even if those of you who’ve been following my blog for a while now are likely bored to death with them (har!).
The thing I remember most about the Changeling was the boy pounding the walls of the tub. Then I saw why he was banging the walls and it freaked me out. >_<
As far as horror stories go, I just finished the Red Empire – its a few shorts that weave into each other. Interesting stuff.
I have it! I have “The Changeling”. ::sigh:: Now, I’m just trying to pin my daughter down so we can watch it together, which isn’t easy with a 16 year old. We like to watch creepy movies together. :)
I’ll have to check out Red Empire. I’ve never heard of it before, and I’m still looking around for more horror stories to eat up. :)
The flashbacks are traumatic; I’ll have to give the child actor tons of kudos for going through those scenes. Very well done.
Yay! I hope you guys enjoy it! :D Sixteen-year-olds can run out of steam. I guess you’ll have to tire her out or something and then lash her to the sofa next to you.
When I first heard they were making a film based in Dolls Eyes by Bari Wood, I was creeped, because what her killer goes through as a child is just… wow. It turned out to be the crapfest that was – In Dreams – and despite the cool under waterness of that movie–it was a massive disappointment.
Sometimes, what happens to children is horrid– to be honest, I had a hard time writing the terror scene in Gadarene, and I’m sure CB struggled with fleshing it out.