Re: scary movies

[Don Smith <dasmith at rotse2_physics.lsa.umich.edu>]

> I hate scary movies. Mainly because I hate getting freaked out. This is
> supprisingly easy to do. In fact, I got freaked out when I saw "Signs." :-)

The only thing scary about Signs was how bad it was.  :-) Actually, it was
mechanically very well done, but if I'm sitting there, appreciating the craft
that went into making something scary... then it's not particularly scary.
There were a couple of images that I found haunting (the leg suddenly moving in
the rows of corn, the shadowy figure on the roof of the house in the distance
through the window), but the rest of the movie was so pedestrian, and the
resolution so prosaic (would you invade a planet made of arsenic?  Is it
credible that a species that could travel across the unimaginable gulfs of
space wouldn't have the equivalent of a crowbar?), that I couldn't get scared.
Besides, the "something-jumps-in-from-out-of-frame" mode of terror isn't
*really* scary.  The *really* scary stuff is what challenges your assumptions
about safety, about how the world works, about what you can count on.
Hitchcock said once that surprise was blowing up a bomb under a table, but
*suspense* was showing the audience there was a bomb under the table, and then
*not* blowing it up while the on-screen characters unsuspectingly ate
breakfast.  The Birds is terrifying because something sweet and normal is made
dangerous and untrustworthy.  Jaws is excruciating because a safe, pleasant
place has lurking danger.  Sure, both of these movies have things jumping into
shot from off camera, but it's the conceptual horror that gives the visceral
momentary scare its weight.  You jump in your seat when the alien sticks its
fingers under the door, but when it becomes clear how ludicrous the whole thing
is, the momentary physical shock dissipates and becomes nothing more.  The
Sixth Sense remains creepy because it manages to challenge basic assumptions
about the world and makes you contemplate what it would be like to have to deal
with that situation.  Without the ability to suspend your disbelief enough to
insert your imagination into that world, and then to project it back on this
one, the shock never becomes more than surprise.  

But who needs scary movies when we've got the Bush administration?  If I want
to get *really* terrified, I can just read about Ashcroft's latest plans to
shred the constitution.

Good night,
-- 
Don Smith                           Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
donaldas at umich_edu                                 http://xte.mit.edu/~dasmith/

---------------
Unsubscribe by going to http://www.actwin.com/OtR/