Tuesday 11 December 2012

Horror movies - a comment

Below is my short response to an article in todays Daily Mail


In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock made a movie that :

1. exploited schizophrenia:
2. showed a man enjoying spying on a naked woman showering,
3. showed the same man knifing the woman to death, whilst dressed in the clothes of his elderly dead mother


The film cut away from moments of explicit nudity, but the murder ( and subsequent murder of the investigating detective ) were graphically portrayed. The movie, Psycho, together with  its score by Bernard Herrmann, was acclaimed. The set remains a popular attraction at Universal Studios California.

The horror genre evolves. It  has always been designed to shock & frighten adults who choose to purchase a ticket. Yet we sow the seeds for an appetite for fantastic horror when we tell our children bedtime stories of evil step-mothers, poisoned apples, pricked fingers, child cruelty, wolves masquerading as granny and of solitary incarceration in remote towers.

Good  horror simply requires a contemporary  amorality that must be challenged.

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