Bone In The Fan

I am and have been a horror film fan for a long time. The first film that scared the hell out of me was Halloween, which I saw in the theater when it was first released in 1978. It was my first film of that genre (that’d be the creepy-mass-murderer-that-won’t-die genre); there hadn’t been eight million crappy slasher flicks when Halloween was released, and for me it was a completely unexpected pants-pooping. Of course there had been scary films made before Halloween, but this was in the pre-VCR days when we actually had to go to the movies, and 15 was the youngest age at which I was able to get into one without an adult (oddly enough, at the time it was actually easier for me to get into my first porno film in Times Square than a horror film on 86th street.)

Dawn of the Dead was the next one that got me. Not only scary, but obscenely graphic (Tom Savini, the guy that designed those effects went on to act in a pretty ridiculous film called Knightrider, which was a jousting-on-motorcycles epic. And that film kicked ass.) Since then though, there hasn’t exactly been a flood of original horror.  The Exorcist was terrifying when it was first released (I finally got to see it at a screening in my high school of all places), and I saw Sam Raimi’s film Evil Dead in a theater when I was in college and thought that was pretty awesome (it was the first film I ever had on tape and I used to show it to the young ladies after dark, back when having a VCR and movies at your house was still cool enough to help get you laid) but that was way back in 1982. As in most genres of most media, once a good film got made it just got remade dozens of times (either as a sequel or a cheap copy), and stupid shit like having franchise villains battle it out started counting as creativity (what hack greenlighted “Freddy vs Jason”?)  Since I value originality, it got harder and harder to find good horror.

Still, there were some great films getting made, you just had to look for them (primarily overseas.)  I’ve been a pretty big fan of some of the Asian horror movies that were made in the last decade or so, most of which were remade into crappy Hollywood copies, and if you’re interested in good horror try the original versions of The Eye (Gin Gwai, made by the Pang Brothers in Hong Kong in 2002), The Ring (Ringu, made by Hideo Nakata in Japan, 1998), or the film Odishon (Audition) by Takashi Miike, which I don’t think has been remade.  Yet.

Don't let the crappy artwork fool you. The Signal rocks.

Of course if you don’t like reading subtitles (please don’t watch them dubbed) or just want a really good, original piece of horror, you can grab The Signal, which I found on the shelf at Blockbuster tonight and brought home knowing nothing about (which is weird for me, because I tend towards compusive behavior on this point and rarely grab a film off the shelf without checking it out on IMDB, or Rotten Tomatoes, or something - what if its no good?!)

The Signal is original (it does bear a passing resemblance to a recent Steven King book that I saw at my inlaws’ house, but it isn’t a ripoff and has its own story and vibe), it’s well written and shot, and has a bunch of actors I’ve never seen that can actually act (which is always a plus.) While there were a couple of parody-like scenes that at the time felt a little out of place, the surrounding meat was so creepy and fun that at the end of the film I turned to Joanna and said “that was awesome - best horror film I’ve seen in ages” and actually went to the special features to find out more about the film makers and actors.  I can’t pay a movie a higher compliment.

Bookmark and Share