funny – R&D Gothic Discoveries

Do not worry, there will not be any spoilers in this post! There will only be brief descriptions of the movies, so maybe you can discover some you never heard about.

The Human Centipede / Saw

I put them in the same category because both are part of the period during which the horror movie industry focused on torture. When watching those movies, your feelings may be hurt, but if you are also an empathetic person, you may also have the impression that you actually feel what those people are feeling, and this is… well, quite terrifying.

There are seven Saw movies, originally titled Saw (2004), Saw 2 (2005) and so on, until the last one Saw 3D: Final Chapter (2010). After seven years of inactivity, another Saw film appeared called Jigsaw (2017). The question is, were Saw movies good enough so their comeback would revive the public’s interest? The answer is that yes, it was, but even though many people went to see it, maybe the producers should have left it with the unforgettable Saw 6 (2009). Anyway, all of these are definitely worth seeing if ever you like this genre, and most interesting is that these movies raise the question: what are we willing to do to save our lives?

As for the Human Centipede, I will not even describe it, or give the link to a trailer, because these three movies are too horrible. And I think that the previous sentence says it all, but I could not omit to mention it in the list, so here it is.

The Descent

There are two of those, The Descent (2005) and The Descent 2 (2009), and they are both terrifying, even though in my opinion, the first one is better. If you are claustrophobic, avoid watching this movie. At first sight, the first movie does not even look like it is going to be a horror movie as it is actually quite funny. But obviously, everything changes when all six girl friends go down in a dark cave, somewhere in the middle of the Appalachian Massif. No need to say that the movie happens in an extremely confined and dark place. And most evidently, they are not alone in that cave. I would like to tell you a little bit about the second movie, but there is no way I could do this without revealing the end of the first one, so it is for you to see!

A Quiet Place (2018)

So, A Quiet Place is quite recent and very, very good. The title gives a clue about how the movie will take place: mostly in silence. Sure, the characters will talk to each other, but quietly and rarely. Why is that so? The creatures in this movie are blind, but as the movie ad says, “if they hear you, they hunt you”, meaning that their hearing is excessively well developed. So briefly, the world has been taken over by those creatures, and a family of four built their own little life somewhere in an isolated place, but they obviously had to adapt to the new life conditions in order to stay alive. From what I wrote, it seems like we saw this same pattern a million times already, but I swear, this one is really good, and I cannot tell more than that for if I do, I may spoil some important events.

Paranormal Activity

I could not list some great horror movies without mentioning one with ghosts, right? So here it is. Paranormal Activity is once again a series of films with a total of six movies. The first one was released in 2007, and the last one, Paranormal Activity: Ghost Dimension, in 2015. It is a classic ghost series with possessed people, demons and scary paranormal activity. But who does not appreciate classics once in a while?

Scary Movie

Finally, well, the five movies in that series are not really frightening, but still some people die. However, they are parodies of many horror movies; for example, there is always that stereotypical blond-haired and slightly dumb girl, as well as the stupid teen group of friends. Of course, like every other parody, these films are exaggerated; that is what makes them funny. The first one was out in the theatres in 2000 and the last one, Scary Movie 5, in 2013. I think that the two first ones are the best. I hope you will have a great time!

That is it for the best horror movies, but I mean, these are just a few of them. There are so many more out there. I tried to make a list with various genres, so everyone could find one that he or she likes among these. Have fun! 😊

DelphineC

There exists no accepted definition of what the “gothic” is. However, as we use this term as an adjective to describe architecture, literature and even cinema, we all have at least an idea of what it means. In the first place, when we think about gothic, we have in mind:

Death
Darkness
Monsters
Excess
Etc.

At first, writing some terrifying stories was kind of a strange idea. Nonetheless, people ended up liking this kind of story telling; people enjoyed being scared and they still do as nowadays, this kind of practice has become an entertainment on an even larger scale than it already was. That is, there now exists an endless library of horror, suspense and fantastic movies, each containing some of the principal gothic elements.

What’s interesting is what gothic has become today… The American film industry, which mostly bases its productions on what the target audience wants to see, created many entertaining movies, for various age ranges. But let’s focus on two specific movies that have been created from gothic inspiration: Hotel Transylvania and Twilight. Oh yes.

Hotel Transylvania displays classic monsters from gothic literature, such as Frankenstein and Dracula, but also some zombies, momies, and many more! However, the animation movie targets a younger audience. Indeed, Hollywood transformed some gothic elements into something appealing for a younger public through this family movie; and they did it well since we must admit (or at least, I must admit) that the three Hotel Transylvania movies are awesome! Thus, even though it is far from creating fear of the viewers (it actually creates happiness and laughs), Hotel Transylvania can still be considered a work from gothic inspirations.

Now on a cheesier note… Twilight. What a classic for teenagers, even more for teenage girls. And yet, it is clearly inspired from gothic art. Indeed, vampires and werewolves are two types of monsters and thus, are linked to the gothic. Of course, there are other gothic elements displayed in the movies from the saga, such as darkness and curse, but those are the more obvious ones. Why was it such a success with teenagers? It is quite simple actually: love story. A love story is always a winner to attract the young female audience; it works every time. Moreover, I must add, there are some pretty amazing looking monsters… who could resist? We went from Dracula to Edward Cullen, could we say it’s an improvement? Who knows, some will agree, some others won’t. The most important thing is that the sexy vampire did produce the expected result on the business level, even though it did not in terms of horror and terror…

I agree that those two movies are most probably not the real gothic fans’ favorites, but still, for some others, they are enjoyable, and as they present some pretty strong gothic elements, there is no shame in mentioning them here, right?

By the way, are you a more Edward or Jacob type of person? 😉

DelphineC

Tag: funny

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