A Certain Characteristic of Scary Movies

So it’s been hard to channel surf lately because it’s almost Halloween. The only time I get to watch TV is later at night like after 10 pm. So I’ll be randomly channel surfing and all of the sudden it’ll come to a channel that’s showing a scary movie and even though I’m only on it for a second or two, Pajjar gets mad at me because she gets scared! What the heck! It’s not my fault! It’s not like I’m trying to do it on purpose! Anyways, I want to love my wife, so I’ve been purposely skiping over certain channels if I know that that channel has a reputation for showing scary movies.

A couple of nights ago they were showing the Exorcism of Emily Rose and it got me thinking about the horror movie genre. There are two types of environmental limitations that monsters, demons, scary things, etc have. Either they’re confined to a certain space or they’re not.

For example, Freddy Krueger is most powerful in your dreams. He’s confined to your dreams and can’t attack you as well if you’re awake, even though he can still haunt you while you’re awake. He’s restricted to a certain space, your dreams.

Another example is in the original Exorcism, the demon possessed girl was confined to her bedroom. The priests had to literally enter the bedroom in order to confront the demon. In the remade version of the Exorcism, they added a scene that was cut from the original movie, where the demon possessed girl does this backwards crab walk down the stairs. They cut it from the original movie because according to the unwritten, but universally agreed upon movie genre rules, some monsters/demons are limited to certain confines. They wanted to keep her confined to her bedroom, that’s why they cut that scene from the original movie.

On the other end, there are monsters/demons that can go anywhere like Jason, Godzilla, or zombies. They have their limitations as well but are pretty much free to roam where ever they like, which is what makes them scary.

I personally like this characteristic of scary movies. I think it's one that needs to be stuck to, but yet at the same time, I don't mind if a good film maker decides to break this rule, as long as its done well. For example, zombies can go anywhere but they're slow. But in 28 Days Later, THESE ZOMBIES COULD RUN!!!

I’ll post up a happy post later today, in case this one scared you too much.