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Horror Movies

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I'm a huge fan.

Often I do wonder if this form of entertainment is at odds with Objectivism what with the whole world as malevolence, evil wins, ugly subject matter.

But I can't help it, I don't have much fun in my life (working 100+ hour work weeks every single week battling ever increasing taxes, fees and permits to stay afloat) and I really just find them fun ..even the really repellent grisly ones.

Dunno..maybe its just picturing some of my more obnoxious customers in the place of the victims.. <_<

Do you like horror movies? Do you suspect there is a moral flaw in enjoying them?

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It's up to personal taste.

I can appreciate good horror flicks, but I don't seek them out. Generally they don't have themes, interesting characters, or compelling plots, so in terms of artistic value, I'd rank them pretty low.

People watch horror movies because they like feeling scared in a controlled context -- it gives them a rush or thrill. In that sense, they're in the same moral catagory as roller coasters and sky-diving, ie. optional values, or morally neutral.

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Do you like horror movies?

I don't get them. I mean this literally. When I've watched any, I always wind up thinking "All these events took place in the movie. So what?"

Do you suspect there is a moral flaw in enjoying them?

I suppose it depends on the kind of movie. Lately there are a lot of slasher films in which the point seems to be how many people die in what horrible and gory manner. Enjoying that is highly immoral.

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It's a pretty big genre so it's hard to say. Creature features of course have special effects and makeup going for them, "Zombie Strippers", "From Dusk Till Dawn" and most Bruce Campbell films have nice elements of the ludicrous combined with plenty of living dead. I'd only be concerned if they inspired you to go buy a chainsaw and a leather mask.

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This is a very interesting topic for me because I've always loved horror movies, but I haven't really re-watched any since I've started heavily studying Objectivism. I remember really liking Freddy Kreuger; maybe it had something to do with defeating evil simply by staying in touch with reality. However, I was about 10 at the time so probably not.

One horror movie I HAVE to recommend, which I saw a couple years ago and really enjoyed is, The Descent. It came out in 2005 and I feel like it was probably overlooked by most people. If you have the chance I would check it out, but I will have to re-watch it from an Objectivist viewpoint.

Another movie I'd recommend, and have recently purchased so I can rewatch, is Ravenous. I'm not sure that it can be considered a horror movie, but it is definitely along the same lines. Maybe I'll post again after re-watching them.

Does anyone have any horror movie suggestions that they think are even close to inline with some Objectivist principles?

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The Descent is great.

Really liked Hostel 2... the ending is suprisingly pro-capitalism via Laura German.

The Cell has some stunning imagery.

28 days/weeks Later.. all the fault of animal rights activists of course!

But then of course there are the seminal ones that are really great.. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Night of the Living Dead, etc.

For all that many horror haters will try to call bullshit on this the great horror movies have always had a fascinating social subtext. You can really see a lot of any given era's anxieties in the horror movies produced at the time. Also in changes over time within a particular genre.

Zombie movies for example.

Zombie movies were all about slow moving, brain dead, emotionless eating machines. Since their '90s reboot though zombies have been changed to be fast moving, adaptable, rage-filled eating machines.

The French have been doing some really interesting things with them as well... High Tension, Inside, Martyrs.

Funny Games has a lot to commend it.

Also interesting to see (even though they tend to be awful) the remakes of the classics... how telling the details they change are. What was scary in 1978 is different than what is scary in 2008.

Frankly though, I saw the 2008 presidential election as one long terrible horror movie and I felt dirty just witnessing it.

Less so, The Devil's Rejects.

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Hmm, one horror series I've really enjoyed is the Saw movies. In a way, they kind of feature an interesting idea that may hold some appeal to people who support Objectivism such as myself. The movies begin with cops hunting down somebody they've labeled the Jigsaw killer based on that the person puts people in various elaborate puzzles or challenges, typically with a sort of riddle to start off with hinting at least to them what they need to do to get out and if they don't make it out for failing the puzzle/challenge, this person they call Jigsaw typically will cut out a piece of their flesh in the shape of a puzzle piece. You find out quickly near the beginning of the first movie that the motive of "Jigsaw" is to take people who don't appreciate their lives and take their values for granted and put them in these harsh situations where there is always a way out and get them to do what they need to to get out, to fight for their survival and what matters to them, and, in theory at least, get them when they come out to look at and appreciate their lives anew. Now of course this is still violating people's rights to take them and put them in these situations without their knowing anyway and people do grapple with this issue some of the bad method for a decent goal, but something interesting still is that

something you find out about "Jigsaw" at the end of the first movie - "Jigsaw" is terminally ill with little time left to live no matter what is done by this point anyway, though that isn't the only reason "Jigsaw" has decided to do what he/she is doing now. I just thought that was interesting because it does put "Jigsaw" in an interesting position morally.

"Jigsaw" is still not entirely right in the head to some extent of course and the movie isn't advocating going out and anybody actually doing what the "Jigsaw" killer does, but as far as motives for villains in a horror movie go and what the general theme of the horror movies here can be said to be centered around dealing with, I thought it was better than most horror movies. I think all five so far have been good, but I still like the first one best so far. I think you could watch just the first movie and stop there if you wanted, but if you do go on to watch the second one I think you've kind of got to go on to watch the third one at least too or some of the meaning of what happened may get confused. The series is still going though, not sure how many more will be made or where and how this is going to end up ultimately.

"For all that many horror haters will try to call bullshit on this the great horror movies have always had a fascinating social subtext. You can really see a lot of any given era's anxieties in the horror movies produced at the time." Not a movie, but that reminds me of when we were reading Dracula in high school and how the nature of the vampire was built around the social hang ups of the Victorian period, part of why modern adaptations of Dracula I think can lose something since we have, at least in general western settings, lost a lot of the hangs ups the victorians had at least to a great extent, like the great amount of sexual repression all over and such.

Edited by bluecherry
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The thing that I hate about some horror flicks is that they:

1> make the creature you're going up against undefeatable,

2> the characters in the flicks who are fighting the creatures often behave very stupidly, such as standing there and screaming while the monster moves in for the kill.

3> Logic too often does not work to defeat the enemy.

I don't see the point in watching something where the enemy is invincible, characters are stupid or logic does not apply. It seems to me the whole point of that is to inculcate a sense of helplessness in you, but without rational foundation.

Now, having said that, I have nothing against the genre, per se. I'm not sure if Omega Man would be considered a horror flick, but I really enjoyed it. Charlton Heston's character used his brain power to fight the foe. Also, Predator was a good movie, where Schwarzenegger’s character had to use his brain to defeat a powerful and scary foe and logic did work.

However, I think an interesting question is "What in essence makes a horror flick a horror flick?" Is it a sense of helplessness in the face of destruction of yourself and/or those people or things you value?

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However, I think an interesting question is "What in essence makes a horror flick a horror flick?"

A good question.

Some consider Ridley Scott's Alien or the first Terminator to be horror whereas I consider them sci-fi.

If seems like a lot of genres can cross over with horror.. sci-fi being one of the most notable.

J-horror generally eschews slashers, monsters and the like and focuses on things like supernatural vengeance.

Some are reflective of the human mind's ability (or lack thereof) to deal with the world around it (Jacob's Ladder, Sublime).

You have horror through nature- Jaws perhaps being the best of these.

In the eighties we got a glimpse into the Reagan years of fundamentalism crepping back in to our mainstream culture- have sex & die! smoke a joint & die! listen to loud rock music & die! have a beer at the lake & die!

The whole "last girl standing" cliche that started with the brainy, do-good virgin always being the one to survive.

What about Hillbilly horror which started with Deliverance (not generally considered a horror movie).. a whole subset of movies about what those rascally inbreds up in the hills are doing besides their own siblings?

At risk of being overly simple I guess I just call anything horror where the main point of the story is to frighten beyond the normal scope of a suspense/thriller.. think Silence of the Lambs as an example of a scary movie that doesn't seem to fit the "horror" slot for me.

Edited by QuoVadis
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At risk of being overly simple I guess I just call anything horror where the main point of the story is to frighten beyond the normal scope of a suspense/thriller.. think Silence of the Lambs as an example of a scary movie that doesn't seem to fit the "horror" slot for me.

No, I think that's a very good job of defining what a horror flick is. The main goal of a horror flick is to scare the audience.

I guess that given this, that's why I'm not big on horror flicks, per se. I like movies that have more to offer. If being scared fits in with a movie’s over all plot and theme, then it could be a great part of a movie, but if the goal is to just show you something awful to contemplate in order to scare you, then I'm not so much interested.

Btw, the scariest film I've ever seen was one where they showed several examples of people dying from different things, e.g. being killed by dogs, other people, accidents, etc. I had true nightmares after that one, probably because it was real.

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If seems like a lot of genres can cross over with horror.. sci-fi being one of the most notable.

I think SF is better defined as a kind of literature than as a genre. As such, SF can subsume under it any kind of genre. Therefore there are SF mysteries, romances, thrillers, etc.

There isn't one defining element of SF, but usually SF is anything that makes use of a more advanced science or technology than is known at the time of writing, and all things are handled in a scientific manner (which is to say that the laws of nature apply impartially to all the characters). Hard SF puts more emphasis in the science and technology, while soft SF has a stronger emphasis in other elements.

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"I think SF is better defined as a kind of literature than as a genre. As such, SF can subsume under it any kind of genre. Therefore there are SF mysteries, romances, thrillers, etc."

The same thing can be said for fantasy stories I think. Both science fiction and fantasy I think could better describe the setting than the plot, so you could have mysteries, thrillers, romances and so on in any of a relatively normal "real life" type setting, or in a fantasy "magical world" setting, or in a science fiction "any time or place where there is a significant amount of scientific stuff beyond our present knowledge" setting.

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Cinema is a branch of literature. That's why so many books are turned into movies.

Not to turn this into a battle of definitions but unless you're going for obscure archaic usage literature is defined as written works. A movie can be made from literature but it is not literature.

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Cinema is a branch of literature. That's why so many books are turned into movies.

Puppies are a branch of roadkill. That's why so many of them end up hit by cars.

If I had to link the moving pictures to a different art, I'd go with the performing arts, since people do perform in them, and it is an art. But I don't want to link them, because there are still too many differences, just saying if I had to.

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Not to turn this into a battle of definitions but unless you're going for obscure archaic usage literature is defined as written works. A movie can be made from literature but it is not literature.

Just one:

"In motion pictures or television, literature is the ruler and term-setter... Screen and television plays are subcategories of the drama...."

You can find it in the Ayn Rand Lexicon under "Motion Pictures."

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Just one:

"In motion pictures or television, literature is the ruler and term-setter... Screen and television plays are subcategories of the drama...."

You can find it in the Ayn Rand Lexicon under "Motion Pictures."

I think that the relationship in terms of genre is very strong. A science fiction movie is the same as a science fiction novel when it comes to genre.

Btw, genres can overlap. You can have a science fiction thriller, which means that you can categorize a film in two (and more) genres.

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I figure that this thread might be a good opportunity to post something that I have found interesting.

Below is a link to an analysis by Rob Ager of the classic horror film The Exorcist.

Rob Ager's analysis possibly uncovers a dark hidden narrative in the film. In my opinion, I think Ager is on to something. I'm curious what others on this board might think.

The Even Dark Underbelly of "The Exorcist"

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I've watched horror movies, since I was about 10 years old. I've seen about 750 of them believe it or not. I don't watch them for philosophical context; I watch them for pure entertainment purposes. The wonderful thing I've always found in horror movies is how alien they are from the real world. I walk away from a horror movies, rejuvenated and more appreciative of how safe and benevolent the real world is and that things in them can't possibly happen. It’s extremely hard to find horror movies that fit into O’Ist ethics because most horror films take place in a supernatural world. The few examples of horror movies I can think of that take place in a realistic world would be, (The Descent and Quarantine), but they are few and far between, and you're even less likely to find an O'Ist horror film.

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