Re: RARA-AVIS: Noir Horror?

From: Bob Toomey ( btoomey@javanet.com)
Date: 09 Feb 2000


Z0MB0Y@aol.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 2/8/00 7:42:24 PM Pacific Standard Time,
> btoomey@javanet.com writes:
>
> << But the goals of horror are completely different from the goals of
> hardboiled. Hardboiled is grounded in a skeptical, cynical, unsentimental
> view of the world.
> Horror is the polar opposite -- romantic, sentimental, emotional. >>
>
> You're talking about gothic horror only. I can't think of any movie less
> romantic or sentimental than THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, for instance.
> Cronnenberg, when he's hitting on all cylinders, is very cynical and
> cerebral. He is horrified with the world, or aspects of it, and wants to pass
> that horror along to the audience. Horror, as an emotion, comes from a sense
> of alienation, which is an extreme form of cynicism.

Actually, I was talking about literary horror, not movie horror. In the classical sense, the literary horror story seeks to create fear in the audience. Fear is not a cynical emotion.

You're right about Cronenberg. But THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, a movie I admire, is quite remantic and sentimental in its view of its warped family of freaks, like a twisted version of the Waltons.

BobT

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