13 Nights 2008 Aftermath

I hope everyone had a great Hallowe’en and enjoyed the thirteen nights as much as I did. On one of the nights I revealed that there was an unintended connection between several of the movies. Most of them were made by a writer/director. This trend is most common with horror movies. It doesn’t matter whether these are all scriptwriters that want to be directors, or need to be to maintain the vision of their script. It doesn’t matter whether these are all directors who happen to write scripts, or need to as a matter of getting to direct the sort of movies that they want to direct. The first name in horror writer/directors is of course Wes Craven. Right behind him is John Carpenter. Oddly enough the thirteen nights did not involve either of these giants. This wasn’t the only trend.

The list of movies intentionally included several that were victims of bad press. They were written off as rip-offs, or in some cases declared unwatchable. This must be disheartening to everyone involved in their production. It is discouraging enough as a fan of some of these films to see them so maligned. This is further true with good movies that are not campy. At least with camp and a high cheese factor there are people who will flock to be fans for a movie because it is so bad that it’s good. Horror is a good genre for not being dismissive of low budget films. Some of the lowest budget horror movies gained great fame, from John Carpenter’s “Halloween” to Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” to the granddaddy of modern horror George A. Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead”.

One last thing that was apparent from the selection of movies is that good horror comes from many different places. Some comes, naturally, from Hollywood. Others can come from a world away like New Zealand. The inspiration for horror movies has just as wide a spread. Some come straight from the scriptwriter’s imagination. Others come from the literary world. Yet others come from other media altogether such as video games. Then there are always the horrors that come from real life. One movie even came about because of one of horror’s most lucrative film genres, the slasher. Life spawns books and movies, books spawn movies, a genre spawns video games that spawn movies, and a genre even spawns parts of itself in a widening family tree. Isn’t horror grand?

Mood: exhilarated.
Music: Breakin' in the Gun by Vince Neil and Harbinger of Fate by Iced Earth.

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