Why Do We Watch?

Back when I lived in Edmonton, I was a member of FAVA (Film And Video Arts — Alberta), the film collective that allowed me to learn about filmmaking and shoot a bunch of shorts. I’m still a member, actually, and so they asked me to contribute to the annual Favascope magazine (which I edited two years ago). This year’s theme is “community,” so I decided to write an essay on the communal experience of watching horror films, using what I’ve gleaned attending and co-programming the CineMacabre movie nights. The mag showed up in the mail last week, and I’ve decided to reprint the piece here.

Read on:

“Wolfman’s got nards!”

It’s the line in Monster Squad that the packed house at Toronto’s Bloor Cinema has been waiting for. A cheer erupts from the giddy crowd as Horace, one of the pre-teen protagonists in Fred Dekker’s Goonies-inspired creature feature, realizes he can take down a lycanthrope with a swift boot to the undercarriage, and thereby do his part to ensure Dracula doesn’t take over the world. The atmosphere is charged: a theatre full of movie maniacs, cheering, laughing and fully engaged with those 24 frames-per-second.

The impetus for screening Monster Squad, and all its crotch-kicking pleasures, is Rue Morgue magazine’s monthly CineMacabre movie night. The publication, which focuses on “Horror in Culture and Entertainment,” was started in Toronto in 1997 by Rod Gudino, and has grown into a full-colour monthly with wide distribution. The movie nights were started several years ago as a way to promote the mag and screen genre films – foreign, cult, classic, indie, and occasionally more mainstream.

Aside from showing Monster Squad, CineMacabre has hosted stuff such as Neil Marshall’s The Descent (UK), Martín Garrido’s arthouse-meets-grindhouse H6: Diary of a Serial Killer (Spain), a gorgeous print of Roger Corman’s Masque of the Red Death (in honour of the legendary filmmaker’s 80th birthday), Fabrice Du Welz’s poetically surreal survivalist horror piece Calvaire (Belgium) and more recently the so-bad-it’s-good ‘80s Can-con cult classic – starring glam rocker Thor (!) – Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare. It’s an eclectic cross-section of genre cinema – to say the least – and indicative of just how wide ranging the tastes are of the “horror” fan.

There are a variety of distinct viewing pleasures here that extend well-beyond teeny-bopper remakes such as When a Stranger Calls, The Fog or Pulse, or the mean-spirited torture-centric trend embodied by the likes of Hostel, The Devil’s Rejects and the Saw franchise. For example, there are the “psychotronic” viewers who revel in the comedic low-brow irony of cult-horror, the hardcore gore warriors hooked on the confrontational nature of bodily destruction, the special effects junkies who embrace nearly anything with a well realized monster of inventive gore gag, the old-school lovers of the gothic tradition in the vein of Hammer Studios and Universal monsters, nostalgia nuts who grew up in the ‘80s looking to relive the verboten VHS thrills of youth, the more curious consumers looking to the indie/foreign/arthouse margins of the genre for something truly unique, etc, etc.

Most horror fans embody several of these types, but they’re all seeking the same basic viewing pleasure: rebellion, the transgression of norms, to kick off the shackles of propriety – at least for a little while. The inherent rebellion in horror art obviously attracts a large teenaged demographic, but despite what crass Hollywood marketing usually suggests, there are plenty of fans in almost all age groups – as the CineMacabre crowd indicates.

As for any group of like-minded individuals, it’s the shared experience that validates the subculture. Technology may have provided better home entertainment centres, hi-definition picture quality and even free movie downloads, but it can’t recreate the thrill of having the bejeezus scared out of you in dark room full of strangers while nervously scarfing down buttery theatre popcorn. And while the digital age has certainly changed the theatre landscape – the near extinction of the drive-in, for example – it has also bolstered the horror culture community in new ways.

The DVD revolution, for example, has made an unprecedented number of films available, along with supplementary documentaries and other background information, resulting in an average horror consumer with a deeper, broader knowledge of the genre. Websites have also made horror fans more astute, as they can read articles on genre films, use movie review sites (e.g. rottentomatoes.com) to make informed viewing decisions and interact directly with fans from around the world through message boards and email. The Rue Morgue website advertises CineMacabre nights directly to its target audience, while message boards generate buzz before each screening (board members regularly use it plan a time to meet up prior to the screenings) and allow attendees to evaluate the evening’s event after it’s done. The nights become more of an event (something further encouraged with pre-movie live entertainment and prize giveaways) rather than just a viewing.

It’s an informed audience, to be sure. Lurid shock ‘n’ awe hucksterism of a vintage 42nd Street fright flick poster or ‘80s-era video nasty cover is still evident in the slew of cheaply-shot, straight-to-DVD junk (cheaper, user-friendly tech has also resulted in a glut of disposable horror product). However, the average genre fan – not the casual viewer wandering into the horror section of the rental store, nor the obsessive watcher lapping up anything with the promise of a bloodbath – won’t show up for just any fright flick.

At the same time, though, there’s a rabid demand for films across the genre. This is due in part to availability of formerly obscure films to a new, savvier audience, the resulting demand for even more product buried deeper in the annals of the genre, and nostalgia for those days when horror movies still felt genuinely dangerous – long before something like Herschell Gordon Lewis’ sleaze-ball gorefest Two Thousand Maniacs! would be even considered remake material (it was in fact remade in 2005). Now, with A-list directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez having made Grindhouse, complete with fake trailers in between the two violent, bloody features comprising the movie, and an artificially-damaged picture (intentionally, to appear crappier!), horror just doesn’t seem as rebellious as it once was.

This, of course, presents a problem. When rebelling against the norm becomes the norm, how does the horror community retain it’s identity as consumers of outsider culture?

One way is to embrace those more genuine viewing experiences. Let the suburbanites watch Hostel rentals in the safety of their cul-de-sacs, the real horror fans go to late night screenings at rep theatres, where the patrons are loud, the images are grainy and experience is more cinematic – and most importantly, genuinely communal.

Although Monster Squad doesn’t get much more violent than the beloved nut punt, the very act of staying up late on a work night to watch a film that hasn’t even been issued on DVD, that most haven’t seen since they were kids and which could never look as crisp as a digitally cleaned up version, is its own form of rebellion. It’s here, in the aging rep theatres, surrounded by like-minded transgressors intent on exploring the full scope of the genre, that horror truly retains its power.

Dave Alexander is the Managing Editor for Rue Morgue magazine. Before taking the gig in January of 2004, he spent his entire life in Edmonton, where he earned a Film and Media Studies degree from the University of Alberta and worked as freelance writer. He’s also a long-time FAVA member, with several award-winning short films under his belt, and served as the editor of the 2004 edition of POV. He wouldn’t hesitate to kick a wolfman in the nards.