With regards to horror movies: supernatural or analytical?

[Dr. Strange]

Poll question: With regards to horror movies: supernatural or analytical?

Background: I watched "The Ring" a couple of weeks ago, and then was reading about the series online. I was struck by a comparison between the Japanese version and the American version. The Japanese version had more of a supernatural flavor to it, with lots of vagueness, while the American version tried to be more analytical (explaining things like why the viewer dies after seven days and such).

So, the question is, which would you prefer in a horror movie: vagueness with lots of unanswered questions, or well-explained (even if stooped in supernatural) analysis?

[BeachBaby]

1. I'm all about teh spookiness.

[jobycom]

2. The primary source of fear in a movie is the unknown. Some explanation is necessary

that's what makes you feel it can happen to you. You need enough logic to be able to anticipate the coming horrors--who Jason might slash next.

But you are more frightened when you can't see what's coming, can't understand what's coming, and can't figure out the rules to the world you find yourself in. Jaws never showed the shark (until the end). The Exorcist never showed the demon. The Blair Witch Project never showed the Witch. They only showed you the horrifying effects of the creature, and that's what scared you. You were as lost as the characters.

American audiences are cynical, though, and often just immature. If a movie scares the crap out of them, they'll still write mostly about the holes in the plot when they jump on the Internet later, and if everything isn't over-explained to them, they'll assume things they couldn't grasp were holes (Start a thread on "The Dark Knight," for instance, and see how many people claim the plot was full of holes just because they couldn't follow the plot).

Maybe that's why horror is so dead in America. The last decent horror film, aside from the movie trailer for "The Grudge II," was "The Blair Witch Project." After that, it's all been slasher/gore/shock films disguised as horror, and weak Japanese rip-offs. Americans are too cynical, maybe just too wise, to enjoy a good scary movie these days.

[Dr. Strange]

4. Interesting analysis.

I was spooked out by the odd mixture of scenes in Samara's video. (Here if anyone wants to see it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlhZCDlEmh0 ) But I liked the way Rachel spent much of the rest of the movie trying to figure out what the scenes were about. It was somewhat like a (supernatural) mystery. In the end, when her ex dies, she freaks out (at first), wondering why he died while she hasn't. Now, if the movie had ended there, I probably would have felt robbed: why DID he die and not her? But they had one more scene, where she figured it out. And it was a very reasonable answer which also set up the possibility of Samara's haunting to continue. (And which also means sequels, for better or worse.)
I wish I could see the Japanese version, just for comparison.

[redqueen]

5. You haven't seen the Japanese version?

[Dr. Strange]

9. Nope.

I just got around to seeing the American version a couple of weeks ago.
I'm so behind the times.

[redqueen]

10. Hah, I'm that way with so many things...

decent horror flicks is not one of them, though. :P

If you haven't seen The Eye yet, you might check it out. I haven't seen the USian version yet though, so not sure about that.

[Lost in CT]

3. I just watched Wyvern on the SCi-Fi channel.

I like monsters that decapitate random people.

[NewJeffCT]

12. Did you hear the promos for that one?

"In Alaska,you can see Russia from your house - and also a 30 foot wyvern!"

[Lost in CT]

13. LOL It had some old Northern Exposure actors and was quite good.

Of course I am grading on a scale known as Made for Sci-Fi Channel movies so that is damning with faint praise.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

6. I think the movie "Jeepers Creepers" can probably be an example of both types of film all in one.

It starts out very mysterious and forboding. You see some shadowy figure driving behind the main character in a van and you don't know what he's after or what is driving him. Then you see him pull off, go into an abandoned church, and start putting bodies down a well. And all you see is a distant figure with long hair and a trench coat. It only gets more forboding after they go back to the church and into the basement and see bodies sewn along the wall.

And up to this point, it is a very scary, unnerving film due to its somewhat vagueness and open-endedness.

Unfortunately, the second half of the movie really suffers. Instead of keeping it vague, they decided to unveil the monster, and it is some CGI winged creature (which doesn't really explain the van he was driving before). Then they drum up some background story about how it only gets to eat once every 20 years, and how it feeds on fear and then it starts snatching up people. And the great momentum that the film had due to that uneasiness in the first half is totally lost by the ludicrious backstory and reliance on special effects.

[charlie and algernon]

8. Dreamcatcher was the same way

the first half of the movie is great as weird stuff starts happening. A mysterious stranger shows up and becomes deathly and scarily ill, an old woman is found frozen in the ice, animals are running away from something very bad...

Then they show us the CGI aliens and it all goes down hill from there.

[ghostsofgiants]

7. Horror movies always fall apart when they try to explain everything.

Fuck that shit.

[old mark]

11. OTHER: I like the spookies, but on occasion

the rational inexorable doom situation is good, too.

And, Rob seems to get a lot of shit, so I won't pile on that one.

One of my favorite movies of all time is the first "Halloween", spooky yet rational and relentless, also cheap and scarey, with a fine cast.

mark

[NewJeffCT]

14. I like them somewhat rational & analytical

but I'm pretty open to just about any type.

[Dr. Strange]

15. I think that's the camp I fall into.

A little rationality mixed with a lot of spookiness.

And maybe a little Bruce Campbell.

[Forkboy]

16. Either way, as long as they all agree to drop the "creepy kid" gimmick.

That goes for both countries.

To give a more serious answer, Shinto is the main religion in Japan (something like 85% practice it, or a mix of that and buddhism), and part of it is the worship of spirits, or "kami", or sites they feel are sacred. Similar to Native American beliefs that spirits occupy all natural things. Because of this foundational belief in spirits their movies go that way more often. America, while certainly religious, isn't religious in the same sense. Where Shinto is a polytheistic faith, Christianity is not, and that belief in multiple spirits, good and evil, seems to permeate Asian horror.

For us, spirits seem unbelievable, and therefore require an explanation. To many Japanese, spirits are accepted as a fact of life, no explanation necessary.