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Can you recall any films from the "Good Old Days" that
were unique from the 2 genres named below ?
Try to keep it to 3 per category so lots of people can
contribute. Here's mine:
Sci-Fi = "This Island Earth" "The Blob" "Forbidden Planet"
Horror = "Halloween" "Nightmare on Elm Street" "The Ring"
What do you mean by "trailblazing" and "unique?" And the "good old days" (since THE RING isn't all that old)?
Science Fiction
Forbidden Planet: Shakespeare in space! Still one of the best SF movies ever made.
STAR WARS: Put the fun back in science fiction. Gave us a "lived in" universe. Epic in every sense --- pacing, music, themes.
BLADE RUNNER: In an era of optimism, Blade Runner reminded us of the pitfalls of technology and the human psyche. But the movie wasn't about technology or the future. It was about the most fundamental questions: What does it mean to be human? Where did I come from? Where am I going? What is the meaning of life and death? And the ending is the most moving ending of any movie ever. The bad guy chooses to repent and become a hero, and the hero realizes, "I'm the bad guy." Just brilliant. To this day, BLADE RUNNER is an unequaled work of genius. Often copied, but never once matched.
Horror
PSYCHO: John Carpenter once said (rightly, I think) that there are two types of horror story. In one, the storyteller sits around the campfire and says, "The evil is out there. In the dark. And if we band together and keep our courage, we can beat it." In the other, the storyteller sits around the campfire and says, "The evil is here. Among us. In our hearts. And if we band together and resist our baser impulses, we can conquer it." For most of the early 20th century, nearly all horror movies were of the "out there" variety. Psycho was the first to show us that the evil is inside us. And except for the last scene, it's a freakin flawless masterpiece.
HALLOWEEN (1978): A flawed masterpiece. On the surface, it is another psycho killer, another "evil is inside" us story. But that's a trick. It's a mask. It is really a story where "the evil is out there," and the only character in the whole movie screaming that is Dr. Loomis, whom everyone thinks is delusional and a little crazy himself. Until the last scene, which proves him right. JAWS told audiences, "The evil is coming to get you." HALLOWEEN told audiences, "The evil is here, and it's never going away." That said, it is very flawed. Every attempt at humor falls flat. And the killing spree that takes up the last half of the film is rather silly and stupid. The build-up of the terror is far more satisfying than the actual terror itself.
THE WICKER MAN (1973): Another flawed masterpiece. The most cheerful, happy, celebratory depiction of evil I've ever seen. Also an unblinking, unsentimental look at the darker side of paganism. The twist at the end has seldom been equaled. The bad guys win. A masterpiece of horror. But again, a flawed masterpiece. The brilliant ending is tainted by the Bad Guy monologuing an explanation to the hero (and thus the audience). And the music is so completely horrible that it almost ruins otherwise brilliant scenes. This movie has the most hippy-dippy annoying music I've ever suffered through in my life. I kept praying for John Belushi to walk onscreen in a toga, smash the guitars, apologize, then walk off.
Metropolis was many decades ahead of it's time in both science fiction theme and special effects.
Still love watching "The Forbidden Planet" today.
A movie that was scary in one era is not so scary in another era. I prefer to look at the scary movie in relation to the fear it created in audiences of it's time. One example is "When A Stranger Calls". In the time it came out, young teen girls often worked as a neighbor's babysitter. It scared my sister from working as a babysitter. When "The Exorcist" came out there were literally some people passing out in the theater. "The Phantom of The Opera" really scared audiences of it's time when the mask was removed. The original classical monster movies (Frankenstein & The Mummy) were very good but later turned into a caricature of themselves through remakes and attempted continuations and comedies. Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney were great actors who managed to deliver a great performance even under all that movie make-up costume. Only one living actor today can come close to their acting in heavy make-up and it's Ron Pearlman.
What do you find flawed about the last scene of "Psycho", please?
I thought that brief superimposing of the mummified face of Mrs. Bates over Norman's face was a very good touch.
Or do you mean the scene of pulling the car out of the pond?
I mean the scene where Dr. Richman sits everyone down and explains everything. It's horrible. It was the studio (not Hitchcock, who also hated the scene), thinking the audience is stupid and would need everything explained to them. This scene: Dr. Fred Richman (Character) - Quotes
I mean the scene where Dr. Richman sits everyone down and explains everything. It's horrible. It was the studio (not Hitchcock, who also hated the scene), thinking the audience is stupid and would need everything explained to them. This scene: Dr. Fred Richman (Character) - Quotes
I see what you're getting at and agree that the scene is somewhat superfluous, but we have to remember that audiences at that time weren't quite as familiar with the concept of "psycho killers" as they are now, partly because of media references like "Psycho".
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