To think horror films are horrible

Again, why are you asking me about ‘Stephen King films’? I’ve not even mentioned King, and I don’t much like his books. It’s really odd that you’re fixating on this.

It’s peculiar for anyone who supposedly teaches an arts/humanities subject to attempt to win an argument by disputing points that your opponent wasn’t making in the first place. I hope that isn’t how you teach your students to analyse and critique, because that’s really not how it works, and you’re setting them up for academic failure.

There is no such thing as ‘a Stephen King film’. He is not a filmmaker. Carrie (for example) is not a ‘Stephen King film’. It is a Brian De Palma film, with a screenplay adapted by Lawrence D Cohen from a Stephen King novel.

Either way, I don’t care about your views on Stephen King and I don’t really care what you think of any film adaptation of his work. I make no claims one way or the other for any films based on his novels to be ‘great art’. I think the term ‘great’ is pretty meaningless in the context of art, in fact.

I do take issue with you dismissing an entire genre of cinema as devoid of merit while purporting to be a teacher of film, and with your inability to recognise that your personal dislike of a genre does not mean it cannot have any artistic value.

I’m certainly grateful that the people who taught film and literature at my own universities didn’t teach like you.

Get Out was a pretty rubbish one of you ask me, not at all scary. But then you don’t watch schlocky horror films so you can’t really judge.

It Follows for example was brilliant.

Ghost Stories had a long run in the West End. So did the Woman In Black - both were great.

His House is an absolutely brilliant movie. Beautifully acted and wonderfully shot. I had to laugh at the name of the night witch, the Apeth. In Old Yorkshire dialect that would be 'ya daft apeth' - a mild pejorative for a fool derived from the old northern word for 'halfpenny'.

I find it interesting that the very western genre of the Gothic has been used to view this 'haunting' from the fresh perspective of the South Sudan crisis. It's a rewriting of The Shining, according to Weekes, which might have been an acclaimed film (because it's Kubric) but it misses a lot of the subtlety of the novel. That story is a complex, layered narrative embodying a deep satire of gilded age America and the exploitation of the country's resources by the very rich - the Overlook Hotel being the main emblem for that and thus a sinister seat of evil. In the film adaptation the key figures which give it that depth are missing - namely Horace Derwent and Al Shockley, who the book strongly hints are the real villains of the piece.

There's definitely a Freudian analysis in there somewhere. Looking forward to more work from this director as this was excellent.

@ItGhoul Sorry, that was my autocorrect in Stephen, not me!

I mentioned King because almost all the films people say are great examples of horror are King adaptations — as people have done throughout this thread! Leaving aside thrillers, can you name some great Hollywood horror movies that aren’t King adaptations and aren’t Hitchcock or The Exorcist?

In answer to your question, probably the best genuine horror films might be something like Haneke’s original Funny Games; or even Get Out - but actually, both of those are more like satirical thrillers rather than what you might call horror.

On horror movies, do you think I should be recommending Nightmare on Elm Street, Saw or Bride of Chucky to my students who are paying nearly £10k a year? They tend to be keen on watching good stuff for their money!

Also I’m baffled that a teacher of film and cultural studies never touches on the horror genre? Really?

mind you I don’t have 4 posh degrees so I probably know nothing

Gosh the backpedaling is almost audible

Thanks for asking - I’ve got four Oxbridge degrees and was originally a specialist in eighteenth century and Victorian literature, but got into teaching film and cultural studies when I was a professor in comparative modern literature and culture in a US university. I now teach at a university here but across a range of eras. It’s fun!

I like teaching generic film - the history of musicals and animation are especially fun topics - but why do you think that enjoying something must mean we have to call it great art? Plenty of enjoyable things aren’t “great”. That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy them!

You’ll find that most film scholars (as opposed to popular movie critics, eg for newspapers) don’t write on popular horror. Most film studies is on quite recherché topics like Cuban modernism and so on. Most of my film students are interested in things like noir, film tragedy, Postcolonial film and so on. I do try to get them interested in folk horror, which is rather a different beast from Hollywood studio horror!

Horror is a great space for exploring and highlighting other issues as well if you read film you should know this?

try His House or Get Out or maybe look in more detail at women in horror?

You are a very poor teacher of film if you think horror = ‘Steven [sic] King films’, if you believe you alone can determine what is or isn’t ’great art’, and if you dismiss entire genres in the way that you did in your initial post.

I have no idea why you keep wanging about Stephen King at all, given that he is not a filmmaker, and the conversation is about an entire genre of cinema, not about the small number of films based on his books. It’s odd and disingenuous to equate a single author with an entire genre of film.

I’m glad I was free to explore genres and themes rather than being told ‘these are the only film you will watch as all other films are unworthy’ 😂

I once saw Misery on stage starting Dirty Den. That was definitely not great art!! Not very scary. 🤣

there was a long running ghost story in the west end, name escapes me, that was quite an enjoyable level of scary!

did anyone ever watch scream in the cinema - with the cinema scene?! I can still remember looking over my shoulder.

So who or what is a great writer/ film in your opinion?
You have not answered that nor have answered why your opinion differs from almost all film critics?
Whete did you learn to become a "film teacher"?

The greatest art works? Or films? Gosh I thought education was supposed to expand the mind and challenge convention - do you tell your students to only study films you feel fit that category? What if they submit work on film you sneer at - 3rd?

im interested though to know your top 5 greatest pieces of film art of the last 2000 years

@ghostyslovesheets You would rank them among the greatest artworks humanity has produced in the last 2000 years or so?

Or Misery?

Like The Shawshank Redemption or The Green Mile?

Ah, I’m slain! Seriously, though: you think the education system should teach that Stephen King films are great art? Is that actually true, do you think?

I love being scared, and almost exclusively watch horror. I think it's the adrenaline. Interestingly, I hate roller coasters and once cried in a haunted house at the age of 24.

Some people get so snobby about horror in general including the entire panel of Academy Award voters I'd much rather watch a horror film than any Marvel dross, or the umpteenth Bridget Jones film. At least it actually makes me feel something.

horror films are horrible

You don’t say.

I love horror, not a huge fan of slasher type stuff, I can turn on the news to watch people hurt each other, that’s not what I’m after. I much prefer a good supernatural horror, I like a good ghost story, vampires, I am huge fan of films about possession and found footage. I like a slow burn, not jumpscares. I’m not a ‘risk taker’ I just like spooky things.

The education system is in trouble because I teach that great art is better than Steven King films? Run that one by me again? 😆

You might want to work on how you get that across in writing, because none of it’s apparent here.

I feel the same about romance films and novel. I hate them as they bore me to tears. I wonder why people like them.

But we all like different things and that’s what makes the world go around.

now I’m going to find a good horror flick to watch 😁

I’m not a fan, I hate feeling scared but I remember loving The Orphanage so I suggested that to watch with teenage DS who wanted to try some horror. I looked it up though to check the age rating and just the photo that came up was too much for me how!!

I was going to post the photo but I don’t want to traumatise you all!!!

I hated SOTL as a teen - many sleepless nights after that.