The Faces of Horror

Horror movies have many faces, some are scary, some gory, some have monsters, things that go bump in the night, things that make you want to hide behind cushions and sleep with the lights on, some have serial killers turning hoards of pretty people into spaghetti , some are funny, some are creepy, some are just plain shit, but because there are so many sides to this face you should never dismiss it, talk to it first, make sure you’ve got the right face.

Two fine examples of how very different the faces of horror can be, are: Piranha (2010) and Let The Right One In.

Piranha

Roger Corman is a movie making legend, often referred to as ‘The King of B-movies’ making those ridiculous films that everybody wants to see, but Hollywood doesn’t want to make, and giving the big breaks to many a movie maker, including actor Jack Nicholson and Director James Cameron. Nicholson making a brief appearance in the Original Little Shop of Horrors, and Cameron Directing Piranha II: The Spawning, his debut film as a director, and sequel, obviously to Piranha.

Then last year Piranha was remade, in 3-D no less, but then again isn’t everything nowadays, and with it 3-D cash cow chicanery, came a cast of celluloid legends...and Kelly Brook. Some like Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind) don’t last more than a scene, Dreyfuss is the first to meet a fishy end, others like the almighty Christopher Lloyd (The Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) make brief appearances  being left un-deadified, with possible return potential in evitable sequel shocker. Then we have more central roles such as Elisabeth Shue’s sheriff, and her deputy Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction, Mission Impossible series) and Jerry O’Connell (Stand by Me, Scream 2) as a pornographer and grade A asshole, a role which he pulls of brilliantly.

This is MTV horror, bright colours and beautiful people, beautiful people getting there tits out and loosing limbs. Popcorn horror at its most hilarious.


Let the Right One In

This is at the complete other end of the spectrum to Pirahna, no gratuitous boob shots or dick jokes, no CGI killers or over the top gory deaths, instead you’ve got quite and reflective, beauty and menace.

Based on the book by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who also wrote the screenplay, Let the Right One In follows the tale of 12 year old Oskar, lonely and bullied, and his friendship with a vampire child, in Stockholm suburb in the 1980’s. The horror element of the film is severally downplayed and the film focuses far more on the blossoming friendship between Oskar and Eli, but what I found just as interesting is the sub plot of Lacke, who’s trying to find out what happened to his best friend Jocke, the first victim of Eli, and then the attack and subsequent vampirism of his girlfriend .

Yeah its Swedish, yeah its subtitled, but don't let any of that put you off, its not Twilight minus the cast of Hollyoaks, or a bizarre piece of European cinema, its simply one of the best horror film your ever likely to see.