can you feel that? ah, shit.

[intertribal]

It's pointless Monday, which means I'm making a post about my top 10 horror movies (deliberately chosen to reflect a variety of genres.  I used Stephen King's trifecta of horror: "“I’ll try to terrify you first, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll horrify you, and if I can’t make it there, I’ll try to gross you out.  I’m not proud.”

1.  Kairo / Pulse (2001). 
Premise: The dead are coming in through the internet to take life from the living - first Tokyo, then the world. 
Execution: A sensitive and profound movie about isolation, social destruction, and life itself.
Terror / Horror / Grossout: Terror with some horror.  This is an atmospheric movie, but there are a few genuinely disturbing scenes involving ghosts, corpse marks, and suicides - and computers that turn on by themselves.  Believe me, in this movie, this is scary.
Ignore: The horrible American remake.




2.  El Espinazo Del Diablo / The Devil's Backbone (2001).
Premise: During the Spanish Civil War an isolated boys' boarding school is tormented by The One Who Sighs.
Execution: Politically and emotionally rich with a strong plot and macabre symbolism galore.  Far superior to Pan's Labyrinth.
Terror / Horror / Grossout: Terror and horror.  There's a lot of suspense but the ghost encounters, especially in the beginning, are very scary indeed.  A bit of grossout if you count the deformed fetuses in jars and all the blood.
Ignore: The occasionally off CG and slightly sentimental vibe.



3.  28 Days Later (2002).
Premise: Most of England has either been eaten or Infected.  The survivors look for other survivors and try to save their souls.
Execution: What made this zombie movie groundbreaking was its use of digital video and a melancholy score. 
Terror / Horror / Grossout: Horror and grossout.  London as a wasteland and the behavior of some humans are horrific, but the infection is passed through vomiting blood and eyes get gouged out.
Ignore: The hype.  It's worth it.



4.  Marebito / The Stranger From Afar (2004).
Premise: A creepy documentarian finds a feral girl in the tunnels beneath the subway.  She's a little off.
Execution: Another digital video wonder with Lovecraftian overtones and an obsessive emphasis on madness.
Terror / Horror / Grossout: Some of each.  Marebito is all about the man who did not know fear (and so went out to seek it), so its main focus is on creepiness.  But there's also blood-slurping and eye-gouging.
Ignore: Needs for a linear, rational plot.  It's madness, madness I tell you!



5.  Storm of the Century (1993).
Premise: A scary stranger with superpowers drops in on a little Maine island-village during a terrible snow storm.
Execution: This quiet miniseries about the slow but sure unraveling of a community features intriguing characters and cryptomania.
Terror / Horror / Grossout: Terror and horror.  Stephen King lives up to his own standards here.  From "give me what I want and I'll go away" to "I'm a little teapot," this is all about making everyday things ominous markers of doom.
Ignore: The fact that it's a miniseries.



6.  The Hills Have Eyes (2006).
Premise: Nice vacationing family gets attacked by evil mutant family in the nuclear test sites of New Mexico.
Execution:  Too smart and self-aware to be dismissed as torture porn, it never wobbles from brutal honesty into sadism.
Terror / Horror / Grossout:  Horror and grossout.  It is extremely violent and bloody.  The throbbing, excellent score lends it real suspense, while the test site setting makes for some damn disturbing imagery.
Ignore: The crap-tastic sequel.



7.  Silent Hill (2006).
Premise:  A woman takes her adopted daughter to her haunted birth place of Silent Hill.  Chaos ensues.
Execution: An angry maze of a plot punctuated by religious commentary and truly horrific imagery.
Terror / Horror / Grossout:  Some of each.  You're never safe in Silent Hill, but the grotesque monsters of "hell level" aside, the real horror of this little mining town is what its denizens will do to an outcast.
Ignore: The fact that it's based off a video game.  And some of the cheese.



8.  The Descent (2005).
Premise: A group of spelunker chicks get stuck in an unknown cave system filled with humanoid monsters.
Execution: Much more than the average final girl slasher.  It's convincing characters in a microcosmic, stifling crisis situation.
Terror / Horror / Grossout: Some of each, but it's heavy on the grossout.  There are literally pools of blood.  However, this is not a movie that ever lets up on the terror, and let's face it, nobody wants to be stuck in an unknown cave system to begin with.  Let alone with monsters.
Ignore: The occasional histrionic bitchiness of the characters.  And your claustrophobia.



9.  Red Dragon (2002).
Premise: The FBI hunts a tortured serial killer that annihilates families on the way to Becoming a Great Red Dragon.
Execution: A genuinely human (and almost religious) exploration of our depths and peaks.  Also, very strong acting. 
Terror / Horror / Grossout: Horror and some grossout.  There's a great scene where the Red Dragon is "revealing himself" to a reporter, saying, "Do you see?  Do you see?" and the reporter's just like, "Ah, fuck me."  That is the audience's reaction too.  
Ignore: The lack of Jodie Foster and the minimal focus on Hannibal Lecter.



10.  Nosferatu: Phantom Der Nacht / Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979).
Premise: Dracula follows an Englishman home and unleashes a plague of madness and death.
Execution: This is Werner Herzog does Dracula, which is really all I have to say, because Werner Herzog is GOD.  
Terror / Horror / Grossout:  Terror and horror.  This is the most atmospheric version of Dracula in existence - it's so atmospheric it's more of a meditation, but what a glorious meditation it is.  Werner Herzog knows how to portray madness and isolation better than anyone.
Ignore: The eventual unfaithfulness to the book.

Comments

[madali.livejournal.com]

You have some good horror films there!

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Hm, I've only seen 3 of these (The Devil's Backbone, Marebito, 28 Days Later). If I had to rank them in terms of how much they freaked me out, I think it would be 3, 1, 2, even though I thought Marebito was sorta corny at first. But Ju-On wins for me on 'freak-out'-ness. I am all about those damn sleep-paralysis monsters, ever since I had that one really freaky night where it happened like 4 times in a row.

Steve says (i edited out his talking about him and his wife):

"It is something that--universally--bothers some small percentage of the world's human population; but most people experience it at one time or another, though they don't experience it chronically. For those who do, it can be pretty seriously disruptive, though not at all dangerous...[...] Nobody has figured out why some have it more than others. Nobody really knows just what it is, though the fact that the hallucinations tend to be very similar cross-culturally suggests that it is doing something--God knows just what--with a very old, lizard part of the brain. It's the only truly substantial universal I know of, as a matter of fact. It is in all likelihood the immediate cause of many different socioculturally inflected beliefs, from witchcraft to alien abduction (alien abduction stories are, very consistently, sleep-paralysis-grounded, but so are old hags, and astral projection and many other things besides). For these reasons, and many others, I find it absolutely fascinating. Of course, it's also a horrific thing to experience. Horrific. I don't have any of the good stuff (the good hallucinations, cross-culturally consistent, for example, of being aware of a vaguely evil presence right next to you that you cannot, however, see or touch, etc., etc., there are many others; Bo has the entire range)."

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I think for a story to be really terrifying for me, it has to involve something both unnatural and unintelligible. This is why The Devil's Backbone was not really scary.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, The Devil's Backbone got a lot less scary after it became clear why the ghost was a ghost and what the ghost wanted.

And I agree that unnatural + unintelligible is a lethal combo, but I haven't seen too many movies that are unintelligible while also being unnatural in a horror sense. Unless you want to count like, David Lynch movies? But they're not really horror, they're just disturbing.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

agreed that the combination and exact sense makes a difference. what are David Lynch movies?

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway, Blue Velvet. Twin Peaks tv show. Notorious for being kind of creepy, totally bizarre and impossible to decipher on first viewing because of unreliable (insane) narrator, time travel, demonology, etc.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Ju-On did not make the list because it was too unpleasantly frightening for me to enjoy.

So sleep-paralysis demons = those horrific things that come out of the walls and shit in Ju-On? Are those associated with sleep paralysis, or do they just look like what you experienced? I do remember that happening to you. By the way, that was what I've been referring to whenever I talk about smoke demons. :( fyi

And even more wait, everyone sees the same sleep-paralysis demons?

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

aw.

no, they just remind me of it. haha, i thought smoke demons had to do with smoke.

no--the feeling is similar, even for those with no hallucinations (the whole not-moving thing tends to be horrific...you've probably felt it when like, you can't wake up but you can't move?), but the hallucinations are different for different people/societies. hence 'basis for different socioculturally inflected beliefs'. diff. people take them to be demons, or hags, or aliens, which of course suggests that it's none of these.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I guess that's what I thought they were made up of in the movie, smoke. A very thick black smoke, but smoke nonetheless. Or at least it was better than describing them as made up of black gaseous tar.

I've never had that feeling as far as I can remember, but just watch it happen now. Various people I know have had it, though, and I am aware of the witch / alien explanation for the feeling. I think Indonesians actually have an evil spirit they claim to be responsible for it, like the evil spirit that sits on you.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

i saw them more as like, holes, like gnawing tears in the fabric of the world (uhhh?). no light escaping.

YES THE EVIL SPIRIT IT WAS RIGHT NEXT TO ME. ughghghghghghgh. yeah, that's really my only reaction to that.

i thought i sent you a ju-on picture that most reminded me of sleep-paralysis, but i think you wanted to kill me for infecting your computer w/ it or something. so here's a non-japanese horror pic:

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I have it more (as does Steve) when I'm not sleeping well, or I change my sleeping pattern a lot, sleep infrequently, etc. Usu. esp. if I'm also stressed about something...it used to happen more often when I was home w/ my parents, for instance. That's how it usu. is for people who don't have it chronically. Also perhaps some suggestion that it's more common for lucid dreamers?

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

yeah, that was actually why we ended up doing the horror movie night, 'cause i wanted to feel that creepiness but in the nice safe space of a movie.

i pretty much thought it was the Devil, lol. not that i would've called it that necessarily, and i think my own imagery was probably partly taken from too many videogames/movies.

but then, that was when i was being all like, "it's not that it was black, because it wasn't, but it was just blackness!" which was me being dumb about Peirce. 'Cause for Peirce, right, qualisigns (i.e. qualities, unarticulated feelings, ideas as pure potential--the main thing is that they simply are, they don't exist with respect to something else, at least in themselves (like, it's not essential to their (potential) being that they exist with respect to something else)) are constantly embodied in our experienced but not really ever directly experienced (since, after all, they are mental sorts of things), except perhaps in a 'dreamy state' (possibly also hallucinatory or meditative, but such wasn't really peirce's concern), where our thinking about things and feeling the force of reaction between our body, our ego, and the world--experience--is all damped down, and that realm of pure potentialities, without will or aim, is foremost to consciousness. if that made sense. so i dunno if i was being correct at all, but it seemed like for the first time i fully understood that every 'black' i had ever experienced wasn't anything like experiencing blackness.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

*experience

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

man, why would you want to feel that creepiness? i would like stay far away from it.

Huh. interesting take on the Devil, who I've always pictured more as the sophisticated man in a suit... speaking of media-inspired. Although I do have an image or idea of what you call blackness and what others would probably call evil (I wouldn't call it that necessarily), sort of like the nether-force/ "antimatter". I always associate it with worms though. De Vermis Mysteriis, so to speak.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

because it's thrilling/interesting, and because movies seemed so tame in comparison. like, the difference btwn. a bear attack and watching a documentary about bears. but then, i've always been hard to panic, and i have a sort of curiosity about most things.

well...the dream sort of merged nightmare with hallucination with blind paralysis-feeling. at first it seemed more like a nightmare, with 'the Devil' outside, and that was like something i'd taken out of a videogame or something, 'cause all those skinless, putrefied dogs were coming out of the ground, and yeah, the Devil was sorta man-in-a-suit-ish, but with an unearthly/ageless vibe, like his image wasn't quite real, and you were looking at something that could see you no matter what the distance. i know it often happens in dreams that you 'recognize' someone that looks different from the image you've conjured up for them, and it was very much like that, but fucking scary b/c he just seemed like some sort of inevitable, relentless force. and by the time the thing was in my bed next to me, it was shapeless but the same sort of feeling, and then i couldn't move or turn around anymore, i was stuck.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

as for different ghosts/spirits/hags, etc. (aliens seem to be a more modern thing not well-established in traditional folklore)

* In African culture, isolated sleep paralysis is commonly referred to as "the witch riding your back".[20][21]
* In the Cambodian, Laotian and Thai culture, sleep paralysis is referred to as "pee umm" and "khmout sukkhot". It describes an event where the person is sleeping and dreams that ghostly figure(s) are either holding him/her down or the ghosts can just be near. The person usually thinks that they are awake but is unable to move or make any noises. This is not to be confused with "pee khao" and "khmout jool" which refers to a ghost possession.
* In Hmong culture, sleep paralysis describes an experience called "dab tsog" or "crushing demon." Often the sufferer claims to be able to see a tiny figure, no larger than a child, sitting on his or her chest. What is alarming is that a vast number of American Hmong have died in their sleep, prompting the Centers for Disease Control to create the term "Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome" (see Sudden unexplained death syndrome) or "SUNDS" for short; this is now theorized to be a form of Brugada syndrome.
* In Vietnamese culture, sleep paralysis is referred to as "ma đè", meaning "held down by a ghost" or "bóng đè", meaning "held down by a shadow". Many people in this culture believe that a ghost has entered one's body, causing the paralyzed state.
* In Chinese culture, sleep paralysis is widely known as "鬼壓身/鬼压身" (pinyin: guǐ yā shēn) or "鬼壓床/鬼压床" (pinyin: guǐ yā chuáng), which literally translate into "ghost pressing on body" or "ghost pressing on bed." A more modern term is "夢魘/梦魇" (pinyin: mèng yǎn); notice that the character "魘/魇" (pinyin: yǎn) is composed of "厭/厌" (pinyin: yàn), "to detest", and "鬼" (pinyin: guǐ), "ghost, demon".
* In Japanese culture, sleep paralysis is referred to as kanashibari (金縛り, literally "bound or fastened in metal," from kane "metal" and shibaru" to bind, to tie, to fasten"). This term is occasionally used by English speaking authors to refer to the phenomenon both in academic papers and in pop psych literature.[22]
* In Philippine culture, "bangungut", or sudden unexplained death syndrome, has traditionally been attributed to nightmares.[23] People who have claimed to survive such nightmares have reported experiencing the symptoms of sleep paralysis.[citation needed]
* In Hungarian folk culture sleep paralysis is called "lidércnyomás" ("lidérc pressing") and can be attributed to a number of supernatural entities like "lidérc" (wraith), "boszorkány" (witch), "tündér" (fairy) or "ördögszerető" (demon lover).[24] The word "boszorkány" itself stems from the Turkish root "bas-", meaning "to press".[25]
* In Iceland folk culture sleep paralysis is generally called having a "Mara". Mara is an old Icelandic word for a mare but has taken on the meaning for a sort of a devil that sits on ones chest at night, trying to suffocate the victim.
* In Malta, folk culture attributes a sleep paralysis incident to an attack by the "Haddiela" who is the wife of the "Hares", the entity in Maltese folk culture which haunts the individual in similar ways as to those of a poltergeist. As believed in folk culture, to rid oneself of the Haddiela, one must place a piece of silverware or a knife under the pillow prior to sleep.
* Kurdish people call this phenomenon a "mottaka", they believe that some one, in a form of a ghost or perhaps an evil spirit, turns up on top the of the person in the middle of the night and suffocates him/her. Apparently this happens usually when some one has done something bad.
* In New Guinea, people refer to this phenomenon as "Suk Ninmyo", believed to originate from sacred trees that use human essence to sustain its life. The trees are said to feed on human essence during night as to not disturb the human's daily life, but sometimes people wake unnaturally during the feeding, resulting in the paralysis.
* In Turkish culture, sleep paralysis is often referred to as "karabasan" ("The dark presser/assailer"). It is believed to be a creature which attacks people in their sleep, pressing on their chest and stealing their breath.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

The New Guinea one clearly kicks the rest of the theories' asses.

continued

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

* In Mexico, it's believed that sleep paralysis is in fact the spirit of a dead person getting on the person and impeding movement, calling this "se me subió el muerto" (the dead person got on me).
* In many parts of the Southern United States, the phenomenon is known as a "hag", and the event is said to often be a sign of an approaching tragedy or accident.
* Ogun Oru is a traditional explanation for nocturnal disturbances among the Yoruba of Southwest Nigeria; ogun oru (nocturnal warfare) involves an acute night-time disturbance that is culturally attributed to demonic infiltration of the body and psyche during dreaming. Ogun oru is characterized by its occurrence, a female preponderance, the perception of an underlying feud between the sufferer's earthly spouse and a 'spiritual' spouse, and the event of bewitchment through eating while dreaming. The condition is believed to be treatable through Christian prayers or elaborate traditional rituals designed to exorcise the imbibed demonic elements.[26]
* In Greece and Cyprus, it is believed that sleep paralysis occurs when a ghost-like creature or Demon named Mora, Vrahnas or Varypnas (Greek: Μόρα, Βραχνάς, Βαρυπνάς) tries to steal the victim's speech or sits on the victim's chest causing asphyxiation.
* In Zimbabwean Shona culture the word Madzikirira is used to refer something really pressing one down. This mostly refers to the spiritual world in which some spirit—especially an evil one—tries to use its victim for some evil purpose. The people believe that witches can only be people of close relations to be effective, and hence a witches often try to use one's spirit to bewitch one's relatives.
* In Ethiopian culture the word Dukak is used. Dukak is believed to be some form of evil spirit that possesses people during their sleep. This experience is also believed to be related to use of Khat. Most Khat users experience sleep paralysis when quitting after a long time of use.
* Several studies have shown that African-Americans may be predisposed to isolated sleep paralysis also known as "the witch is riding you" or "the haint is riding you".[27] In addition, other studies have shown that African-Americans who have frequent episodes of isolated sleep paralysis, i.e., reporting having one or more sleep paralysis episodes per month coined as "sleep paralysis disorder," were predisposed to having panic attacks.[28] This finding has been replicated by other independent researchers[29][30]
* In Pakistani and Bangladeshi culture, it is an encounter with evil jinns and demons. It is also assumed that it is due to the black magic performed by enemies and jealous persons. Curses could also result in ghoul haunting a person. Some homes and locations are also haunted by these satanic beings.
* In Tamil and Sri Lankan Culture, this particular phenomenon is referred to as 'Amuku Be" or 'Amuku Pei' meaning "the ghost that forces one down".
* In Malay of Malay Peninsula, sleep paralysis is known as 'kena tindih' (or 'ketindihan' in Indonesia), which means "being pressed".[31] Incidents are commonly considered to be the work of a malign agency; occurring in what are explained as blind spots in the field of vision, they are reported as demonic figures.
* In Newfoundland and Labrador, it is known as the 'Old Hag'.[32] In island folklore, the Hag can be summoned to attack a third party, like a curse. In his 1982 book, The Terror that Comes in the Night, David J. Hufford writes that in local culture the way to call the Hag is to recite the Lord's Prayer backwards. It is also common for believers to claim that those who are not wakened from this paralysis will die.
* In Persian it is known as 'bakhtak' (persian: بختک) which is a ghost-like creature who does this.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

as for the physiological side, wikipedia is def. not the best source, but very briefly:

"Physiologically, sleep paralysis is closely related to the paralysis that occurs as a natural part of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is known as REM atonia. Sleep paralysis occurs when the brain awakes from a REM state, but the body paralysis persists. This leaves the person fully conscious, but unable to move. The paralysis can last from several seconds to several minutes "after which the individual may experience panic symptoms and the realization that the distorted perceptions were false".[5] When there is an absence of narcolepsy, sleep paralysis is referred to as isolated sleep paralysis (ISP). [...]

"In addition, the paralysis state may be accompanied by terrifying hallucinations (hypnopompic or hypnagogic) and an acute sense of danger.[10] Sleep paralysis is particularly frightening to the individual due to the vividness of such hallucinations.[11] The hallucinatory element to sleep paralysis makes it even more likely that someone will interpret the experience as a dream, since completely fanciful, or dream-like, objects may appear in the room alongside one's normal vision.

[...]

"Many people who commonly enter sleep paralysis also suffer from narcolepsy. [...] Some reports read that various factors increase the likelihood of both paralysis and hallucinations. These include:[16]

* Sleeping in a face upwards or supine position
* Irregular sleeping schedules; naps, sleeping in, sleep deprivation
* Increased stress
* Sudden environmental/lifestyle changes
* A lucid dream that immediately precedes the episode."


The idea that that thing was actually a conscious hallucination is much more terrifying. I prefer my dream, thankyoumuch.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

but i knew about sleep paralysis as being the same thing that happens in REM (to prevent you from like, running around in your dreams) before this happened, which is why i never thought the black things were causing it, even while it was going on.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Also, I would HIGHLY recommend Kairo. I would see it with you if you want.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

we should!

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

woo-hoo! tis a date.

[pgtremblay.livejournal.com]

--Loved 28 Days Later until the Rambo ending.
--Feels much shame at having not seen Devil's Backbone yet.
--Loved, loved, loved The Descent.
--I think Manhunter (the first red dragon film attempt) is better. Although, that just might be my memory. It is a Michael Mann 80s flick with William Peterson after all.
--Storm of the Century is an underrated gem, I think.

You should see THE BURROWERS. Would be interested in your take on it.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Ahahahaha, the Rambo ending. I guess I can appreciate a Rambo ending here and there.

Oh, I've heard of The Burrowers, I remember seeing a trailer of it last year. And I do remember wanting to see it. It shall be done!