Also at Another Hole in the Head last night (see previous entry) I saw Nightmares in Red, White and Blue. This is a really great documentary on the evolution of the horror film, starting in 1910 with the first silent film version of Dracula and continuing up to modern times, when many people are turning away from American horror films because they've just become a contest to see who can be the sickest, most graphic and sadistic. It touches on SO many films and places each in its proper chronological context. It's similar in tone and style to the IFC films documentary The American Nightmare that I love (and own a copy of), but much more ambitious and exhaustive in scope, and features new interviews by horror greats like John Carpenter, Joe Dante and George Romero.
"What does it take to kick people in the ass hard enough to wake up?" Romero asks at one point, discussing the post-Sept. 11th American political landscape.
Also one of the commentators makes note of the fact that, when you meet the men who make horror films - Carpenter, Romero, Wes Craven, David Cronenberg, Eli Roth, etc - they are peaceful men, not mentally disturbed in a violent way, intelligent, politically active, liberal. "These men," the commentator states, "open themselves up to all the things other people repress, and it's the people who repress those things you have to worry about."
Good point!
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