Contrasting American and European Horror Movies Essay -- Movie Film Es

Contrasting American and European Horror MoviesA common complaint about many film critics is that they t remainder to fall everyplace themselves in praising anything with subtitles, regardless of quality. For most critics it seems there is a simple equation in analyzing foreign pictures subtitles=great moviemaking that is not exploitative. When the borderline hardcore French film Romance (1999) was released critics were effusive with their lauding of a film that deals (arguably) with sex in a realistic manner. Even respected guys like Roger Ebert confessed to not really enjoying it, and as yet I recommend it. Apparently Ebert was not aware of the fact the movie uses filmmaking techniques similar to hardcore porno (the editors cleverly cut away from scenes before the specie shot can occur) and follows the trajectory of many pornographic films in which a nubile young lass goes from man to man in an effort to come up orgasm. The same pattern also applies to foreign horror. Foreign h orror is moody and atmospheric while American horror is cheap and exploitative. What many fail to carte du jour is that both foreign and American horror use many of the same images and devices. In the distinct universe that is the horror film both the heightser end pictures (in this case the foreign horror movies) find themselves amongst the so-called exploitative low-end (American horror). Frequently in film analysis it is, as Joan Hawkins writes, overlooked or repressed...to the degree to which high culture trades on the same images, tropes, and themes which characterize low culture.A fine example of the separation of foreign and American horror can be launch in a comparison between Dario Argentos Suspiria and Sean S. Cunninghams Friday the 13th (1980)... ... equally gory and equally exploitative Suspiria is Friday the 13ths emphasis on physical violation. Suspiria also works toward creating reverence through physical torment, but it is set in what could be best termed a drea m world, whereas Friday is set in a more realistic (to American audiences at any rate), non-dreamlike setting. Therefore the physical violation in Friday is made more urgent, it hits closer to home, than much of the surreal kill in Argentos piece. In watch Suspiria the audience is permitted to know that the filmmakers know that all they are doing is playing a head game, while in Friday the 13th the audience is stuck in their chairs watching killing after killing occur without benefit of a psychological explanation. There is a lack of what Williams terms aesthetic distance...viewers feel too directly, too viscerally, manipulated by the text.