Horror films 1980-1984 - Revisited

Oly · Post by **Oly** » Fri Nov 06, 2009 1:32 pm

Is anyone in the mood to talk about the movies from that golden period of horror?

I am about to watch "Just before dawn" from 1981, so soon I will say more about it here and about "Happy birthday to me", also.

But... It would be great to talk about them from todays point of view, not a memory of them that we had.

streetrw · Post by **streetrw** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 7:07 pm

The original My Bloody Valentine, Happy Birthday To Me, some of the Friday The 13th sequels - unpretentious, simple, predictable. I don't tend to mind them at all and looking back they're better and more interesting than the remakes. Not all of them: I never really liked The Burning and I still find Maniac deeply unpleasant.

I sometimes feel that the modern slasher movies - most of which are remakes of 70s and 80s ones anyway - don't have the charm of the older ones. The last few years' worth have mainly been awful (Hatchet excepted); the new Prom Night was dull, the new Friday The 13th onnoxious, and the new Sorority Row was stupid. I'll admit I did enjoy the new Black Christmas but I believe I'm in a tiny minority.

I suppose once we'd seen behind the curtains with Scream it was difficult to watch I Know What You Did Last Summer the same way. When Scream came along and shown audiences the mechanics of the slasher film so we all knew how it worked, it spoiled the genre for us.

Oly · Post by **Oly** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 10:38 am

I agree with you about the "Hatchet", but I donot agree about the "Scream". That movie did not mean anything to me, considering the horror genre (have not seen 2 and 3), just because I could never put Wes Craven in director's chair. I have not seen a single movie from him that did, or, add something to horror movies. Yes, Freddy included. And to be honest, I did not needed him to open my eyes how slasher films works

. He is just someone who really wanted to show so much but does not have a talent to do it. (The good thing with him is that he never done Stephen King adaptation).

I do agree about the inocence of those moives from that 1980-1984 period and if you have not seen "The Burning" in many, many years, try it now and just pay attention to kids. I think that that group of kids were the only ones acting like a group of kids should act. But the balance was all wrong, horror elements did not went well with a teenage moments of the movie, but that group is beliveble more than any from that, or latter period. And I do agree that as a movie "The Burning" is really bad.

As soon as I see "Happy Birthday to me" again I will tell you more about it. My memory of it is very pleasent. I think the last time I saw it was in 1985.

streetrw · Post by **streetrw** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 12:12 pm

Oly wrote:I do agree about the inocence of those moives from that 1980-1984 period and if you have not seen "The Burning" in many, many years, try it now and just pay attention to kids. I think that that group of kids were the only ones acting like a group of kids should act. But the balance was all wrong, horror elements did not went well with a teenage moments of the movie, but that group is beliveble more than any from that, or latter period. And I do agree that as a movie "The Burning" is really bad.

The Burning was terrible and even the UK distributors said so. Somewhere I have a cutting from the UK trade paper Screen International about the court case when The Burning was prosecuted as a video nasty. The defence case was along the lines of "yes, it does contain three minutes of gory violence but it also contains eighty minutes of the most boring dialogue you will ever see".

One other aspect of the 80s slasher movies in general that I enjoy a lot is the music scores: more orchestral and less electronic although synthesizer scores were coming inaround that time. I sincerely hope that someone finds a way of releasing the original Friday The 13th scores (1-6) on CD as Harry Manfredini's work for shrieking violins is, I maintain, a more memorable and exciting musical signature than, for example, John Carpenter's moody Halloween theme. In the case of The Burning the music is by Rick Wakeman but it's not very good.

sherbetbizarre · Post by **sherbetbizarre** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 12:31 pm

Personally I think The Burning is better then most of the F13 sequels... if you have not seen it for a number of years, it might be worth giving it another go

Oly · Post by **Oly** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 2:28 pm

True, still, the main thing is how kids were playing among them and the natural feeling of the group. "Friday" TWO had nice group (for a movie of thet kind, that is) but Amy Steel from the first moment, when she got out of the car, did not belong to a group of others. I could see that she was THE DIFFERENT one, not a part of a group just to became A DIFFERENT one, while in "Burning" there was a team of kids and things started to just happend to them.

As for the chills, "Friday" One and TWO, and I am talking about the chills, just them, not logic or silly moments destened to be part of the genre, those two had them more and it was done better (do not forget, I am talking about slasher movies here) then "The Burning". While in "Friday" ONE and more in TWO action secvence looked like a flow of events (The first one had a problem with them near the end with a Bettsy, jump cuts were more visible then before, but she was older and sick at that time), while in "Burning" they seemed like they were done frame by frame, very crude, and badly edited, leaving the tension out. No matter what became of the killer from the "Friday" in latter years, the killer from the "Burning" was never that lucky, from direction point of view, to get such a free space of movements to get our intention as Jason did. And, I think that majority would agree, the scenes with a chill in them are more special (in any film, but mostly in slasher ones) when a last girl (we are talking about the 80's here) are in the same frame with a killer who does not know where she is, but we do, beacuse we can see them both - as with Jason in part TWO next to the car and Amy in front of the car. That kind of moments lacked in "The Burning" so that is why I can not compare them, only on those action merrits, those two movies. As for the latter ones... those were not the movies, those were comercial to sell a figure of Jason to an mass audience of that period.

That is why I always put a distinctive line between group of kids in a horror movies and action scenes in them. It is hard to hit a balance between those to, but, as I said it already, "The Burning" did not hit it right.

PS. And if someone is in the mood to talk about "Friday" I am here and willing