Horror movies: You're doing it wrong, Hollywood

Aside from my shopping quest, I have another mission that's been far more difficult to satisfy.

I want a movie so scary it keeps me up at night.

Let me clarify, though. I want to be scared. Not disgusted, not disturbed - scared. Gore porn like 'Saw' and 'Hostel' don't appeal to me and while I liked 'Audition' and 'Battle Royale,' both were more psychotic and thought-provoking than out-and-out wet-your-pants frightening.

What makes this particular desire of mine so peculiar is that when I was teenager, I hated horror movies. I'd get up and leave the room when just the commercials would play because I was that scared. What changed my mind, I can't say. I do know that the first "horror" movie I saw (semi)willingly was 'The Blair Witch Project' but that was back in 1999. It's only been in the past two years that I've really begun actively seeking it out.

'Fatal Frame' has tainted me. I've never been a gamer and to this day I'm still not - but this series is, quite honestly, the last thing I remember screaming at. Jeff, Maryanne, Ryan and I used to spend a couple hours each Sunday night holed up in a dark room together taking turns on the controller. A few times it made me so anxious I had to walk out. The game envelopes you in a living horror movie and it does it so effectively that every time your "character" reacts, you do too.

I guess 'Fatal Frame' is what introduced me to asian horror but it wasn't until I watched 'The Ring' and then subsequently 'Ringu' that the differences dawned on me. While I consider 'The Ring' an effective remake (one of the few), there are so many things about the original 'Ringu' that, in comparison, work far better as genuinely terrifying horror devices. The sparse soundtrack and the tight and deliberate cinematography both work in its favor, winding the audience so tight that when something - anything - happens, you snap.

Never have I seen a better example of this than in the dinner scene from one of my all-time favorites, 'A Tale of Two Sisters':



The extended shots of Eun-joo looking to the cabinet, then walking over to it, then reaching for the door, then reaching for the hair-clip are, in more ways than one, breath-taking. The set-up is brilliant. Because of the foreshadowing that comes from the couple driving home, you know something is going to happen. And yet, when it does, you still jump.

At the moment I'm watching [REC], the Spanish movie on which the current US release 'Quarantine' is based. It's frustrating to find another non-US horror flick that accomplishes something we haven't managed in years - to actually be scary. In defense of Hollywood, I've heard good things about 'Quarantine' but almost all the reviewers who've seen both versions unanimously agree that [REC] is still a bigger punch in the gut.

Aside from 'The Ring' and possibly 'The Grudge' (which a lot of people seem to disagree with me on) I've yet to see a horror film remade in the states that comes close to its' predecessor. The JAlba version of 'The Eye' tanked (and rightfully so) and 'Pulse' was almost blasphemous in comparison to the suffocating loneliness of 'Kairo'. The remake of Shutter was a step above in terms of keeping a coherent storyline and using some of the best gimmicks from the original (the scene with the flash and the the photo flip-book, specifically) but it was so not scary that I honestly could've fallen asleep in the middle with no trouble.

Just yesterday I stumbled across praise for a little-known independent film that premiered at Slamdance this past January called 'Paranormal Activity'. A handy-cam film from the same vein as [REC] and 'The Blair Witch Project,' it centers around Katie and her boyfriend who believe they're being haunted. And every damn review seems to agree that it's worthy of all the accolades it's been given.

So how can you see this film?

You can't. Dreamworks has purchased the rights and rather than releasing the original movie to the public, they're going to remake it. True, they were successful with 'The Ring' but before you get your hopes up, let me remind you this is the same company behind 'The Uninvited' (AKA 'The American Tale Of Two Sisters' AKA 'The Reason I Started Drinking'). Dreamworks has put a padlock on any and all footage of the film - including the original trailer (as far as I can tell, the only place to see it is on slashfilm dot com's review and who knows how long that'll be up).

Hollywood has been screwing with the genuinely terrifying works of other countries for a couple years now. I don't have a lot of faith in anything other than the likely possibility that they will also eff up one of their own.