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Thebrainfollower wrote:

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Well Count here's where our definitions disagree. If you need monsters/supernatural elements to be a horror film than the 1934 Black Cat and 1935 Raven aren't horror films either.

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Actually, if you check back on my earlier post, I also mentioned that I consider it horror if the film focuses on creepy, macabre settings such as creepy old castles full of demented madmen. ;-D

So sure, I can consider those horror.

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To me it's a simple formula. Is this a film designed mostly to scare its audience? If the answer is yes then the film is a horror movie.

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By that definition, it can be argued that Towering Inferno is a horror movie! Using that criteria (categorized by intent), we could only have 4 different "genres". Comedy - makes us laugh. Drama - tells a story. Horror - scares us. Documentary - informs us. Everything would fit into those 4 categories.

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So Jaws, original Kong, Silence of the Lambs (that's an arguable one, some would say the movie is also there to make you think) are all horror movies more or less.

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I can understand King Kong being classified as horror. It's about a giant ape that does not exist. He's a "monster". Jaws is about a realistically sized great white shark that attacks swimmers - ie everyday events. It's got scares, but it's a drama or thriller at best. Silence of the Lambs...I never could understand how anyone could label that a horror movie. We should also then place Helter Skelter, 10 to Midnight, Jeffrey Dahmer (the various movies made about him), and other crime dramas in the horror section.

It just never made any sense to me that someone could see a movie about FBI agents tracking a serial killer and label it "horror". It makes about as much sense as labelling Dawn of the Dead a "crime drama" since it features SWAT cops fighting bandit bikers!

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As far as Doctor Who goes, not ALL of it's run was pseudo horror but some of it's most successful ones are - Season 5 with its litany of monsters and seasons 12-14 where Hammer's style is copied successfully.

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I stopped watching it after Peter Davison's run, but it was always sci-fi to that point. Daleks, Cybermen, that weird "robot" that shot javelins out its hands and moved so fast it disappeared and re-appeared, etc. Tons of robots, aliens, scientific gadgets (Tardises and whatnot). Time travel, ray guns, reversing the polarity of the neutron flow...it's all sci-fi. Any "monsters" that appeared were really just alien life forms. I can't even see a way to twist the definition around and not still come out with Dr. Who being sci-fi.

The beauty of my categorization system is that every film fits easily into one category or another without having to ponder or debate it. Like I said, I cannot think of a single movie that would be difficult to place, given the system I use.

Although I'm sure someone will try to stump me! ;-D

Oh, as for my filing system, I have a strange one. No surprise there! ;-D

I file DVDs by genre. Horror goes on the top couple of shelves (I have far more horror than any other genre). Starting on the left are my all-time nostalgic favorites (ie a place of honor at the very beginning of the shelf)...Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural, Phantasm, Abominable Dr. Phibes, Count Yorga Vampire/Return of Count Yorga, The Dark*, the upcoming House of Dark Shadows will go there, etc. After that (going left to right), I then split them into sub-genres and then by year. So under "horror" and immediately after my "favorites" sub-section is a sub-section for vampire movies - Nosferatu, Dracula (1931), Blacula, Salem's Lot, etc.

Then come the ghoul/zombie films (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, etc). There's a section for devil stuff (Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, Devil's Rain, Sentinel, etc).

The same pattern occurs in the sci-fi section, with nostalgic favorites starting the section, then followed by sub-genre or otherwise by year if there is no sub-genre (I don't have a sub-genre for sci-fi as I do for horror, ie vampires, ghosts, Satanists, etc).

And so on and so forth for comedy, drama, etc.

Genre>Nostalgic Favorites>Sub genre>Release Year

The tv section is complex. First come the favorite horror box sets such as Night Gallery and Dark Shadows (perhaps my two most nostalgic favorite tv shows of all time). Then come the other horror tv shows, any sci-fi tv shows, the comedy tv shows section, the tv movies section (Helter Skelter, Sybil, etc). Cartoons get their own section, and within the cartoon section there is a special "holiday section" (Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Mad Monster Party, etc).

I've only really ever run into one problem categorizing something, and that is Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments. I don't have a "religious" section (the "devil" section being the closest thing to a religious themed section!), and it's not really a drama nor is it a documentary. So I decided to place it under the tv section next to the "holiday" sub-section (Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Mad Monster Party, etc), since I've only ever experienced it as a tv movie and only on Easter (still watch it every Easter).

So overall the system works, although it makes shelf space a tad tricky when one sections runs just a DVD or two more than the shelf can hold. Argh!


* Yeah, I know, but I reserve the right to bend the rules! ;-)

Joe wrote:

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To each his own of course, but man, this just seems way too "precise". Does it really matter, when you come right down to it?

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Joe, I think you're missing the entire point. My system does not make it "too precise". If anything, it simplifies things. I have no need to endlessly debate to myself whether Alien is more horror or more sci-fi, or whether Silence of the Lambs belongs in the horror section or the cops/law/police section. It's self evident where each goes. It negates any need to complexify things by labelling things like "docu-drama", "fictional dramatization" and "psychological drama".

It's the same sitution with rock music. Classic rock, punk rock, acid rock, glam rock, hard rock, blah blah blah.

My point has always been that people way over-analyze things and make them overly complex. "Is Jaws horror and if so why?" No. It's an animal attack film since it has no monsters or supernatural element. Simple.

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How about THE EXORCIST? Horror film or not? To me, I can't see how anyone could NOT consider it a horror movie -- and yet, even William Friedkin said he didn't think it was horror! He called it a "psychological drama", I think.

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I'd say that it doesn't matter what either Friedkin or Blatty intended for that movie. It's horror. It deals with supernatural events and a monster. A demon (which we have no proof of its existence, hence a monster) possesses a little girl (supernatural event). And it's horrifying!

Freidkin gets into deep psychological analysis as to why he made the film, as does Blatty, but it's all irrelevant to me. I did not go see the Exorcist in order to make myself "think" about the existence of God and Satan. I went to see a well done, scary horror movie. It's not a psychological drama because a girl is truly possessed by a monster, a demon. Horror.

Like I said, people tend to over analyze things, I just make it simple. ;-)

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I don't believe I ever got your take on PSYCHO, Count? I think it's horror.

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I'd put it in the slasher flick genre. There are no monsters and no supernatural events, unless you decide that his mother was "possessing" Norman, but that's not supported by the film. He's just a crazy, obsessed killer. Although I would not be opposed to placing it in the horror section since it does focus on a creepy, macabre atmosphere of terror.

Hey! How did the brainfollower sneak that post in? :-)

You wrote:

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Yup those are the 4 categories. Everything else is just SUB categories as I see it.

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See, there's where I don't agree. Sci-fi is clearly its own genre. It can be comedy-oriented (Flash Gordon, 1980), it can be commentary in nature (Metropolis), it can be drama-oriented (Forbidden Planet) or horror-like (Alien). But what unites them all is the intense focus on science fiction. Robots, space ships, aliens, ray guns. Clearly, it stands out as a single unifying theme.

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As for the Who argument let me put it this way, it's a variety of other shows but one that always has sci-fi SETTINGS. It's not really science fiction though anymore than Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers or Star Wars are science fiction, a sub-category.

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I'd call all of those sci-fi, because they clearly deal with fictional science. Hence, sci-fi.

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And if the creepy castle of Black Cat counts how come the Creepy Aslyum of Lambs doesn't. The later is just as relevant to the film and arguably more atmospheric

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Do you mean Silence of the lambs? Not sure what you mean by "relevant". Relevant to what? If we're talking about Silence of the Lambs vs. Black Cat, the latter takes place almost entirely in a creepy, macarbe castle with creepy people which sets a horror tone. Silence of the Lambs is far different. Much of it takes place outdoors in the daytime. Or in the FBI offices. Sure, Dr. Lecter is creepy, and the final scene with the serial killer is tense, but it's definitely not a macabre, spooky, atmospheric focus. It's a crime drama. I can't even imagine comparing the two, they're like day and night!