The Criteria: Horror Stripped of Humour
David Antrobus Posted on Friday, December 20, 2013 at 6:45PM 
So, thinking more about the criteria of these films. In order to reduce the near endless possibilities, I immediately excluded any horror movies that leaned too heavily on humour. Not because I believe humour is inappropriate in horror films—in fact, I've often said there's a direct kinship between the two emotions, laughter and terror, both of them allied in the release of tension, both so reliant on mood and timing, and both at heart so utterly serious—but because humour by its nature will leach away some of the more disturbing elements I'm attempting to privilege here.
Think of it like this: the horror/humour/jump scare alliance is akin to the funhouse at the carnival, and there's nothing wrong with that if that's your goal at the time, in the moment. Everyone loves the carny. But the movies I'm trying to find a common thread for here belong in the killing field, the charnel house, the autopsy room, the psych ward, the torture chamber, the impromptu pit dug by a human freak—real places breeding with infection and immersed in dread. I want disquiet, distress, despair, wretchedness, the bleak certainty of approaching desolation. Horror, in other words. Unadorned, pure, essential horror. Yet somehow artful or honest, at least. Even beautiful on occasion. Certainly something that stays with you, that you worry at, and turn over in your mind like some arcane puzzle.
Sadly, the no-humour criteria immediately eliminates some of my favourites in the genre, including "the original Evil Dead films; the incredible, insane Reanimator; zombie parodies as tenuously related as Return of the Living Dead and Shaun of the Dead; and the stone-cold classic, An American Werewolf in London," as I put it in my inaugural Facebook post on this (albeit without the more grammatically pleasing semicolons). And many more besides.
Anyway, let's get started. I'll post around four capsules at a time, beginning at number 40, and try to include clips and images as I go. Feel free to comment if you stumble on any of this in your travels through the brackish backwaters of the interwebs, but it's okay if you don't, as I'm doing this primarily for myself, to freeze in time a very personal, even idiosyncratic sensibility I don't expect a single other human to share, quite honestly.
Reader Comments (2)
It has occurred to me that the semicolons is often more horror show than grammatically pleasing. Alas, we cannot make the winky face without it. ;-)
LOL. Vonnegut hated the semicolon, and even came across as a near-homophobe in his loathing, calling it the "transvestite hermaphrodite" of punctuation. Woah, Kurt, that's a negative? Honestly, I don't get it. There are far more problematic areas of English than the fairly simple semicolon. Look at the example above. Then imagine it without semicolons; it's a mishmash of commas and convoluted clauses with little shape or form before the semicolon rushes in like a slightly awkward gangsta and saves its ass. I suspect most people (and yeah, I'm including one of my heroes, here, Mr. Vonnegut) who have extremely negative reactions to this useful element of punctuation, simply don't know how to use it. Ooh, challops! ;)