This week's topic had a big focus on social commentary within horror. Specifically in regards to issues of race. I’m not an expert in this, and it’s a heavy topic, but I'm going to try my best to write about it. Film, but horror especially is a good outlet to talk about systemic issues. I think this is because film can help see issues from a new perspective. As a white person I can never know what the experience of being black is like. I’ll always have the perspective of a white male. Film can help to show us other perspectives by watching the film's world from another person's perspective. While this won’t give us the full picture it can be a good start.
Get Out was an extremely well crafted movie. It felt like there were so many little things that you could pick up on during rewatches. I love the way they subvert the trope of the police being a beacon of hope at the end of the movie. When you first see the cop car you feel the fear that it's all over. I know in the original ending it was planned to be a real police man, and Chris was going to be arrested. It was changed because Jordan Peele thought the movie was heavy enough, and wanted to give a happy ending.I think this was a good choice. I think the original ending is much heavier and more thematically appropriate, but I think it would be so shocking and heavy it would become the focus of discourse on the movie. People would be talking about the ending more than the rest of the movie. I think what makes the movie so unnerving is how accurately it depicts modern racism. Again I’m not an export on this, so I’m not going to go into too much depth. The movie doesn't depict racism in a very black and white way. It’s not the white people fully loving their race, and hating all others. The movie depicts white people as fetisizing the black experiences and thinking it's their right to appropriate it. One thing that shows this is how Jeremy uses a crusader's mask. Make this connection that the family views it almost as their divine right to do what they are doing.
Us was fantastic. It was probably the first movie that made me really feel scared while watching it. I think the part that truly made it scary is the fact that they took time to build up the family's relationship before the tethered started to come out. You truly care for the family and want them to make it out. It’s not like a slasher movie where the charters exist to be killed off. I think the movie also had a really good balance of comedy and horror. The jokes were all really funny and never took away from the tension of the movie. I saw the movie to be about class and how society and our luxuries are built on top of the suffrage of those less privileged. It then shows how fragile this system really is, because the lower class if they unify they could easily topple the current way of life. I think the idea of duality is so strong in the movie to show how our system can’t exist without a privileged class, and an oppressed class. Whatever that be the rich and poor, white people and people of color, or working class and the bourgeoisie.
I wasn’t that into Candyman. I love the way they twist the idea of a bloody Mary type urban legend. I think it had some interesting themes and a cool setting for a horror movie. I just never really got that into it. I just got a little board. It is a good concept, and I'm excited for the remake.