[ SECRET POST #4276 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4276 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 19 secrets from Secret Submission Post #612.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I've lived in a big city my entire life and it's just... not scary at all. If I were being chased by someone or something, I could just run three blocks to a busy street that always has plenty of traffic. There's a fire station about two minutes away and a police station a couple of minutes past that. The only way I could see horror working in an urban area would be something like Silent Hill or the Walking Dead.

[rosehiptea]

Also if you're in an urban area then either the ghost/monster/whatever has to attack the whole city or they have to explain why it isn't attacking the whole city. And you have to have a pretty big special effects budget to have it attack Los Angeles instead of a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.

[cbrachyrhynchos]

I think a lot of urban horror centers on issues of psychological isolation, since we all have heard of a little old lady died and was eaten by the cats, the weird guy in the apartment who just wasn't right after that thing we don't really talk about, or how that business downtown seems particularly shady and cult-like. It seems to come and go in waves. The Exorcist, Poltergeist, Rosemary's Baby, Candyman, and Susperia are all urban. There was an Asian wave with Dark Water, Ringu, and The Grudge. And then, the Saw movies. In between, I suppose you can do suburban horror: Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Christine.

I suspect there's a political dimension behind those shifts.

[rosehiptea]

Urban horror can be done well. (I don't watch that much horror, but I would add the original Japanese version of Pulse.) I just think it sometimes has to rely on different tropes and plot points, because you've got to explain why they didn't knock on the neighbor's door or why no one heard them screaming. (These can be explained, especially when it's something supernatural, but still, I think it's easier to make a horror movie in an old abandoned house in the woods.) What kind of political shift are you talking about though? That sounds interesting.

[cbrachyrhynchos]

I think there are ways around the "screaming" issue. Cities can be notorious for "not my problem," for example.

I think a lot of urban horror is based on the premise that cities are scary places filled with groups who will harm you or seduce you into evil. A lot of post-modern vampire movies are urban for example. The 70s urban horror trend existed with the 70s urban vigilante: Dirty Harry and Death Wish for example.

Suburban horror focuses on the idea that the "safety" of the suburbs is an illusion, and people tend to cover-up their problems rather than deal with them honestly.

I suspect rural horror may have some connection to fear of the dark sides of rural culture.

[(Anonymous)]

I think there are ways around the "screaming" issue. Cities can be notorious for "not my problem," for example.

So true. That's why the police suggests you scream "Fire!" and not "Help!". The latter gets ignored all the time, the former panics people into attention.

[(Anonymous)]

John Carpenter also did Prince of Darkness and They Live, both of which could be described (to a certain extent) as horrors of urban decay.

I mean, it would be a highly idiosyncratic description, but not an untrue one.