Dirty, Filthy Horror

So I came across a German trailer for THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE (1976) sneaking around YouTube and it got stuck in my head. The trailer is so dark, damaged, scratched up and weathered that it feels like an unscalable wall of gloom. I've never seen the film look shabbier and I've never seen it look as intriguingly sinister or lurid either. Maybe I'm experiencing a rubber band effect from being exposed to too much slick high definition lately, but it got me thinking about the movies I enjoy that gather strength by the fact that they revel in their own grunged-out grittiness.

PSYCHO (1960)

PSYCHO may seem like a starkly handsome film now but when you compare it to HITCHCOCK's earlier flashier flicks, it's obviously a deliberate step away from artifice and glamour. Marion Crane stumbles into a world that is rotting and falling apart and HITCH's emphasis on keeping it candidly real went so far as to showcase the first flushing toilet seen in American film. PSYCHO is nothing if not about the blemishes and stains that can't be scrubbed away; not even in the shower.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)

Some folks might assume NOTLD's shabby chic aesthetic is due to its age but if you consider the fact that it was released the same year as ROSEMARY'S BABY, you get a better idea of just how scrappy and low brow this production is. The film's non-existent budget surely influenced the end result, but director ROMERO's blunt news footage approach turned the minus of poverty into an integral plus. NOTLD's public domain status insures that a dingy looking copy is never more than a Google search away.

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974)

Remaster it, put it on DVD, smack it with a Blu-ray high definition stick, hire a zillion cherubs to polish it with Jesus' tears, it doesn't matter. TEXAS CHAINSAW will always look like it's been dragged through the mud since the beginning of time and that's why I love it. No need for blood, the ultimate horror here is derived from committing the unspoken American sin of looking under the carpet where the trash has been swept.

SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT (1974)

Here's another example of a limited budget being an asset. SNBN is dark, cold and grey throughout and it utilizes its authentically well-worn locations to their creepy fullest, but it is the film's cracked and crusty sepia toned flashback sequences that really chill the bone.

CATHY'S CURSE (1977)

I may have just created a portal to hell by including CATHYS CURSE and PSYCHO on the same list and I'm fine with that. CATHY'S CURSE's heap of garbage, ratty demeanor is not an artistic choice but the result of brain damaged filmmakers and the reality that nobody would want to remaster the film due to the process involving having to watch it. I stand convinced that every repulsive rust and avocado hue from the seventies dived into this celluloid cesspool to die. That said, one of my favorite aspects of this abomination, besides its doctrine of non-stop nonsense, is the fact that its base fugliness is heightened by its shredded, war torn ill kept state. What a Mess-terpiece!

SCREAMS OF A WINTER NIGHT (1979)

I've never seen a copy of this movie that doesn't look like hell and I don't think I want to. Huge chunks of it are completely indecipherable but that's part of what makes it work for me. SOAWN goes beyond delivering nicked and damaged visuals; it offers a wave of crunchy crumbling sound too!

DEAD AND BURIED (1980)

Here's an underrated movie with no shortage of atmosphere. D&B has several shockingly gruesome set pieces but for me there's one ragged insert that shadows over the others. In it, one the main characters is revealed to be not quite what they seem via a battered and dingy amateur home film, the texture of which contrasts with everything else we've seen.

NIGHTMARE (1980)

Finally available on DVD, I was initially disappointed when I threw NIGHTMARE's disc in my player and noted the extensive scratches and damage that it still retains. My chagrin dissipated quickly when I realized that NIGHTMARE's sleaze trash, grind house nature was in fact perfectly framed and amplified by the scourge of visual imperfections.

CEMETERY OF TERROR (1985)

I have to include this recent discovery. One of the great joys of watching COT is basking in its ramshackle mangled mahogany state.

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999)

How ironic that when Hollywood jumped at the chance to capitalize on BLAIR's success with a sequel that the first thing they jettisoned was the original's coarse and crude threadbare look. C'mon, the film's ace in the hole for igniting imaginations was its unrefined, vague as the shroud of Turin visuals.

THE ROB ZOMBIE OEUVRE

From the kaleidoscopic channel surfing static strewn barrage of HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES to the acrid dusty rust heaps of THE DEVIL'S REJECTS to the swirling melted Jolly Rancher bag of his HALLOWEEN re-duo, ZOMBIE's visuals are never not rug burn raw and bursting with imperfect unkempt energy.

THE END

Hey, so that was an eclectic (sloppy) assemblage of films wasn't it? I almost included SE7EN(1995) and PLANET TERROR (2007) but decided that rather than earning the holes in their jeans, they bought them pre-weathered at designer stores. Maybe I should have separated the films by those that were scruffy on purpose, those that were ratty due to budget and those that were torn up due to not being well preserved but I didn't. I mostly just wanted to talk about the wondrous effect that the marred, sullied, untidy image has on me when I watch a horror film and what can I say? I like things a little messy. It's a matter of taste.