Love and Monsters, Part 1
Oct. 29th, 2019 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glitter_n_goreSince I had so much fun doing my Top 13 Scariest Episodes of Doctor Who countdown last year, I decided to do something similar with my favorite sub-genre of cinema: the Gothic movie. Big difference is this time I'm not opening it up to a poll. Nope, instead I'm going to talk about my personal favorites, and I'm counting down from 13 to 1.
Now, when I say "Gothic," I'm not always entirely sure how to verbalize what that means to me. I don't necessarily mean "horror," although the two often coincide. There's a certain interplay of darkness and romance, always underscored by style, that conveys "Gothic" without always adhering to the expected tropes. In other words, love and monsters. It's lavish atmosphere, a sense of opulence masking death and decay, and a creeping dread. What it means is atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere. And that's what all these films offer in the best, and most brutal, ways.
Ready? Let's do this!
13 - The Moth Diaries (2011)
This adaptation of Rachel Klein's epistolary novel of the same name is equal parts Dracula and Girl, Interrupted. Brought to life by the same writer/director team behind American Psycho, this is the story of the intense, sometimes suffocating, and often possessive nature of friendships between teenage girls. The atmosphere lies in the school itself, with secrets lurking beyond curved corridors or inside locked roomsl. Everyone in the school seems to have a story, and the stories are both terrible and fascinating at once. This movie is criminally overlooked, even with Lily Cole as the probably-a-vampire exchange student, Ernessa. There's also a lot of great meta-commentary in the literature class about why Gothic stories are important. Word to the wise: If your name is "Lucy," don't hang out with vampires. It will not end well for you.
12 - Rebecca (1940)
Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of Daphne DuMaurier's classic tale of romantic suspense. This is not the first Hitchcock movie I've seen, or even my favorite, but only because it occupies a difference space in my head than "Hitchcock movie." It's one of the more faithful literary adaptations out there, creating this miasmic fog around the nameless protagonist played by Joan Fontaine, and the more she searches for clues about her enigmatic predecessor, Mrs. de Winter, the more it seems that she's made a terrible mistake. One of the most memorable performances is that of Judith Anderson as the menacing housemaid, Mrs. Danvers:
11 - I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives In the House (2016)
The first film I saw by Oz Perkins, who is fast becoming one of my very favorite directors for his ability to build a film on atmosphere alone. Ruth Wilson's narration from the beyond the grave gives the house a haunted feel right from the start, and little by little, it pulls you under its spell. One of the things I noticed on the rewatch is the way the director uses negative space. Every frame is shot in such a way that it feels off. Not crooked, but showing just too much of a patch of empty wall, or a closed door, or the blank ceiling instead the characters and the action in the scene. The darkness inside the house is practically a character.
10 - Get Out (2017)
This was a classic right out of the gate. It starts in on the dread early, and keeps winding up the tension until, by the time the auction scene hits, you can barely breathe. The trailer and the subject matter make it slightly predictable, but let me state here that being "predictable" isn't necessarily a bad thing in a Gothic film. All these stories have a hint of the inevitable, and the audience is there to see what our protagonist is going to do once the monsters are out in the open. The blue blood wealth of the Armitage family, with their questionably furnished estate and their staff with faces like statues, works as both social commentary and classic horror trope at once. It's easy to forget that classic horror was often a commentary of some kind, calling into question the social ills of its day. Jordan Peele's first feature brings that back into focus to brilliant, chilling effect. The hypnosis scene with the tea, along with many other moments, became iconic almost overnight:
(Cross-posted torhoda_rants.)
Now, when I say "Gothic," I'm not always entirely sure how to verbalize what that means to me. I don't necessarily mean "horror," although the two often coincide. There's a certain interplay of darkness and romance, always underscored by style, that conveys "Gothic" without always adhering to the expected tropes. In other words, love and monsters. It's lavish atmosphere, a sense of opulence masking death and decay, and a creeping dread. What it means is atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere. And that's what all these films offer in the best, and most brutal, ways.
Ready? Let's do this!
13 - The Moth Diaries (2011)
This adaptation of Rachel Klein's epistolary novel of the same name is equal parts Dracula and Girl, Interrupted. Brought to life by the same writer/director team behind American Psycho, this is the story of the intense, sometimes suffocating, and often possessive nature of friendships between teenage girls. The atmosphere lies in the school itself, with secrets lurking beyond curved corridors or inside locked roomsl. Everyone in the school seems to have a story, and the stories are both terrible and fascinating at once. This movie is criminally overlooked, even with Lily Cole as the probably-a-vampire exchange student, Ernessa. There's also a lot of great meta-commentary in the literature class about why Gothic stories are important. Word to the wise: If your name is "Lucy," don't hang out with vampires. It will not end well for you.
12 - Rebecca (1940)
Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of Daphne DuMaurier's classic tale of romantic suspense. This is not the first Hitchcock movie I've seen, or even my favorite, but only because it occupies a difference space in my head than "Hitchcock movie." It's one of the more faithful literary adaptations out there, creating this miasmic fog around the nameless protagonist played by Joan Fontaine, and the more she searches for clues about her enigmatic predecessor, Mrs. de Winter, the more it seems that she's made a terrible mistake. One of the most memorable performances is that of Judith Anderson as the menacing housemaid, Mrs. Danvers:
11 - I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives In the House (2016)
The first film I saw by Oz Perkins, who is fast becoming one of my very favorite directors for his ability to build a film on atmosphere alone. Ruth Wilson's narration from the beyond the grave gives the house a haunted feel right from the start, and little by little, it pulls you under its spell. One of the things I noticed on the rewatch is the way the director uses negative space. Every frame is shot in such a way that it feels off. Not crooked, but showing just too much of a patch of empty wall, or a closed door, or the blank ceiling instead the characters and the action in the scene. The darkness inside the house is practically a character.
"I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix" (Watch on YouTube)
10 - Get Out (2017)
This was a classic right out of the gate. It starts in on the dread early, and keeps winding up the tension until, by the time the auction scene hits, you can barely breathe. The trailer and the subject matter make it slightly predictable, but let me state here that being "predictable" isn't necessarily a bad thing in a Gothic film. All these stories have a hint of the inevitable, and the audience is there to see what our protagonist is going to do once the monsters are out in the open. The blue blood wealth of the Armitage family, with their questionably furnished estate and their staff with faces like statues, works as both social commentary and classic horror trope at once. It's easy to forget that classic horror was often a commentary of some kind, calling into question the social ills of its day. Jordan Peele's first feature brings that back into focus to brilliant, chilling effect. The hypnosis scene with the tea, along with many other moments, became iconic almost overnight:
(Cross-posted to
rhoda_rants.)