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The All Things HORROR thread~!


J.T.

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Gotta question ... I'm writing this thing for my movie journal (shutupshutupshutup), and I know "Scream" is all meta, and I credit "Night of the Creeps" with being one of the earliest contemporary self-aware horror films, but does anything pre-date even NOTC? I'm going with "How to Make a Monster" (1958) as maybe the first self-aware, "meta" horror film.

If anyone knows of anything earlier, let me know.

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If we are using the barest bones definition of meta horror to be simply a serious film within a horror film then the earliest meta-horror film is probably King Kong (1933) since the premise of the film is a documentary filming gone horribly awry..

 

If we're refining the definition to include complete self awareness and / or parody, then yeah I would go with How To Make A Monster (1958) with The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) probably being the next film in line.

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Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein from 1948 is the earliest balls-out meta-parody of horror movies that I know of. A lot of the 1930s horror flicks have plenty of comedic bits and self-aware moments, the Dracula/Frankenstein/Wolfman movies started out not-entirely-serious and got increasingly goofy over time. Bride of Frankenstein was especially wacky.

And if we're talking Kong: despite its cheapness and being entirely lost in the shadow of its predecessor, Son of Kong kinda acts like a deconstruction of the first film, poking around the characters' motivations and asking why the hell they ever wanted to bother with Skull Island in the first place.

There were a bunch of horror-comedies too, in which the "horror" took a backseat to the comedy. Most of them, well, kinda sucked. Check out The Ghost Train if you want a guy who comes off like a fifth-rate Don Knotts wannabe trying to do a Harold Lloyd impersonation, dealing with "spooky" shit. James Whale's other horror film The Old Dark House is self-aware right down to its title, and is probably the best example of this subgroup.

Even back in the silent era, there was already an ironic sense of self-awareness in lots of movies. Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr is the best example I can think of (while also being a FUCKING HILARIOUS masterpierce that everyone should watch), but it was targeting mystery/whodunits rather than serious horror. Classics like Nosferatu had moments that HAD to be intended as comedy, like when Orlok/Dracula sees Mina's picture and gushes "What a lovely throat!". The sadly lost Lon Chaney/Tod Browning film London After Midnight stars the man of a thousand faces in a meta-role as a guy who is disguised as a fake vampire, which obviously traded in on the audience's awareness that Chaney was always in disguise no matter what role he was playing.

For REALLY old-school horror scholarship, there's a helpful blog called 1000 Misspent Hours (run by a guy who calls himself El Santo, just to further ingratiate himself with a DVDVR-type crowd). He mostly focuses on horror and exploitation flicks, and has writeups going all the way back to the late 1800s discussing some of the Melies short films. It's not a perfect blog, the "reviews" are more recaps and his taste is highly questionable at times, but it's a hell of a resource to study odd little corners of cinema that most people know nothing about.

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Not sure if "meta" is the right word, but Bride of Frankenstein is an amazing blend of horror, comedy, camp, and just balls out strangeness. There was really nothing like it before hand.

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Yeah, it's such a letdown from the original film, thrown together SO quickly, that you'd think it would be impossible to produce a decent sequel under those circumstances. (Except Toho almost-kinda-sorta did exactly that when they whipped out Godzilla Raids Again in record time after the first film's success.) But Son of Kong does at least provide a bit more thoughtful take on the ideas of the franchise; even if said thoughtfulness is probably because they couldn't afford all the lavish action setpieces of the first movie and doubled-down on talky dialogue scenes instead.

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The timeframe on Godzilla Raids Again was insane. I think 9 months from the release of the original film to the release of Raids. And they didn't consider a sequel until after the first one was a hit. It was like six months from green light to picture locked.

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Creators of Marble Hornets new project is up and running.

 

 

I have some binge watching to do.

 

Ran across the Night Mind channel yesterday which has a brilliant and thorough plot synopsis of Marble Hornets and even breaks the codes in the various totheark entries.  Highly recommend watching it if you are into the series or want the Cliff Notes version of what in the hell happened.

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Re: Clear Lakes 44

 

So I've watched the four videos so far as well as the To Whom It May Concern video that does a nice job of summing up clues and fan theories.  I'm curious to see how it goes.

 

Also I had such a feeling of dread/suspense watching those vids, like I knew something was going to happen at any moment.

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Yeah, so Clear Lakes 44 already has a lot going on beyond the entries.

http://forums.thac.tv/forum/main-forum/44/56855-clear-lakes-44-timeline-as-of-august-3rd-2015

 

I was enjoying the building weirdness even if I don't know where it's going yet. Confirmed in interviews that it *is* in the same timeline/universe as Marble Hornets which means that is Tim the character in Episode 4.

 

Also, has anyone checked out the THAC channel? Some of those videos are WEIRD.

 


 
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Not that I've seen so far.

Actually, right now the best October release blu-ray boxset I've seen is the Back to the Future one, which has all three movies, a bonus disc, and the complete animated series, packed in a flux capacitor replica box.

But I haven't seen any horror ones yet. NoES could use a better one than it has.

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However, The Exorcist blu boxset is down to 28.79 on Amazon and The Omen complete collection is just 18.34. Neither are slam awesome sets like F13 or Halloween got, but they are tempting.

Although there is a lot of bad in an Exorcist set. Christ, The Heretic is so fucking bad. Jingus can back this up.

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