zombettie - 20 February 2008 01:50 PM
Without sounding completely morose ... or maybe I can’t avoid that ... I just get this general feeling that a lot of these old school directors feel as though they have been put out to pasture or something .... Carpenter doesn’t seem to have the same sparkle ... and I wonder if the same holds true for Romero. The steady transgression of film in the wake of nu-pop horror has got to take its toll on the masters. It’s sad. I love Carpenter. I love Romero. The shift appears to be putting the damage on both.
That’s an interesting point. I remember seeing/hearing something with Stuart Gordon when he was talking about directing one of his Masters of Horror episodes. He said that the things that freak him out are getting old, losing control of your body, etc. I think that’s probably a common fear among many older directors - but it goes largely unexplored in horror films. I think they’re still catering to demos.
And I was reading recently that something like 40% of the women in Boston maternity wards are electing to have C-sections because they are afraid of the pain. Perhaps it is because I’m in prime child-bearing years (so my doctor reminds me), but I know a lot of my girlfriends are freaked out by pregnancy and the intense changes you experience. Again, relatively unexplored but certainly fodder for horror. Ever been in a delivery room? Yikes.
In the year of Juno, Knocked Up, and Waitress I am a little surprised that a horror counterpart hasn’t come along. Of course, I suspect the lack of exploration of such topics is probably more related to the fact that not many women write/direct horror films.
