The Foxy Film Fan

The Paranormal Activity  series has become infamous for its routine of constant jumpscares and its title has become somewhat synonymous with lazy popular horror which people will line up to see year after year on opening night. Admittedly, I am not a big fan of the series in terms of its convoluted storyline and difficulty with upholding simple historical accuracy in films and sequences which flash back to previous decades. However, bearing all of that in mind, I do firmly believe that Paranormal Activity (particularly the first film in the series) is extremely important to the horror genre as a whole, even with its glaring flaws and reliance on jumpscares, simply due to the fact that it made horror films something that were easily accessible and easy to create for those who initially believed they might not have the budget for it. Prior to Paranormal Activity  perhaps the most notable cheap horror movie was The Blair Witch Project  a film which might be unnerving ...

In a genre filled with quick cuts and constant jump scares, The Babadook offers the exact opposite. Focusing on a grieving widow who is struggling to raise her son alone after the loss of her husband, The Babadook  gives a more sincere and heartfelt look into the horror genre than most other films. In fact, one might even say that it offers love and empathy and is straining to comfort its viewers despite the horrific themes and occurrences which take place in its one hour and thirty-five minute runtime. Of course, that isn't to say that the film isn't absolutely terrifying in the instances that it needs to be, while viewers watch the son and mother duo screech and dodge attacks from the terrifying Babadook, a twitching eerie tophat wearing monster lifted from the pages of a horrific children's book which has decided to latch on to and torture this particular family. The film is decent, and I'll admit that the main reason I am so attached to it and adore it so muc...

Horror is a genre I hold near and dear to my heart. It's a genre of filmmaking which I believe is extraordinarily deep and explores parts of the human psyche which other genres of art refuse to delve into. Fear is one of humanity's most primitive and instinctual responses, and horror aims to tap into that sensation. However, keeping that in mind I cannot simply neglect to even acknowledge the ugly aspects of horror which people tend to think of when the genre is mentioned; the Hostels, Saw Vs, and Human Centipedes of the genre. After all, there's no smoke without fire, and if the hideous "torture porn" subgenre of horror can't be described as a raging dumpster fire, then I'm not sure what can be. I would, however, like to briefly condemn the use of phrases such as "torture porn." While there are quite a few movies in the horror genre which spend a sickening amount of time focusing on gore and torture, to compare them to pornography demean...

Blair Witch (2016) I've never been a particularly big fan of the original Blair Witch Project  and have always held the belief that the only reason the film is so notorious and well-known is because it was the first of the now-overdone found-footage horror subgenre. The original film was sluggishly paced, visually dizzying to watch, and plenty of footage of nothing in particular ever really happening. However, I'm still willing to give credit where credit is due and applaud The Blair Witch Project  for having the courage to try something which had never been done before. Unfortunately, the same credit cannot be given to the new release, Blair Witch , a film which is absolutely nothing but horror tropes. Blair Witch  at least makes an effort at giving itself ties to the original film through providing the premise that one of the protagonists is the brother of the protagonist from the first movie, though this notion is where all originality comes to an end. Admittedl...

The Conjuring 2 (2016) While horror is a fantastically deep genre, it seems as though recent horror releases of 2016 haven't been living up to the possibilities of the genre. Instead, these new movies have been opting for laziness, crafting plots around cliches, jump scares, gore, and cheap scares which offer nothing new or exciting to dwell on after the first viewing. The Conjuring 2 , however, goes directly against these old tropes and stereotypes and instead opts to be something deeper, it decides to build a unique and extraordinarily scary plot while carefully dodging the usual cliches that so many other horror movies continue to fall victim to. Its success and fantastic production value is particularly surprising when you consider the fact that it is not only a horror movie, but also a sequel, a combination which seems to doom the majority of films under the same umbrella for failure or a straight to DVD release. The phenomenal nature of The Conjuring 2  is hardly sur...

Ouija (2014) For many years jump scares have been used as a tactic in horror, and when well executed a perfectly used jump scare can be the most memorable and effective scene in a wonderfully frightening film. However, this is not usually the case. Rather than carefully executing jump scares with precision and intense scares, they're wasted on useless instances meant to make the audience flinch or feel momentarily startled rather than deeply frightened. For example, how many horror movies have you seen where a character looks at something ominous, only to be violently startled by a friend jumping up from behind them yelling "hello" as a sound added in post production rings in loudly to make the audience flinch? It's a tactic which wastes the audience's tension on release rather than providing further tension, and it's a tactic which makes for cheap horror movies which end up being more irritating than they are truly frightening. Take, for example, hor...

Green Room (2015) Starring the late great Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, and Patrick Stewart, Green Room  is a thriller which puts a unique spin on the genre and twists it into something which will surely keep audience members on the edge of their seats from beginning to end. The film is set around the premise of a punk rock band playing a show at a venue occupied by neo-Nazi skinheads where, after a cover of Dead Kennedy's "Nazi Punks F*** Off" as protest to their audience member's racist beliefs and the unintentional witness of something they weren't meant to see, the band finds themselves locked in the green room of the venue with a group of angry skinheads doing whatever they can to kill them - all with Patrick Stewart leading them. Admittedly, as someone with a deep love for punk music and the subculture as a whole, I am a bit biased and probably being a bit too easy on this film. It is deeply flawed, it has instances where characters make decisions whi...

Don't Breathe (2016) It's rare for psychological horror to be pulled off in a manner which leaves audience members on the edge of their seat from start to finish, but Don't Breathe  is a diamond in the rough that is the horror genre. As the title implies, the audience is left little to no room to catch their breath as the film throws its three protagonists into darker and darker situations as it progresses. The plot is simple; three young people in desperate need of money decide to rob an elderly man after hearing of his secret wealth, only to find themselves in a bigger mess than anyone might have anticipated. Many aspects of Don't Breathe  echo elements of classic slashers and thrillers from the late seventies and early eighties, but the more outdated tropes are updated in a way that makes the film feel haunting and realistic. The antagonist who torments our heroes (if "hero" is a word you would apply to the three protagonists, given the fact that t...

The Blair Witch Project (1999) Popularized by the film The Blair Witch Project  in 1999, the found footage genre is a sub-genre under the umbrella that is horror which is characterized by the fact that the film is meant to be regarded as though it is a documentation of true events, rather than a piece of art which can exist in its own universe. This small detail alone makes it clear that these found footage films are intended to survive based entirely on the novelty of this rather simple idea. Allow me to present my (not so) humble opinion: found footage films are horrible. For the most part, found footage is used as a lazy form of story telling. It allows a filmmaker to pay no attention to lighting, cinematography, or even sound design. Instead, for the most part, everything is excused based on the fact that the camera is being carried around by someone who probably isn't used to carrying one, leaving the footage so shaky it's sometimes hard to watch. This of course, ...

Creep (2014) Being the horror fan that I am, it wasn't long before I noticed constant recommendations on various film blogs and horror sites for a horror film called Creep. I was told that it was frightening, shocking, and in some cases even disturbing (which is a word I don't take lightly when applied to movies, if someone calls a film disturbing I expect to walk away disturbed and unable to sleep that night). Unfortunately, none of those words apply. Perhaps, somewhat interesting, or sort of unnerving in two scenes, might work better. Creep  is a found footage film (because horror doesn't have enough of those) in which a videographer named Aaron meets Josef, a man who posted a Craigslist ad explaining that he wanted someone to film him for a day so he might leave something for his unborn son, who will most likely never get to meet his father because of the brain tumor which is killing him. Then, Josef does creep y things throughout the course of the film, and jum...

Mia Farrow in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby Oftentimes I find that the horror genre is greatly misunderstood by those who know little about it outside of its gorier and less meaningful films (of which there are many, unfortunately). So often is the genre deemed disgusting and trashy, dismissed as snuff or even referred to with such vulgar phrases as torture porn , a phrase which is offensive in the fact that it connotes a sort of sick and sadistic pleasure the viewer must receive from watching a film such as Saw . Horror is a genre which I hold near and dear to my heart in all its forms, and it is because of this fact that I humbly offer a defense of the genre. Horror is a poignant and moving medium of film in the way that it communicates one of humanity's most primal emotions: fear. Not only that, but many horror films are layered in the way that they demonstrate the true deepest fears of the audience as being something tangible, typically a monster or enemy of so...