I’m especially thinking of some bizzare foreign horror movies that didn’t make sense to me and I figure there’s gotta be some from my own (US) culture that just make 0 sense outside of the context of having been raised in this culture.
Any movie that relies on “The call is coming from inside the house” trope.
WTF is a landline?
While admittedly it did make sense to me although I’m not the target audience, Get Out comes to mind.
Train to Busan is generally a good movie, but one scene involving passenger infighting is very much a statement on the country’s class warfare; so it may not make much sense to people otherwise.
Invasion of the Bodysnatchers is inherently scary, but it carries an added meaning when you realize it was capitalizing on 1950s fears of communism.
Wasn’t The Thing as well?
I believe so!
Not exactly what you’re asking, but Cabin in the Woods is like a love letter to all horror movies. It drops references and homages left and right, making horror movie tropes actual plot points, including bizzare foreign horror movies that aren’t explained at all. The more you know about horror movies, folklore, and monster cinema, the more you will understand the movie.
If you haven’t seen it, go see it now. I won’t say anything else.
Have you seen Tucker & Dale vs Evil? It’s not quite the same but I think there’s probably a lot of overlap between people who enjoyed that movie and Cabin in the Woods.
Both are great movies, Cabin definitely is more of an “homage to the genre” while Tucker is a “comedy about the genre” but really good in its own right. Both still have a good horror theme to it but Cabin was more about touching all the tropes while still being a “standard horror”. Tucker and dale is just funny.
Hmm I really liked Tucker & Dale, might give Cabin in the Woods a shot
oh this one is a fav of mine but I was raised redneck so
Films about exorcism. Even if I have religious family members, my non-religious mind can’t comprehend the point about these films, no matter how hard I try.
I was once at my girlfriend’s parents house over Christmas. We stayed there for a few days. They had their own Christmas traditions, like most families. Some of them, they really thought they were the only family doing it, some of them more out there. One of them is watching that alien movie: encounters of the 3rd kind. At least i think it was that one. I knew what the movie was about, but i have never seen it, or at least not the whole movie.
They were SUPER into it, to me it was just an old movie. After the movie they talked about the movie, like they do every year. At some point i had to take the temperature a bit and was like: “but it’s just a movie… Not a documentary.” That is where i messed up, because they all thought that it’s a “real” movie.
The Exorcist works for me even in spite of my atheism. Ignoring the actual exorcism in it, the film is about a mother whose daughter is unwell, whose condition is truly mysterious, cannot be cured by conventional means, and is destroying the lives of both the mother and the daughter. Knowing your child is ill and not knowing how or if they’ll be cured is a form of horror that resonates with many and I feel so strongly sympathetic for the characters in the film.
I think of it as their version of Cosmic Horror.
The Enlightened Atheist Mind is simply too logical to understand this one specific trope 😔
I’ve watched a few Chinese horror films that have to do with Luck/Lucky things rr specific curses or hexes. While they can be spooky, they don’t hit me in the same way as something more native to my own cultural heritage does.
Which ones?
Not sure if it was Chinese, but I believe Incantation fits that bill. One of my top fave movies I saw this year, but noticed while looking for reviews afterwards that there was a huge uproar overseas by people who truly believed they were tricked into being cursed by the movie
Anything to do with vampires. So much of the lore is implied and you are expected to have some previous knowledge of the concept of a vampire.
Although this might have spread enough that pretty much the entire world has some context. I’m not really sure.
Anyone not from Europe or North America, did you understand vampires the first time you saw a film or series involving them?
It’s well known that RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles are a good defense against vampires, but I’ve never seen it in a movie
Given the amount of Castlevania games, I think it’s fair to say vampires are understood in Japan at least.
Can’t come in unless invited, don’t have a reflection, sensitive (or deathly allergic) to light, garlic, and holy water, these things are rarely explained.
and then other IP have thier own lore as to why vampires are that way. Oh most of it doesnt work on DRACULA, the ubervampire, which he can control victims telepathically. apparently it also works demons too to an extent(holy water).
or many series, dhampires are immune to the vulnerabilities that affect full vampires, making them stronger than them. Also some genre have them overcoming the sunlight weakness through various means; Magic or drugs.
at least in castlevania, vampires also posesses numerous other abilities, like turning into mist or bats to evade attack, or USE MAGIC themselves.
Even if you’re raised in a culture that has vampires, sometimes you still get caught out. I remember watching some vampire series pre-Buffy and the whole poppy seed thing left me totally flummoxed.
Poppy seed?
Not sure if this is what they’re talking about, but vampires are frequently depicted as having to stop and count large numbers of small things. So if you’re being chased by one you can throw out salt or grains of rice or seeds or whatever and they will have to stop and count it before they continue pursuing you. Or you can attack while they’re preoccupied too I guess. That’s where you get the count from Sesame Street.
Whoa, no way. THAT’S why he’s the Count? I thought it was a royalty/ bloodline thing.
In general, vampires existed to me as a commentary on colonialism, class, and the advantages to longevity. Vampires as “blood suckers of the poor”, to quote Popa Wu, who was quoting Louis Farrakhan.
I didn’t know the ‘stop and count objects’ element.
Question, though, as I think this through: would that not extend as an antisemitic trope?
(A half hour of reading later.)
TIL there is an antisemitic history to vampires.
“As rendered by Bram Stoker, the literary depiction of Count Dracula is deeply antisemitic, with roots in the long-standing blood libel against Jews and the antisemitic archetype of the wealth-hoarding degenerate.” [2]
“Today, the vampire remains one of cinema’s most popular horror villains, and the connections to prejudice are largely forgotten, or erased. They still lurk around the edges of the genre though, as generations of creators have either furtively invited them in or tried to put a stake through their heart.” [1]
“The symbolic link between Jews and blood through a history of blood libel and the depiction of Jews as alien and parasitic are seen the main themes that allowed the merging of the two image.” [3]
[1] Bloodsuckers: Vampires, Antisemitism And Nosferatu At 100
[2] The Antisemitic History of Vampires
[3] How Vampires Became Jewish
[4] Blood Libel: The Anti-Semitic Roots of Vampirism
I’ve never heared of that before. Thanks!
Yeah Dracula was scary even when he was just standing around talking with his mouth almost closed.
The vast majority of Japanese horror doesn’t seem to catch on outside of Japan. Sure, there’s a few exceptions. But by and large their folklore and culture is “foreign” enough that horror(a niche genre in and of itself) from Japan can seem well…unscary to someone say from America.
I think there’s at least two layers to horror.
There’s the universal something-in-the-dark-scary-noises layer of scary. And there’s the culturally specific that-something-is-definitely-a-vampire layer of scary.
The Ring was scary to me without me knowing anything about Japan.
Everyone can enjoy them, but the home team gets bonus content.
Sure but Ringu dealt with the horror in a unique way namely “who would you offer up to save yourself?”
And I don’t count the American Remake. It was shit.
counterpoint; hopping zombies.
I thought I understood Japanese horror. Ring, Dark Water, etc.
Then I watched Dead Sushi…
This wasn’t your question exactly, but here, a good horror movie for you:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8hpcx5
“Pikunikku” from 1996 is supposed to be pretty good too.
