The movie "M" is usually categorized as a drama-thriller and not an outright horror film, and honestly i'd have to agree overall with that. After watching the film, I couldn't honestly point to anything int he movie itself that was scary or really enough to be "creepy" in any way. Even the scenes in the beginning where you couldn't see the murderer weren't really scary or suspenseful in any meaningful way.
The movie I chose to watch this week , "Aliens" I feels fall into 2 different horror genres. It would I feel classify as Action-horror as well as Science fiction horror. Its got all the run and gun/suspenseful action of action horror as well as the unnatural, creepy monster type creatures that would put it into the sci-fi horror genre.
In the movie "M", there is alot of use of sound effects and overall ambient sounds to flesh out the scenes. One use of it springs out to me however, and thats how the murderer's whistling comes into play in several scenes. Even before he is actually shown to us, the sound of his whistling is there, signifying his presence and trying to invoke suspense.
Contrastingly to how sound was used in "M", there is also a particular effect they used in "Aliens" to much the same effect, though to a much scarier and emotion inducing end, and that would be the sound of his alien itself as it is int he shadows near someone, even though it isn't outright shown to us. This is done to great effect as dramatic buildup throughout the film.
The supposed "evil and "good" in Aliens is fairly easy to see throughout, with only a few main overarching themes overall. the aliens themselves are always portrayed as the evil and never as anyhting else, though there is a short part of the film where a "good" person turns to evil. the concept of good int he film is fairly light, as it applies to pretty much all the characters except for the one mentioned before and overall makes the movie a struggle for survival against a terrible threat.
"I couldn't honestly point to anything int the movie itself that was scary or really enough to be "creepy" in any way."
ReplyDeleteI'd have to respectfully disagree with you on your point about the film M not having any elements of creepyness. I think that these themes may just be a little more sublte or just have to take the time to look at it from a different perspective.
What is the first thing when you think of a child killer?
I think pedo
what are the tools of this person?
Id say candy, balloons, bracelets. ect
how does he engage with the victim?
by tricking her into thinking that she is safe with an adult even though that is not the case.
What Im getting at is the introduction of symbolism in film to represent a larger story. There is nothing inherently weird or bad about balloons, or even one person giving another person a balloon. All great stuff!!
But when we are aware that one of the people is a child killer then we start getting worried.
Im kind of rambling and not really getting anywhere but M definitely has creepy and scary elements. You can see the fear and sadness in the mother when she realized that her daughter is not home. Maybe not scary to us modern youngn but to a parent or adult, you never want to see this kind of thing happen in real life. definitely scary.. because it happens in real life