2009-09-15 - The New Horror Handbook

The New Horror Handbook:An in-depth discussion with the book's author, A.S. Berman, about the last 15 years of horror films, including Eli Roth, The Passion of the Christ, and the Saw franchise.

In my teens, I'd had a subscription to Fangoria, dug Freddy and Jason, and all the rest of it. But over the years, I'd really gotten bored with vampires and werewolves and cartoon killers, and never managed to care about zombies in the slightest. Ring had really opened my eyes, and Rue Morgue, with its features about the likes of Takashi Miike and Nacho Cerda and all the other "fringe" directors, showed me how much the genre had matured. From that point on, I collected every issue of Rue Morgue I could, haunted the video store for interesting-looking scare flicks, and got more and more interested in the possibilities of this genre. And being the bookish type, I also waited for somebody to publish a book about what was happening with the modern horror movie.

And waited, and waited. And all that continued to hit Amazon and bookstore shelves were essay collections, dissections of the 80s slashers, and appreciations of Romero and Carpenter, and occasionally Cronenberg. There seemed to be this glass ceiling that prevented authors from discussing the movies that I was really into. And if I read one more horror movie book that began with Tod Browning's Dracula or Edison's Frankenstein, I knew that I, too, would be adding to the body count.

In 2008, I was finishing up my first book, 30 Years of British Television, and decided to pitch the idea for The New Horror Handbook to my publisher, BearManor Media. Thankfully, BearManor head Ben Ohmart is as crazy about horror movies as I am, and gave me the green light.

Joshua Jabcuga: The New Horror Handbook takes an in-depth look at the horror film scene of the past fifteen years. While researching and writing the book, what did you learn that surprised you the most?

A.S. Berman: Wow, good question. A few things, actually.

First, I usually consider myself fairly observant, but the whole segment of the horror community that despises Eli Roth caught me completely off guard. I knew that Hostel and its sequel had been controversial, but geez. It seemed, and still seems, a violent response that is pretty disproportionate to the movies being protested. For the most part, this isn't the Gloria Steinem crowd who object to on-screen violence against women which, whatever your thoughts on the subject, do address some pretty serious issues. No, these are people who have no problem with the extremes of The Devil's Rejects and Cannibal Holocaust, they just hate Roth's guts. This was probably the hardest thing to discuss with Roth for the Handbook chapter about his work. Though I've never really been able to get to the bottom of this controversy, I think what it comes down to is Roth just not being creepy enough. What you see is what you get with him. He's a fun-loving guy who is making a living doing what he loves to do. At first he was heralded as "one of us" – a horror fan who made good with his first feature. Now I think we're seeing a little bit of jealousy.

Probably the thing that really surprised me the most was the fact that, when I sat down to tie all of these chapters together, there really is a progression that you can follow to chart the history of the modern horror movie. For those who haven't read the book, it traces the history of horror movies from roughly 1995 to 2009, with chapters that concentrate on several landmark directors and creative teams. Throughout that time period, you can see how world events influenced the evolution of horror movies, and how those movies have influenced one another.

Lastly, I needed to define what exactly the "New Horror" is. I didn't want that simply to mean newer flicks as opposed to the 1980s and earlier. As a horror fan, I felt in my gut that there was something different about these movies, and it wasn't just the amount of blood and guts. After all, 1970s Italian movies still trump just about anything we see today. Once I started to dissect modern movies, I was surprised to find that you really can define some basic criteria that they share. In the book, I suggest that any movie that is of the "New Horror" contains at least one of these elements:

1. Aesthetic appeal. No matter how vicious the on-screen carnage, even its most disturbing scenes are rendered in a stunning, and unexpectedly appealing, way. The French sensation Inside is a good recent example of that.

2. An underlying message. And no, "stay the hell out of the woods" does not count. Rather, the movie uses an extreme style or story to underscore issues that affect a great many of us today.

3. Hidden depths. The film's multilayered approach to its story and/or execution rewards repeat viewings with a greater understanding of the tale and its message.

Joshua Jabcuga: Do you feel as if the torture porn genre (including films like Saw and Hostel) is the result of 9/11, filmmakers pushing boundaries as a form of rebelling against censorship (regardless of the merits of the actual film), or something else entirely?

A.S. Berman: Your timing is impeccable on this one, Josh. Last month, the British Board of Film Classification banned the sale and distribution of Japanese director Koji Shiraishi's Grotesque. It's almost as if critics have been exaggerating the extent of the violence in movies such as Saw and Hostel for so long, they unwittingly brought into being what is, essentially, one of the first modern movies to actually live up to the phrase "torture porn." A doctor kidnaps a couple, straps them to two tables, and proceeds to eviscerate them for 73 minutes. Of course we've had Fred Vogel's August Underground series, and years before that, Japan's infamous Guinea Pig faux-snuff flicks, but none of these have screened at your local multiplex, unless you live near an extremely cool multiplex. Saw and Hostel have, meaning mainstream film audiences have gone in expecting something safe and cheesy, and have proceeded to have their worlds shattered.

You ask if I think 9/11 influenced this whole torture porn trend, and I think it probably did. As I detail in the introduction to The New Horror Handbook, I was working at USA Today on 9/11 -- our building was buzzed by the plane that hit the Pentagon. In the weeks that followed, while we were reporting on it all, we wondered aloud if anybody would ever go to violent movies again. In hindsight, I think what happened is that extreme films came to the fore for the very same reason they always have -- on-screen cruelty is a time-honored way of working through one's own pain. The word we're looking for, I think, is "catharsis."

When I was writing the torture porn section of the book, the movie that kept coming to mind wasn't Saw or Hostel or any of the rest, it was Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. In fact, the article that originally gave us the phrase "torture porn" cites that movie, too. There's a reason that Christianity dwells so heavily on the imagery and description of Christ's agonies on the cross -- he is taking the world's suffering on his own shoulders, theoretically lessening the suffering of the faithful in the process. On-screen horror has always followed a similar psychology. Watch this guy get ripped apart and forget for the moment about your own piddling problems.

Joshua Jabcuga: I'm not a fan of the torture porn genre, although I love Hostel and its sequel. I think they're exceptional. Those were nasty but there's no denying the talent behind them, namely Eli Roth. The two films are great bookends to one another, almost like Kill Bill Vol.1 and Vol. 2. Why do you think Hostel 2 underperformed at the box office, yet the Sawfilms, vastly inferior films in my opinion, continue to draw?

A.S. Berman: Right there you illustrate the chief problem with the whole "torture porn" label -- torture porn movies are those that I don't like. Roger Ebert loathes them, but gushed over the original Last House on the Left. Horror has always been a tricky beast.

But yes, like the Hostel movies or not, you have to admit that Roth has an amazing eye for film. In The New Horror Handbook, he explained a great deal about his upbringing, and how his parents frequently took him to museums. Look at Hostel Part II and you can see the influences of Hogarth and the other great painters who stuck with him.

Roth attributes Hostel Part II's relatively poor showing to bit torrents and bootlegs that came out just prior to its release, and international censors also certainly chipped away at sales. All of these things doubtless played a part. Personally, I think that the entire Hostel idea is a hard sell for many people. It's not a series without a sense of humor -- at least the first one -- but it's really grisly going that you may like or dislike, but it's not going to be most people's idea of a fun time. The second installment especially is one of those flicks that makes you hate life a little more and sends you on a desperate quest to pet a puppy.

Saw, on the other hand, is a surprisingly "safe" series, and as such, has a wider potential audience. There's plenty of screaming and blood and semi-inventive kills, sure, but it's more akin to a funhouse ride than the down and dirty slaughter of Hostel. It also lacks Hostel's more nihilistic qualities, and hinges on one or two good ideas. It reminds me a lot of the 70s flicks like The Abominable Dr. Phibes – gruesome but good fun.

Saw II and III to me have been the highlights so far, and that, I think, is squarely down to director Darren Bousman. When I spoke with him for the Handbook, I was surprised to find that he had quite a bit in common with Eli Roth -- both are two young guys just happy to be doing what they love. You also can't dismiss the fact that Saw is one of the few releases each Halloween that, like it or not, you know what you're getting. It's not a crappy remake, it's not another sad experiment in 3D, it's just Saw.

Joshua Jabcuga: The New Horror Handbook claims to have the most complete history of the Ginger Snaps series ever published. I was particularly fond of the first film, which was subversive, fun, scary, pitch-perfect all around. Is that film a testament that good material will find an audience, regardless of budget constraints?

A.S.Berman: I'm very proud of the Ginger Snaps chapter of the Handbook. It runs to more than 30 pages and concentrates mostly on the first movie, all based on interviews with writer Karen Walton, director John Fawcett, Katie Isabelle (Ginger), Emily Perkins (Brigitte), and production designer Todd Cherniawsky.

I gave Ginger Snaps this extended "case study" treatment because it is one of the few movies in recent years that not only uses horror to address real world issues, but also is one of the few movies that isn't mostly attributable to a single auteur personality; it's an ensemble achievement.

Ginger Snaps wasn't just up against budget constraints, its entire history was fraught with problems. Fawcett was haunted by the idea that the moment people saw the monster, they would be pulled out of this universe he was trying to create; Walton was tackling a genre that she was new to; Isabelle faced a physically grueling shoot; Perkins was dead on her feet from working around the clock; and Cherniawsky faced some nearly impossible time restrictions, particularly with the sequels. Finally, it was being made in the wake of the Columbine school shootings in the US and a similar event in Canada, which made finding a high school to shoot at, and casting, a nightmare.

Despite all of that, Ginger Snaps has become a much-loved cult classic, the basis of many a Ph.D. thesis, and continues to be talked about today. I think that's because it is the rarest of rare things -- a genuinely fun horror movie. It's Ginger Snaps, Dead Alive, and Shaun of the Dead. And then the picture gets a little hazy beyond that.

Joshua Jabcuga is the author of the comic-book series' SCARFACE: DEVIL IN DISGUISE, and THE MUMMY: THE RISE & FALL OF XANGO'S AX, both available from IDW Publishing. His online column, Squib Central, is available exclusively for Scott Tipton's www.Comics101.com.

"Josh Jabcuga can take the 26 measly letters of our crude alphabet and capture the bi-polar soul of all that is classically yet disturbingly American. Then, when his typewriter is left to cool, he can turn right around...completely ready to trounce any drunk punk that's got me backed into a corner." -- The Colonel J.D. Wilkes of The Legendary Shack*Shakers, appearing on the soundtrack to HBO's hit series, TRUE BLOOD.

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