Seeing Horror With a Crowd
By Polly Frost – August 12, 2008
Recently I’ve been on a DVD horror-watching binge. I love renting from Netflix, or buying horror straight-to-DVDs off the internet. It’s great to indulge in an evening of Mario Bava, or watch the Grindhouse edition of “Cannibal Holocaust,” or revisit a Hitchcock film like “The Birds.”
It’s wonderful as well to see new horror movies that aren’t confined by the ratings board for theatrical releases, along with micro-budget horror films, like the ones that Geno McGahee recently wrote about in Scared Stiff.
At the same time, it’s reminded me how much I miss watching horror movies with a crowd. And it’s got me thinking about how there’s a real difference between watching horror by yourself and watching it with an audience of strangers.
It’s so different it makes me wonder what my response would be to some films if I was seeing them with a crowd of people. It makes me wonder if my responses are as tuned-in to the actual films as they might be.
I’m such a horror nut and I’ve seen so many films that my own responses can be a bit jaded. Being with an audience can bring me back to the basics of horror -- shock, fear, the release of laughter -- which I need.
Of course there’s a difference between watching everything privately and with a crowd. Yet I wonder if horror may be a special case.
If you’re with a group of people their fears can accelerate your own, or you can respond to the energy you’re picking up from them. If they jump out of their seats or make sarcastic remarks to the screen, that becomes part of your experience. You’re also not in control of the film. You can’t fast forward or rewind.
An example: the end of David Fincher’s “Se7en.” When I saw that film with a crowd, the ending made people gasp. I found my own reactions heightened by others. Another example is David Cronenberg’s “Scanners” which I first saw with a crowd. People in the theater were yelling and screaming “I’m a scanner!” It was wild. It definitely contributed to Cronenberg’s film!
When I saw “The Blair Witch Project” it was at home, with my husband. Neither of us could understand what the fuss had been about. I wonder what it would have been like to see it with an audience the first time.
I’m not saying that seeing a horror movie with an audience completely changes my own feeling about it -- it doesn’t. But in the case of “The Blair Witch Project” I would have had the fun of comparing my own responses to those of the audience. And who knows?
I’m a huge fan of Takashi Miike’s “Audition” and Chan-wook Park's “Old Boy,” which I’ve only seen on DVD. They’re both deeply unsettling films, sublimely creepy and terrifying. What would seeing “Audition” in a crowd be like? I would be fascinated to see how couples responded to “Audition” both during the movie and how they were with each other in the lobby afterwards!
I’m lucky to have seen some of the best ‘70’s horror movies when they were released. It was great to be caught up in the craze around “The Exorcist.” It was fascinating to see the anger a lot of women had towards Brian dePalma’s “Dressed to Kill.” And fun to be among the audience jumping out of their seats at the end of “Carrie.” I had equally great experiences watching revivals of older horror classics with audiences. I saw “Psycho” with an audience decades after it had originally been released. The audience knew what to expect, yet they still responded to the famous shower scene by jumping and gasping.
A lot of the power of ‘70’s movies came from the fact that the people around you in the theater looked like the people onscreen. Movies like “I Spit on Your Grave,” or “Last House on the Left” had actors in them who looked like the people sitting next to you. That dimension of horror film-going doesn’t exist  when you’re renting from Netflix. I’m not saying that I want to watch horror at the mall. No thanks! Today’s mall theaters are so heavily policed and still very badly managed where cell phones and loud talking are concerned. They're ridiculously over-lit and the films are so badly projected that they’re far from the ideal public venue to see horror.
And there's a different unruliness to the audiences at the mall than the rowdy horror audience who were reacting to "Scanners." The "Scanners" audience was really into the film and were acting it out. But really, the mall is just the right place for the PG-13 horror crap movies that Hollywood is currently churning out.
But the really great horror movies reflect the tensions and fears of our times, and they express our collective anxieties.
And that’s what’s great about so many horror filmmakers going straight to DVD with their cutting edge movies -- they’re bypassing Hollywood and the ratings restrictions of mall theaters.
I’m grateful for DVDs. I’ll keep renting from Netflix and buying DVDs off the internet.
I’m also someone who’s co-created and co-produced a sci fi webseries, “The Fold.” I’m creatively exhilarated by the possibilities of internet entertainment. At the same time, I’d love it if people could also see “The Fold” in a movie theater.
Film Festivals are great -- God bless them! But that’s usually a special crowd, whereas a regular theater attracts a wide range of people, so you get a much more varied, and I believe truer audience response to a horror film.
So I’m encouraged when I read about independent movie houses springing up again, like The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin. And I’m hoping that more smart entrepreneurs will create cool venues where audiences can gather and watch today’s straight-to-DVD horror films.
Copyright Polly Frost 2008
Polly Frost’s collection of horror and sci fi stories, "Deep Inside," was published by Tor in 2007. She's the co-writer/producer of "The Fold" webseries, along with Ray Sawhill and Matt Lambert (who also directed it). Polly thanks Geno and the Scared Stiff gang for giving her this opportunity to write on horror!
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