Open today’s movie listings, and you’ll find as many as eight horror-fantasy flicks on screens about town. It’s a glut.
And talking about horror trends can be an exercise in microtrending.
Within the serial-killer spree, you’ll find the torture exploitation “Saw” franchise. “Saw VI” opened Friday.
Within the undead realms of zombies and vampires are quasi-comedies like the enjoyable “Zombieland” and “Cirque du Freak: Vampire’s Assistant.”
Coming soon to multiplexes everywhere is “2012,” Roland Emmerich’s apocalypse flick about the end of the world as we know it, long ago and precisely predicted by the Mayans.
And there is the ongoing (insert sigh here) “reboot” phenomenon in which classics and pretenders are remade — pften, it seems, because improved special effects make for even better gore: from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” to “The Hills Have Eyes” to Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” and “Halloween II.” (The former was just voted worst horror by the folks at Moviefone.)
The remake of “The Stepfather” is now in theaters. Upcoming ventures include “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” due in April.
One thing for certain, these films (along with chronic sequel-itis) offer indisputable evidence that greed has become the most enduring trend when it comes to horror.
“Horror can be the smartest of genres and one of the laziest,” says Denver Film Society programming manager Keith Garcia.
He should know. Four years ago, the genre aficionado launched the Watching Hour program within the Starz Denver Film Festival.
With so much of horror seeming like a long night of movies that just won’t die, it’s good to mark the unusual.
For instance, it’s a wonder Oren Peli’s hauntingly effective “Paranormal Activity” is rattling the box office. Reportedly made for $11,000, the no-budget indie (distributed by Paramount) is nearing the $37 million mark after a month in theaters, half of which was spent in midnight slots.
“Paranormal Activity” actually has cinematic ambition, even if it’s roughly hewn. Certainly the discerning folk at the Telluride Film Festival thought so. In September, they screened the chiller about a likable young couple trying to prove or disprove there’s a spirit in their home.
It’s smart, deliberate filmmaking in which tension, fright and the current conversation about “reality” shows are engaged with a persistent aesthetic.
During the day, skeptical Micah and spooked Katie debate the presence of a spirit in their home. At night, Micah sets the camera in their bedroom. You may find yourself intently scanning every inch of the screen for a sign.
” ‘Paranormal Activity’ does something people have been dying for. It puts you in a situation. There are all these shows on cable that take cameras into insane asylums or haunted castles. The big letdown is, nothing ever happens,” says the film society’s Garcia. “The simple movement of a bedsheet has you going, ‘Holy crap. I’ve never seen a sheet move.’ “
The Watching Hour series will celebrate its fifth anniversary during the 32nd Starz Film Festival, Nov. 12-22. Films include: “The Revenant,” a horror/comedy about the undead that manages to avoid both zombies and vampires; the politically slanted “Zombies of Mass Destruction”; and “Best Worst Movie,” a documentary about the cult status of “Troll 2” (which the festival will also screen).
But before that event gets underway, the film society is bringing back the operatically dark classic, “Suspiria.”
Directed by Italian fright master Dario Argento (co-written with Daria Nicolodi), the 1977 film relates the story of American dancer Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper, fresh from starring in Brian De Palma’s “Phantom of the Paradise”) who travels to Germany to study ballet.
Things are eerie from the start — at least to audiences. Suzy’s initially a wide-eyed innocent, but turns out to have surprising backbone.
The wind gusts. Argento’s sound design, along with the bizarro score by the group The Goblins, do their unnerving jobs.
A woman dashes from the doorway of the school, mumbling about we-don’t- know-what. But we fear she is doomed. A voice on the intercom refuses Suzy admittance. We’d shout, “Run away!” if only she could hear us. She can’t. She doesn’t.
The movie’s trailer tease is great (and silly): “The only thing more terrifying than the last 12 minutes of this film,” a voice intones, “are the first 92.” And audiences new to this Technicolor extravaganza are likely to find it strange and kitschy. One of the last films shot in the candy-color process, “Suspiria” is garish and lovely, arcanely acted and willfully baroque.
“Argento put the gorgeous in gore,” the FilmCenter’s Garcia says. “He took stalking and murder into the realm of painting. It’s a fascinating piece of art to look at. You’re looking at it just as much as you’re experiencing it.”
Do both the weekend of Nov. 6 and 7.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com. Also on blogs.denverpostcom/madmoviegoer
