Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film

source: Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film

Eh, you could do worse than the Nightmares in Red, White and Blue documentary. After a great opening, I thought I was headed toward an informative, inventive and exciting doc on horror movies in the U.S. (Which by the way, isn't all state-side…but still…) Unfortunately, it got boring and provided information that kids that grew up in my era (or before) already knew. Little was provided and they jumped all over the place in the horror genre and skipped large chunks while just barely mentioning them. (Very little attention was given to huge leaps in the horror staples: Scream and The Blair Witch Project – which both, like 'em or hate 'em, they're enormously significant in the past few decades of scary cinema.) It's only 96 minutes, so I would recommend just a Saturday afternoon killing-time horror documentary.

Can you believe that even today (56 years later) Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" still continues to have a substantial impact on the general direction of contemporary, American, horror movies? Well, it does! And, with that in mind - Is it any wonder that this particular genre of film has become the stalest and most predictably trite movie category of them all? According to all of the horror-movie directors, story-writers and historians who offered up their opinions in their fright-flick documentary - It was completely unanimous by all that Psycho was, indeed, the turning point. In the decades to follow, Psycho single-handedly set the inevitable direction that horror movies would head. And, of course, in order to continue to compete with such a significant milestone as Psycho, horror-movie scenarios quickly accelerated into fast-pace mode and became a helluva lot messier and horrendously more sadistic in those years that followed Hitchcock's unforgettable slasher classic. Yet, as is clearly evident today, it has been proved virtually impossible to fully satisfy and quench America's seemingly insatiable thirst for buckets of blood, and geysers of gore, and horrific stories that escalate into a non-stop barrage of pure, x-rated ultra-violence. 2 things that quickly lost this documentary some serious points were - (1) All of those who offered up their opinions on the subject of horror movies placed a ludicrous amount of emphasis on directly connecting up these films with the socio-political mood (especially since 1950) that was clearly present in American society (at any given time in their nation's turbulent history). (2) Way too much screen-time was given over to focusing in on director John Carpenter's half-baked opinions. As well, far too many film clips from his movies were spotlighted in this documentary. Also movies adapted from Stephen King novels were given too much attention, too. P.S. - In order to make a point, I thought it was really pushing things a little too far when a particular scene from Disney's animated, 1940, classic Pinocchio was included in this film as yet another example of a horrific movie-moment worth discussing..... Spare me!

"Nightmares" is as much of a social and political history lesson as it is a documentary of the origins of Horror films. I was taken back at how extensively and intelligently this film covered my favorite genre of film. There is a constant link made between the different subcategories of horror that have emerged over the years and the different social and political ties that drive them. "Nightmares" ended up being far more philosophical in its approach to the reasons why our society craves horror and violence on film. This is the closest I've ever seen to a "Ken Burns" history lesson on Horror Movies. I not only loved it, I learned something.

"Nightmares in Red, White and Blue" is a chronological march from the earliest horror movies to today. It begins in the thirties with movies such as "Dracula" (1931), "Frankenstein" (1931), and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1931) and takes the viewer up to current day movies (2009) such as the "Saw" franchise, "Hostel" (2006) The commentators are some of the horror genre heavyweights. There was John Carpenter, George A. Romero, Darren Lynn Bousman, Larry Cohen, Joe Dante, Tom McLoughlin, Brain Yuzma, and Tony Timpone. They cover monsters, animals, serial killers, demons, slashers, aliens and more. They don't get to much into the paranormal scary films. They mention classics like "The Exorcist," "Poltergeist," and "The Amityville Horror," but don't mention "Paranormal Activity," "The Ring," or "The Grudge." All of it is commentary about the era and times in which the movies were made with something about a deeper meaning of the movie itself, so don't expect to see how the movies are made. It's a cool documentary for horror buffs. Free on IMDbTV.

The documentary manages to present some very interesting opinions regarding the evolution of American horror, and while I did think it lacked a bit of comparison regarding the objectives of cinema as a whole, it does present some very interesting takes on what the horror movies try to express through time and how they evolved as audiences evolved.

Something that drives me nuts is when people say horror isn't political. It's the most political genre there is and one of the only safe places to explore deep, hard hitting social issues without feeling like you're being hit over the head with a message. Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue sets out to explore why people love horror and why it moves them so much by talking to many of America's most celebrated horror filmmakers. It goes through each decade and explains why certain types of horror were big during these time periods and does so in a thoughtful, probing, and entertaining way.

This is a terrific review of the horror genre in films. Lance Henrickson narrates. John Carpenter and numerous other exceptional horror film directors reflect on this from the silent film era to date (2009). They leave out a few films like "Terminator" (1984) and "A Clockwork Orange" (1971), however they really go in depth to the socio-economic-pathologic aspects of so many films. A must see documentary.

Nightmares in Red, White and Blue is a documentary, narrated by the great Lance Henriksen, about the evolution of the horror genre. We see clips of horror films from the beginning of film, like the silent version of The Phantom of The Opera, to the modern day films like Saw. This documentary uses American history and politics to compare what's on screen to what was occurring in real life. It's interesting to see how current events reflected in film, but some of the talking heads take things a little too far. One guy compares Ronald Reagan to Freddy Krueger. As someone who isn't on the left side of things more often than not, I can deal with the viewpoints of others, but some of the things said in this documentary just don't cut it for me. I enjoy seeing the clips from classics like "The Leopard Man", a film I admit I've never heard of, and the more modern titles, but I just don't like mixing politics with entertainment. If you don't like mixing the two, this movie isn't for you either.

This begins is quite possibly the best documentary ever. It goes through the silent era all the way into the modern era and it highlights all the films that changed the genre. From beginning with the monster being Soldiers from WWI who lost limbs,to Lon Chaney, to the iconic Universal monsters. This highlights the films to the Giant monster era (1950's) to the beginning of the slasher genre. Really interesting, only if they went more behind the classics of how they made them, the behind the scenes. There is also several nice directors who know the genre best, the entire ensemble includes: Wes Craven, John Carpenter, Rob Zombie because he know horror, George A. Romero, and Guillermo Del Torro, along others. It really talks about why the horror genre is the biggest and the most important in the film industry. Its all interesting until the late 1980's (1987-1989 :( boring years) and after. This is still one of my favorite documentaries ever.