A Point of Little Hope

Personally this is one of my favorite genres of film as well as my favorite era. These three directors are not only icons of the horror genre, but extremely talented as far as Hollywood popular cinema is concerned. This article laid out these films plots and the social and political context in which they were made. By going against the normal, classic Hollywood conventions these filmmakers emulated the discontent that many hippies felt when their politics and ideas didn't pan out the way they had hoped. They also broke Hollywood ideals by intentionally making films they know would cause a physical reaction from their audience. In early cinema, films that were comedies or horror films were considered low culture due to the physical reactions people have towards them. People physically laugh during comedies and people scream or wither in fear during horror. These films did just that. They were also made for more then entertainment. During the late 1960s and early 1970s people were tired of being witness to violence. The war in Vietnam was raging, important political figures such as Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, students were being shot by police officers. All these things caused distrust with the government and those surrounding them. By showing this ultraviolence in their films, these directors did two things. One of which was was reactionary in a political sense to the earlier times of peace and love and how it fell apart. They make two statements, first to the government "Look at what you have done to us." The second to their fellow counter culturists "Look at what we have done to ourselves."

These reactionary films aren't first of their kind. Horror films have waves of popularity. These high waves coincidentally come at times of war or political turmoil. Take for instance the attacks of September 11th and the wars in Iraq and Afganistan that soon followed. In 2002, a group of directors; such as Eli Roth, Rob Zombie, Alexandre Aja, and James Wan, were coined the Splat Pack. They directed movies with excessive gore and violence. The narratives contain evil characters with no motive to kil, they just do. This motive, or lack thereof, is extremely similar to that of Romero's zombies, Hooper's Leatherface and his "retired" butcher family, as well as Craven's drug addicted serial killers. So why do people, in times of unfortunate world events, spend 15 bucks per person at the movie theater to be scared? Its easier to be scared by something you know isn't real than it is by something that is.

I also found a video of Eli Roth basically saying the same type of stuff on youtube. You might enjoy it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5nOl1oeP4Q