Monday, September 23, 2013

Thrills, Chills, and Funhouse Reflections of Society


By Sam Watermeier

Like a surprising number of films this year, "Prisoners" is a work of dark magic — a spellbinding mystery that sucks viewers down a rabbit hole leading to snakes, mazes, and moral murk.

On the surface, it is a tale of two missing girls and the search to find them. Hugh Jackman's character is far more determined to find his daughter than Terence Howard's. Throughout the film, he butts heads with the detective assigned to the case (Jake Gyllenhaal) and eventually takes the law into his own hands.

As Jackman and Gyllenhaal's characters chase the wrong men and resort to violence in order to find answers, the film evokes the trials and tribulations of the post-9/11 Bush administration. When Jackman tortures his daughter's alleged abductor in a grimy abandoned house, you cannot help but recall the abusive atmosphere of the Abu Ghraib U.S. military prison in Iraq.

While the film takes place in a fairly realistic suburban setting, it occasionally feels surreal and otherworldly, such as when Gyllenhaal's character searches a suspect's house whose walls are lined with crude maze drawings and whose bedroom floor is covered with crates full of snakes.

In visualizing or stylizing the character's deviance, this scene reminds us how films can hold a funhouse mirror up to reality. Moviegoers are receiving an even stronger reminder of that from this year's slate of horror films.

Horror is arguably the most imaginatively therapeutic genre, as it holds a surreal mirror up to everyday fears and contemporary issues. 1982's "The Thing," for example, tapped into the fear of AIDS and our nation's warped view of the disease with its story of an infectious alien. And 1979's "Dawn of the Dead" addressed consumerism through its tale of zombies attacking a shopping mall.

This year, the found-footage horror anthology "V/H/S/2" reflected the eerie state of this Internet age in which viral videos blur the line between reality and fantasy. Through its story of a couple that stumbles upon a collection of gruesome video tapes, "V/H/S/2" also addresses our culture's collective morbid curiosity — a curiosity more prevalent in this age where we can find almost anything online.

"You're Next" explores socioeconomic tension with its story of masked murderers who invade a wealthy family's vacation house.

The haunted house thrillers, "The Conjuring" and "Insidious: Chapter 2," on the other hand, tackle more timeless, universal issues of family fragility.

This has been a thrilling year for all sorts of scary movies, and Halloween isn't even here yet! Keep an eye out for more fascinating thrillers, even though you may want to look away.

Although these films scare us, they are ultimately quite cathartic. As director Tobe Hooper ("The Texas Chainsaw Massacre") said, “We live in messed-up times and people are scared and angry. This form of cinema (horror) helps us get some of the poison out of us.”

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