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

I got a chance to watch a screening of this with the director followed by a Q & A session. It actually starts out well. It breaks into the major time periods of the 20th century and posits that the social issues of the time helped craft their most notable horror films. Paranoia and the threat of nuclear war in the 50s led to "Invasion of the Body Snacthers" and "Them!" The loosening of social mores helped drive the slasher films of the 70s and 80s.

It's when this movie gets to the modern day that it stumbles. Face it, to 2000s have been a TERRIBLE time for American horror. The biggest characteristic of this decade has been not original films, but remakes of either past classics or more inventive foreign films. "Nightmares" somewhat acknowledges this, but by saying that since we face many of the same social problems as we did in decades past, THAT is the reason we've turned to remakes. Yeah, I know. LAME.

I would have much better things to say about the movie if it had acknowledged that the quality of the genre has flagged from time to time, and we're currently in a slump. Such a lost opportunity.

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!

When it comes to film-making, horror flicks have carved out quite a nice little existence for themselves. This documentary does two things: it reflects back on the history of the horror movie, as well as gives some reasons as to why they have evolved over the years.

That first part, the reflection, is truly what carries "Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue". It is interesting to see the history of the genre, remembering all the terrifying (whether physically or emotionally) images that have branded themselves into our collective "film conscience".

However, the "discussion" parts of the documentary leave much to be desired. The approach here is very political (in one laughable segment, former President Ronald Reagan is compared to Freddy Krueger!) and really tries to understand why the "Monster Era" of the early 1900s gave way to the aliens of the 50s, the slashers of the 80s, or the psychological thrillers of the 90s, for instance. While I appreciated the effort, the reasoning just seemed a bit ridiculous at times, almost as if the panel of guests were reaching for conclusions where perhaps none in fact exist.

Overall, then, "Nightmares" is a great doc if all you care about is a history lesson on horror movies. If you want anything deeper, be prepared to take pretty much every comment with a grain of salt or that nagging feeling of "this is all just being trumped up to sell a genre".

"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.

Horror and sci-fi veteran Lance Henriksen narrates this look at the history of the American horror film, examining the earliest monster movies of the silent era up to the scariest modern-day masterpieces. Highlights include interviews with genre masters Roger Corman, Joe Dante, John Carpenter and George A. Romero, plus clips from classic films like The Exorcist, Night of the Living Dead and Rosemary's Baby.

I have seen my share of horror documentaries, I have read my share of interviews and interviewed my share of people in the horror industry. I have met most of the people in this documentary personally. So, my thought on this film going in was: this is going to be fun and a bit of a refresher for things I already know, a good thing to kick back and watch lazily. Nothing new to be learned here!

Well, that may not have been completely true. While the film covered a lot of the same ground as things I was familiar with: the politics, the culture, how films of the 1950s reflected nuclear fears... the documentary had some new angles, too. Who thought we would see a horror documentary that brings in "Easy Rider" and the James Bond films? I never thought so.

As I said, there is much talk of politics, particularly Reagan. Vietnam comes in, as does the Great Depression and the Cold War to a point. But the 1980s dominate, from John Carpenter's "They Live" to "American Psycho". There is even an argument made (which I find very dubious) that the 80s were a decade of excess, and this is in part why there is such an excess of blood in "Evil Dead 2". I doubt Sam Raimi would agree.

Larry Cohen says early on, "If a horror film is cutting off people's thumbs and gouging your eyes out, I guess that's a certain of horror. But it's not the kind of horror film that interests me." I liked this distinction, because horror seems to be heading in the direction where more films are just violence without any fun, suspense or subtle message. And that is just cheap. Horror films may not win Oscars, but they still range from bad to good, and the best are more than just torture.

The documentary also touched on numerous many overlooked films (such as "Atomic War Bride"), some that ought to have been overlooked ("Uncle Sam") and some lesser-known modern ones such as "The Devil's Backbone". The focus was on American films, so Hammer is not here, nor are the current foreign films of Japan. No Italian giallo. I think Vincent Price received far too little screen time, but overall the film covered just about every American film you could name that affected the history of horror in some way.