What you metformin side effects weight gain consider a nightmare or a terrifying scenario varies from person to person, but there’s something naturally unsettling about scary, supernatural sequences that can end up sticking with you longer than any adrenaline rush from an action film. The feeling can be attributed to several things, one of which (probably the most important) is the fear of the unknown. Whether the story features a killer that can enter your dreams, abduction cases in Alaska, an outbreak of a zombie-transforming virus, or a demon fulfilling a gypsy’s curse, horror films tend to deal with elements of the unknown that, because we can’t relate to the events on screen and the logic behind them, inherently make us feel uneasy. I don’t know why an alien crash-landed in Antarctica and terrorized R.J. MacReady and his team of scientists, or how there’s a portal to “the other side” in Carol Anne’s closet, but it’s freaky as hell. Even when you take the supernatural out of the equation like with Silence of the Lambs, for instance, you’re left trying to understand the minds of serial killers, and for some of us that’s far more mysterious and scary than any ghost or monster. You may think that scary movies are stupid, cheesy, and unoriginal, but I disagree, because when an entry in the genre works well it creates an experience unlike any other in the film world.
One thing I have always loved about scary movies is that at the heart of the best that the genre has to offer there’s the premise of a cast of characters being thrown into an absolute nightmarish scenario. When I stack horror films against each other, the ones that stay with me, and, thus, more effectively impact me, are those that have people trapped with real monsters – themselves. The characters may be trapped in a cave, their dreams, in their small Alaskan town, or in space, but the horrors outside in the darkness are nothing compared to what the characters are capable of. Now, obviously, the fact that there’s a blood-thirty monster waiting outside the door pushes the story from a character-driven thriller into the realm of true horrors and nightmares.
Starting Oct. 1, the take148 writers will be highlighting 31 of our favorite horror movies from an array of sub-genres every day until Halloween. If you love the genre and haven’t seen some of the movies that we’re going to cover, then you’ll have a couple of new entrees on your Netflix queue. If you’re not a fan of scary movies, then I’d ask you to at least give the classics and the genre-definers another look.
I hope you enjoy, and just remember… it’s only a movie.
