Sinister

Sinister is one of my favorite horror films because of its weirdness and its ability to give me the heebie-jeebies. The tapes used in this film to propel the plot are incredibly creepy and ominous. Each time I watch the film, I find myself shuddering at one particular tape: the family bound up, locked in their car, and set on fire. It is not necessarily the murder itself that creeps me out, but rather the music they chose to play in this scene. The voice of the man singing, paired with the static and white noise in the background sounds like the music someone would hear if trapped in hell or possessed by a demon. It is just such an unnatural sound; it feels as if it comes from another world. The abrupt transition from an upbeat melody to one as haunting and cringe-inducing as this instantly makes you feel very strange and uncomfortable during the entire scene.

There is something incredibly threatening about watching these families go from completely happy, care-free, and normal to being tied up, tortured, and murdered in a matter of seconds. Usually in a horror movie, the destruction of a happy family into death and chaos occurs at a slightly slower pace, rather than being shoved in your face off the get-go with no warning. Opting to speed up the process makes the film even more terrifying and strange because it deviates a bit from the norm. It is a bold statement to start off a movie with an entire family being hung to death from a tree. Having to watch them squirm and struggle until their last breath leaves their body and they simply hang there, motionless, is just exceptionally disturbing.

Even more chilling is when the hidden images of the demon Bughuul or Mr. Boogie first appear. The lack of knowledge about who or what the mysterious figure is puts you on edge throughout the film. The mouthless, dark face of Bughuul is quite menacing and his backstory, an eater of children’s souls, is very ominous. Children are seen as pure and innocent, so you wouldn’t think such a tiny human could bring so much pain and destruction upon others – especially their entire family. Even though children are common targets for evil, the approach this movie takes just seems so surreal. This surreal quality makes the movie standout from other horror movies concerning child murderers and contributes to the overall weird vibe the video tapes create.

Jeff Vandermeer's Borne

Everything about Borne is quite weird - the people, the monsters, the setting; they all possess qualities of the unfamiliar. Vandermeer wastes no time throwing you into the compelling, weird world he has created and it is a bit overwhelming at first. I found myself wondering what was happening in the story as Rachel, the narrator, starts going on about biotech, the Company, and Mord as if I was a part of her world and should know these things like the back of my hand.

The weirdest character in the story is Borne. Borne was so unique and malleable that I found it almost impossible to envision in my mind what Borne actually looked like. The wild descriptions of Borne's appearance, how he looked like a plant, then a slug, then had tentacles, multiple eyes, changing colors, differing sizes, shifting forms - really threw my imagination for a loop.

I decided to listen to an audiobook rather than read myself. I am glad I listened to the book because the vocalization of Borne's voice did a lot for his character as every time he spoke, there was a very child-like quality to his speech. The childishness of his voice was juxtaposed by so many of Borne's actions - especially the murdering of people around the city. No matter how much Borne grew or learned or did, he still somehow exuded this bizarre innocence akin to a human child.

Borne was at times a love-able, cute character and at other times a mysterious, creepy monster. His ability to change between these two completely different personas heightened his weirdness. Perhaps the strangest thing he ever did throughout the whole novel was taking the shape and voice of Wick, having a conversation with Rachel as his doppelgänger, and then doing the same thing to Wick but as Rachel instead. Its unnerving to think that every day conversations you have with someone you love and trust could have actually been had with some biotech creature pretending to be someone they’re not. Tender moments, angry conversations, sexual encounters – all of these experiences between Rachel and Wick were now being questioned as genuine once Borne was caught shapeshifting. It is not a surprise that this conflict is the straw that broke the camel’s back as Borne was ultimately kicked out.

During class, I made a connection between Borne and the movie Under the Skin. The final scene we watched where the man walked into the black abyss and came face to face with a previous victim reminded me of Borne’s thoughts on the people he killed. Borne never expels anything he consumes – he only gets bigger and stronger. Since Borne never sees their remains, he feels as if all the people and animals he has killed are simply stored inside of him, still living somehow in a strange alternate reality within his body. When the man disintegrated and only his skin was left, I imagined that’s what happened to people inside of Borne. Perhaps a fragment of themselves – whether it be a body part or their soul – really did stay in Borne for eternity, just like the husk of the man was trapped inside the murky blackness of the void. Nothing about that scene in the movie or the people trapped inside Borne makes any sense – and that is exactly why ‘weird’ is the perfect word to describe his character.

The Grudge

When I first watched The Grudge, I felt a bit confused by the way the story unfolded. Afterwards, I did a little bit of research on the characters and was able to put some pieces together. Although The Grudge started as a Japanese horror film, the 2004 version is a westernized version and I feel that the westernization of the movie may have had an effect on the plot.

I saw many similarities between The Grudge and western horror films. The major technique employed was jump scares. This movie loves jump scares – but they’re not really even ‘scary’. You can just tell by the cinematography that they were meant to be jump scares. Maybe I wasn’t perturbed by them because I am quite desensitized to horror films (horror is my favorite genre) but they were so ineffective that I found them comical at times, which took away from the immersion in the movie.

The major conflict in the movie is one that shows up in practically every horror movie about a person brutally murdered or abused before death: the anguish and suffering of the person stays with their soul upon death and creates an evil force in the location of their demise. The title of the movie, The Grudge, perfectly describes this phenomenon as the spirit of Kayako is incredibly vengeful and seeks to spread her curse onto anyone who comes across her place of death – like she is holding a grudge onto the human race for the actions her husband took against her.

One movie that comes to mind when I think about Kayako is The Amityville Horror. In this movie, there is a house that is cursed because the land the house sits on was used to enslave and torture Native Americans. As a result, the souls of the deceased and that of murderer who committed suicide on the land now haunt the grounds and bring death onto anyone who live there. A family moved into the house and after 28 days, the father was possessed by the demonic presence and unbeknownst to him, convinced to kill his entire family and then himself. Another family moves in and the cycle continues.

The cyclical nature of curses is a common theme in horror films and is the reason why I associated The Grudge with The Amityville Horror. I see the parallels between ghosts or spirits holding grudges on humanity for the terrible actions taken upon them till their death.