As previously mentioned, I was eagerly awaiting the fourth year of the After Dark Horrorfest, an annual festival showcasing eight independent horror films. I enjoyed it — a lot — as I expected. But I thought I would write this post, which elaborates on:
Horror movies are one of the most trope-drenched genres of art that exist. There is nothing inherently wrong about this — impressionist symphonic music is too, for instance — but one will sometimes watch an entire film for one key moment in which conventions are upended. And, of course, recognition requires that one is familiar with the conventions in the first place.
Horror films were an Immersion Project for me, and one that I stuck with after the year. I’m a huge fanboy now. But I think it would be funny to tabulate the occurrence of tropes in these films. There are probably both false positives and false negatives in the list, but I expect their occurrence is less than 10% — which we’ll find out if another fanboy critiques my list.
The films are:
D: Dread
H: Hidden
LM: Lake Mungo
KT: Kill Theory
TF: The Final
TG: The Graves
TR: The Reeds
Z: Zombies of Mass Destruction
So, eight films, all these tropes, and $100 later, will I go to next year’s festival? Hellz yeah.
I want to write longer reviews of these, but I’d like input on the reviews’ format. More inside.
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I’d like input as to whether the reviews belong in comments to this post, all in one big post, or as separate posts. Also, to what degree should they be specific and/or spoiler-y?
Separate posts, cut for spoilers.