In my horror class, I typically show 4 full-length films: Psycho, Jaws, The Shining, and Get Out. This spring, though, I’m thinking maybe I need to find a way to wedge the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers in. It just feels … really relevant.
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Based on nothing but feelings, I would bump out The Shining or Jaws. I would lean towards Shining, which is a great movie, but Jaws had more impact, starting the summer blockbuster.
Feels like something from the 90s could fit right in as well… I wanna say Cube or Event Horizon, but The Blair Witch Project is probably better suited to avoid gore
So Jaws is considered horror? Also Get Out seems more suspense/thriller but I suppose it’s all just semantics for movies that scare the **** out of me. Sounds like a fun class.
I'd consider it horror—there's a monster, the threat of death, & the lurking systemic evil represented by the mayor/capitalism. And the way characters have to confront their own pasts to defeat the evil seems in line with the genre. But it's Spielberg, so! Not pure horror maybe!
I wouldn’t worry about my opinion, I just know personally horror is my least favorite genre yet all those movies are great I just didn’t categorize them that way but they totally can be. I would say my much younger cousin watched Jaws and I got the sense he was bored so no idea how it translates
Interestingly, Mark Jancovich has written extensively on how suspense/thriller films were considered horror films by the studios that produced them, and the critics that reviewed them, throughout the 1940s. His book Horror: The Film Reader is an excellent collection of his essays.
Curious: What percentage of your students have typically never seen these films before you show them? I'm guessing Psycho has been seen the least, but genuinely curious how many people get to college now w/o having seen Jaws, The Shining.
Yeah, I think that movie is in the zeitgeist. On mastodon, there’s a #monsterdon group watch movie every Sunday, and that was one of the movies
In October. That’s when I most recently saw
It.
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https://reactormag.com/invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-all-alien-stories-are-human-stories/
In October. That’s when I most recently saw
It.
1) It's a really bad movie & made me miss the haunting perfection of the 1978 version.
2) Seems like Nicole Kidman really resonates w/ this plotline (& was also in the Stepford remake too).
3) OMG, is it timely. Yep