The five film fans Alexandra Knief, Iris Hetscher, André Fesser, Marc Hagedorn and Michael Brandt remember in a very personal way how they learned to be scary.
“The Ring”: A film that gives you goosebumps
I have always been fascinated by spooky materials. While other girls listened intently to horse stories, I couldn’t get myself to go to sleep without an episode of “The Little Vampire” or a “Goosebumps” book. Not much has changed. It’s just that the materials have become scarier over the years. It’s usually the first horror films you watch as a teenager that burn themselves into your immature brain and decide whether you end up on the side of a horror fan or a scaredy-cat. There were films (“Haunted Hill,” “Gacy”) that almost made me a member of the latter group.
But then the finest psychological horror came to the cinema with “The Ring” (2002/03, remake of the Japanese original from 1998), which hit exactly the nerve of my 16-year-old self: Nerve-wracking mental cinema instead of bloodshed, that was my genre! After the unexpected death of her niece, a journalist comes across a disturbing videotape, plays it and receives a call saying that she will die in seven days. She begins researching to put an end to the curse of this video.
This plot brings the horror straight into the living room. After the sighting, none of my friends wanted to answer the phone. The image of creepy Samara climbing out of the television with her soaking wet, long black hair covering her face has quickly become an iconic scene. If you don’t know the film, you should definitely watch it. Alternative tips for newcomers to the field of psychological horror: “Hide and Seek” (2005), “Room 1408” (2007), “The Fog” (2007) or “10 Cloverfield Lane” (2016), says Alexandra Knief.
“The Birds”: This is how you stage horror
Melanie Daniels sits down on the bench, lights a cigarette, and keeps looking over at the school. There, children sing a song with what feels like a thousand verses. Daniels is impatient; the children have to be brought to safety! What she doesn’t see: More and more crows gather on the climbing frame behind her back until they form a black wall. Only the viewer knows this until, yes, until the moment Daniels turns around.
Alfred Hitchcock staged this moment when horror takes hold of Melanie Daniels so perfectly with clever editing that I still have goosebumps running down my spine today. “The Birds”, filmed in 1963, was one of the first so-called scary films that I was allowed to watch on the ARD night program. Back in the 1980s, when there were only three television programs that sometimes showed films that played with the uncanny. Also unforgettable is the Saturday late-night program series with science fiction gems, including 50s B-movie classics like “Tarantula”.
Since then I have been a fan of this film genre, not only the so-called creature films, but also all aliens, vampires, werewolves, zombies, the body horror of David Cronenberg and, and, and. Of course there is a lot of gimmicky junk, but the better horror films tell the depths of the human psyche in a very decided and parable way. Or in dystopias they show how thin the veneer of civilization is when, in societies in a state of emergency (virus outbreak!), all value and norm structures are destroyed and the law of the strongest applies. And that’s scarier than any giant spider, says Iris Hetscher.
Awakening at the “Dance of the Devils”
When you’re up to your neck in the swamp of puberty, you try out a lot of things. Even 13 or 14 year olds want to come across as tough, and that’s no different today than it was decades ago. Back then, we secretly snacked on the bitter spirits in Father’s bar – even if they didn’t taste good. We broke off the filters when smoking – because real men smoked without them. And during our parents’ short vacation over the weekend, we stayed at home (“To the Harz? Oh, I don’t feel like it”) and we indulged in scary video nights – with lasting consequences.
While the four of us friends were still getting along with “Nightmare” and “Poltergeist” on this film Saturday in the eighties, one of us – “from an acquaintance in the village” – had also brought the cassette with “Dance of the Devils”. The film is considered iconic, probably also because the sometimes graphic depictions of violence sparked a year-long debate about the protection of minors soon after its release in 1981.
As aspiring men in our living room, we of course stood above it, bravely endured the almost hour and a half of horror and supposedly smiled away the horror in a cool manner. In fact, that evening was an awakening experience that not only marked the beginning but also the end of my horror film career. To this day I ask myself who would come up with something like that, I still don’t like to be frightened and prefer to switch over when “It” or “The Cuddly Toy Cemetery” are on TV. From today’s perspective, I would probably have been better off going to the Harz back then. Although: It can be pretty scary there too. Especially if you have to go with your parents, says André Fesser.
Dirk and the chainsaw
According to our calculations, we would need six films to have material for the whole night. Our plan: watch films from eight in the evening to eight in the morning, without interruption. One would say Bingen today. And since we were four boys of puberty age, it had to be something forbidden from the video store. Only two genres were possible. We chose horror.
Werner was the video store we trusted. Werner looked a bit like Wolfgang Petry, only with straight hair. Because we were regulars, Werner used to give us films that everyone wanted to rent back then. “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Indiana Jones” — things like that. But “Dawn of the Dead,” which we just called “Zombies in the Department Store,” “Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Halloween: Night of Horrors,” or “Friday the 13th, Parts 1 and 2,” he would become us, regular customers No matter what, regular customers, never give it away.
Not us, but certainly Dirk. Dirk always hung out with Werner in the store. Dirk knew us and above all: Dirk was over 18. Maybe he would… He would. Dirk delivered as ordered – and one more cassette. What could possibly be in the case without the cover? “I just say: chainsaw,” whispered Dirk. Really now? “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”? Really now! The film had the highest seal of approval we could imagine: it was on the Index. It was forbidden and its effect was radical. Stirring. Shocking.
Psychologically, I no longer want to interpret our behavior back then today. I just want to say something else to Dirk: The five marks that you took from us for your services were invested sustainably. This night of horror films taught us to be afraid, says Marc Hagedorn
“Alien” brought the monster turn
Scary under the blanket, with a flashlight and a book: The lamp was a yellow-black monster that, despite having three monocells, gave up its funky ghost after what felt like half an hour. The book was “The Three ??? and The Whispering Mummy by Robert Arthur. Pure horror that only books can achieve, because the brain then does a frighteningly good job.
In my childhood and youth, imagination had a clear advantage over films. Especially when it comes to monsters, because back then film monsters were rather dumb monsters whose artificiality was apparent at first glance. Even back then, people could spread terror (see “Rosemary’s Baby” or “Night of the Living Dead”). But if you take a look at “Jaws” (1975) today, you’ll get an idea of what I mean.
Until 1979. The year of the monster turning point. Swiss artist HR Giger’s alien design for Ridley Scott’s film of the same name – actually a waste product from a failed Dune film adaptation – taught cinemagoers the fear. And with an age rating of 16 and over. We, my brother and I, had film experience in this genre, which was mainly based on the leisurely programming of the public broadcasters. We were not prepared for the impact of “Alien.”
“Alien – The eerie creature from a strange world” (what a nonsensical addition to the title) was fundamentally different: alive, life-threatening and, above all, believable. The threat in the shadow of the spaceship became a threat between the rows of seats in the cinema and afterwards at home too. That was also new, says Michael Brandt.
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