10/26: Terrified

10/26

Today's flick was the Argentinian horror film Terrified. This movie yields to a pretty provocative discussion, but not because it's a stellar masterpiece or exceedingly well made or anything. Actually, it's quite the opposite. When I finished this movie I was left in a weird place, asking myself: is this a good movie or not? I had a hard time articulating why I felt this way, so I went to Reddit, the resource for all wise information. Surprisingly, I found a thread that asked a question that perfectly contextualized how I felt about Terrified: if a horror movie is scary, does it make it good?

It should be pretty telling that I haven't yet discussed the plot of Terrified. Simple answer is it doesn't really have one. There's something about extradimensional demonic beings haunting three houses on a suburban city block that take different weird forms such as "dead zombie kid" and "naked Slenderman." Beyond that though, what the hell is going on? The movie doesn't really seem to care. Sure, there's the Psychic, the Skeptical Cop, the Arrogant Paranormal Researcher, etc, all the cliches you need; but aside from cliche and the barest bones of a plot, there's nothing happening here. In that sense, it's anything but a good movie. 

Then there's another sense: Terrifed can be legitimately terrifying (bud-um-tss). That's coming from a jaded horror fan who doesn't find anything to scare him anymore; there were scenes in here that genuinely freaked me out. Sure, there's cheap jump scares (take the final scene which is comically cliche), but there's enough subverting of genre mechanics that I found myself surprised by them. I shut the movie off at about midnight and found the darkness of the house to actually be scary, and I'm not ashamed to say I turned on a few extra lights than normal on my way to bed. 

So, this brings us around to the question at hand: can a horror movie be "bad," such as having essentially no plot, paper thin characters and completely engineered situations, but still be considered "good" based on fear factor alone? I still don't feel I have an answer that feels adequate, but I guess it comes down to the type of movie goer that you are. As I stand, as someone who tends to highly value strong characters, story, and in general depth, I don't think I can say in good conscience that this movie is "good." That said, will I recommend it to people as a movie to freak them out on a dark October night? 

Yeah, sure, why not.

6/10