(The Shining, 1980)
(The Cabin in the Woods, 2012)
(The Descent, 2005)
\
(Dreamcatcher, 2003)
Countless horror films start with people driving away from the safety of the city and into the dark heart of nature. In a way, it's kind of what horror does, at least since Poe shoved a narrator in a carriage and sent him to the House of Usher.
This image, however, is a little more specific and fun. Firstly, because these shots all take a God's-eye-view of the heroes via a helicopter. So in addition to the imposing vistas of nature, the viewer gets heroes miniaturized, made ant-like and almost pathetic. Secondly, the winding roads - a little creepier than straight roads. Winding roads don't uproot nature, they admit to it. Thirdly, the emphasis on pine trees. Aren't pine trees just a little bit worse than the usual forest? Pine trees are tough, prickly. They don't shed their needles during the winter. Some can live to be 5,000 years old. With their tapered shape, they look ready to stab. Pine trees are the obstinate, cranky bastards of the plant kingdom.
Funnily enough, it's likely that the three non-Shining examples here are all deliberate nods to The Shining. Dreamcatcher is another King story stuck in an ominous snowbound landscape, so why not start out the same way? The Descent is similarly interested in the idea of a lead character who snaps and gets "totes cray," as the kids say. And The Cabin in the Woods is trying to nod to every horror movie ever made.
Are there other examples? If you have one, leave a comment or shoot me a message - it'd be fun to build on this.
This image, however, is a little more specific and fun. Firstly, because these shots all take a God's-eye-view of the heroes via a helicopter. So in addition to the imposing vistas of nature, the viewer gets heroes miniaturized, made ant-like and almost pathetic. Secondly, the winding roads - a little creepier than straight roads. Winding roads don't uproot nature, they admit to it. Thirdly, the emphasis on pine trees. Aren't pine trees just a little bit worse than the usual forest? Pine trees are tough, prickly. They don't shed their needles during the winter. Some can live to be 5,000 years old. With their tapered shape, they look ready to stab. Pine trees are the obstinate, cranky bastards of the plant kingdom.
Funnily enough, it's likely that the three non-Shining examples here are all deliberate nods to The Shining. Dreamcatcher is another King story stuck in an ominous snowbound landscape, so why not start out the same way? The Descent is similarly interested in the idea of a lead character who snaps and gets "totes cray," as the kids say. And The Cabin in the Woods is trying to nod to every horror movie ever made.
Are there other examples? If you have one, leave a comment or shoot me a message - it'd be fun to build on this.
Given the effect of the camera looking down on those little humans like some kind of disaffected God ("Oh, it's people again, how cute"), you figure the only thing stopping F. W. Murnau from a helicopter shot in Nosferatu was the fact that helicopters, y'know, hadn't been invented.
(Nosferatu, 1922)
This is a good post and it really gets me thinking. The image of the journey increases the alienation and segregation of the characters in the film by separating them from the place they knew to a new and dangerous location far from help and the comfortable, not to mention an involved transition shot that establishes the location spatially. If you have a cliff along the road it is another delimited to movement and hints of coming danger. Joseph Campbell rattled on about this stuff in his book, Hero With a Thousand Faces, when talking about the hero’s journey. Yeah, it’s old stuff and overdone these days, but worth the two cents for the sake of formula.
ReplyDeleteThe two shots that I immediately though of while reading your post, are not from horror films and they are stark environmental contrasts. Neither have much to do with trees for that matter. Firstly the Chaplin comedy The Gold Rush in 1925, with that chilling shot of Chilkoot Pass with tiny ants of people ascending into a nearly unknown and vast wilderness chasing elusive gold. The piece of stock footage of the pass is an amazing glimpse of history.
The other is the 1924 silent film, Greed with the chase into Death Valley at the end. Hey, it’s von Strohiem of course it was shot on location – budget be damned. While not considered a standard horror film, it ends horrifically by a living death in a desert handcuffed to a dead horse. The book the film is based, McTeague (1899) is well worth a read.
On reflection both of my references take place in the late 1890s and involve the vain pursuit of gold. Both films were made about the same time. Funny how memory and association works. BTW, I’m glad you referenced Muranu’s Nosferatu and Poe, not enough people review the classics.
To show my age, the term “totes cray” originally made me think of a carrier for a portable computer when I first heard it years back. Check out the etymology for “tote” and the associated bag circa the Civil War and the Cray computer. Yep, that old.
Cool thoughts! Right on with "The Gold Rush" - your comments also make me think of the opening of "Aguirre the Wrath of God," where the conquistadors' entourage are filing down the forested cliffside, steeped in fog. I haven't seen "Greed," though. I should get on that.
Deletedoes any body know were this road is ? Of these movies
ReplyDelete