Often in horror films there is a tangible, visible antagonist - a demon, a creature, a cult, an ax killer. Viewers can physically see what they should be afraid of. While these monsters can excite, frighten, and intimidate in the moment, they often don’t leave a lasting impression. The audience won’t think about whether the demons were from spell are in their closet without them worrying that the clouds are actually UFOs in disguise from nope. This is because these monsters are not real. The horror movies that stay with audiences the longest don’t have monsters at all, just people having horrific experiences. These films are harder to digest because they don’t have a monster to put the horror on. They showed that horror is not always so easily palpable, and that scares people. While it is easy to dismiss the idea of the existence of monsters, one cannot deny insanity, disease, or genuine human cruelty. Exposing these complex themes about life in a film without the metaphorical creatures that represent them often strikes viewers more critically. These films are effective because they are monstrous and don’t need monsters. They are just reality.
The Pearl asks how far you can go to make your dream come true
Films featuring realistic horror such as this one are rare given the wide range of horror films that exist, but those that do exist have received critical acclaim and a wide fan base. Recently, X And Pearl released by A24 in 2022, became a hit with the horror community. Screenwriter and director Ti West and starring Mia Goththe films are part of a trilogy with the upcoming MaXXXine. Although none of the films use supernatural imagery, X much more leaning towards the slasher genre than Pearl. What is he doing Pearl so incredibly horrifying is that it tells the story of a young woman having a psychotic break.
The film takes place in 1918 during a very characteristic pandemic and during the First World War. The film follows Pearl (Goth) as she helps her parents manage the farm while her husband is serving in the war. It is clear from the start that Pearl is deeply unhappy with her life. She is stuck in a position where she can barely leave her family’s farm due to the pandemic and the need for more help from her sick father. Pearl’s dreams of a great future. While the film acknowledges that Pearl is admirable for helping her loved ones, it begs the question, should you sacrifice all your hopes and dreams for others?
There is little gore in most of the film, and the focus is on how Pearl feels suffocated and her psyche gradually deteriorates. Pearl finally snaps when she decides to challenge her mother and audition for the part of a performer. Basically, she kills anyone who gets in the way of her and her dreams, including her parents, her lover, and her friends. In the end, Pearl is rejected at the audition and is left all alone. The final scene when her husband returns from the war to see the carnage she unleashed and Pearl smiles at him, heartbreaking. Her smile is sickly and she holds back her tears; viewers can actually see that Pearl herself is horrified by what she did and that she can’t fix it. What’s so raw about this movie is that it’s not a slasher movie, but a story about a woman who’s so broken she can’t come back. It’s so unsettling because it really could have happened to someone in this time period and even today. People are constantly breaking down under the yoke of life, tk. Pearl reminds us so powerfully.
The monster in Saint Maud is not a religion, but the human ability to turn it into something terrible
Religious horror has been around for a long time, with films like THe Exorcist become one of the scariest horror movies of all time and midnight mass becomes an instant hit on Netflix. However, a more detailed and slightly unsettling look at the horror of religion is as follows: pink glass’ Saint Maud. Again completely deviating from demons and psychopathic priests, the film follows Maude (Morfydd Clark), a housekeeper and a devout Christian. As Maud takes care of a patient she believes she is destined to save from the curse, Maud delves deeper into the darker realms of her faith and begins to experience auditory and visual hallucinations. Convinced that God has a higher purpose for her and that she is on her way to becoming a saint, Maud forces her religion on her patient and it ends badly.
While Maud is not sympathetic, she certainly evokes sympathy. A lonely and lost woman clinging to the hope that there is more to life and the cause of all the hardships she has endured, Maude is definitely not a monster. She is again a person who bent under the weight of life’s hardships and because of this lost his mind. The film is troubling because religion, while healing for many, can easily become distorted. Maud’s vulnerability turned religion into a poison, and she eventually succumbed to the outlandish beliefs, leading to her death.
The film is hard to watch as it has some really horrific and graphic scenes, but ultimately the film is not necessarily a critique of religion but how people can twist and turn it into something terrible.
‘Relic’ shows the real nightmare isn’t the Boogeyman, it’s how fragile our human life is
Viral horror is a favorite sub-genre of films and series like Infection, the walking Dead, And currently Last of us, amassing a huge fan base. People love zombies and disgusting, over the top diseases. After all, a zombie apocalypse is an implausible scenario. While the world has recently gone through a major pandemic, there are other diseases that strike people every day, and not all of them are viral. The threat of dementia and Alzheimer’s threatens more than 6 million people in the US alone, depriving people not of their physical health, but of their memory and identity, the very things that make them who they are. Relic, director Natalie Erica Jamesshows how terrifying it can be to watch a loved one with Alzheimer’s.
Relic albeit a terrifying, yet heartbreaking film. Following mother and daughter as they go to check on the matriarch of the family (Robin Nevin), the film intricately and authentically depicts a man suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. With sequences of both shocking and sad horror in the deteriorating behavior of the grandmother, Relic does not seek to simply scare the audience. The film wants to remind its viewers that real nightmares are not boogeymen, ghouls or zombies, but watching the woman who used to cook for you, sew with you, love you, disappear until there is nothing left.
While ending Relic relies on the abstract, it still conveys the truth. The skeletal figure that Grandma transforms into towards the end Relic symbolizes how a disease like Alzheimer’s destroys a person and that after the disease has passed, there is nothing left but a fragile hollow shell. Relic displays an extremely realistic scenario and leaves viewers horrified that this could happen to them or someone they love. It is a reminder of the very fragile, mortal bodies and minds of humans and how little control they actually have over themselves.
The monster in The Skin I Live In is a pure violation of human life
Possibly the most disturbing film discussed in this article, The skin that I live in director Pedro Almodovar and starring Antonio Banderas And Elena Anayaa Spanish film that won numerous awards, including a nomination for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011. The skin that I live in explores numerous heavy themes such as rape, body horror, sex, and captivity. It’s a psychologically mind blowing film that ends up with a disturbing and stunning twist that leaves viewers thinking long and hard about the film after they’ve finished.
There are two timelines in the film, one of which follows Robert Ledgard (Banderas), a plastic surgery pioneer, as he develops artificial impenetrable skin. His test subject is a woman with a mysterious past, Vera (Anaya), and it becomes apparent over the course of the film that she is not willingly with Robert. The second timeline took place years earlier when Robert witnesses his daughter being raped and taking revenge on the man who raped her. As the two timelines merge, viewers begin to wonder, who is the antagonist here? No character in this movie is innocent, which is what makes them so human in the choices they make, no matter how terrible they may be.
The skin that I live in although it’s a bit unrealistic in the experimental aspect of impenetrable skin and other outlandish surgeries, it’s grounded in reality in regards to the discussion of how people rape other people. This film is probably most shocking not for the initial rape of Ledgard’s daughter, but for how Ledgard turns into the very monster he sought to punish. Driven by some primal instinct, such as lust or pure revenge, violence against another person is abhorrent, and this film emphasizes that there are no circumstances that would make such an act acceptable. The skin that I live in it’s a disgusting film that stays with audiences because it exposes the worst sides of humanity. People can be so blinded by emotions and vengeance that they commit unthinkable depraved acts, and this extends to real life. The film is a cautionary tale, reminding viewers not only that there are people capable of barbarism, but also that no one, for whatever reason, should become a victim of such impulses.
The startling reality of all these films elevates them above the standard horror films. Because there are no real monsters, viewers are forced to look at the ugly parts of humanity and themselves. The most disgusting horrors in existence are not fictional, but those that occur in our daily lives. These films scare people because they point out things that most would rather deny or forget. However, films in which there are no monsters, but only the horrors of humanity, are vital for both horror and cinema in general. They serve as lessons, informing viewers about the unpleasant aspects of life. Horror is not just ghosts or demons, and often much worse. While this reminder is certainly inconvenient, it is necessary, and these films aim to help deliver that revelation in equally horrifying yet beautiful ways.
Source: Collider
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