Top 6: Killer Animal Films

On Sunday 7th April at The Roxy Bar and Theatre, Classic Horror Campaign are holding another fun filled Double Bill. This time it's a Double Creature Feature of 'Murders in the Zoo' and 'Day of the Animals.'

 
With that in mind, make yourself a drink, put the pets outdoors and settle down with the Fright Writer Top 6 Killer Animals Films. This list is strictly for real life beast only, no aliens, fantasy creatures, make believe monsters or anthromorphic animals.
 
Piranha
Joe Dante's fish feeding frenzy film clearly apes Jaws, resort owner Buck Gardner is clear an imitation of Mayor Larry Vaughan. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and even Piranha's tagline references it's predecessor; Then... you were shocked by the great white shark - Now... you are at the mercy of 1000 jaws! Alexandre Aja ramped up the comedy in his remake in 2010.

Lake Placid
A much underrated comedy horror. A giant crocodile starts picking off tourists and rag tag group are sent to investigate. No man, woman, cow or bear is safe from this killer croc.

Them!
A product of the 1950s nuclear fears, Them! is about ants mutated into giant, man-eating insects by atomic testing in New Mexico. Without doubt, the best of the many bug films of the time and featured in a previous Classic Horror Campaign event.

The Birds
Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier sees him link up with his muse Tippi Hedren for the first time. The sheer terror of a usually placid animal turned violent and in Hitch's inimitable style leads for an unforgettable classic.

Jurassic Park
Sorry fundamentalists, dinosaurs did exist and nobody brought them to life on screen quite like Spielberg. From the first jaw dropping scene that we see the dinosaurs flocking through fields, Jurassic Park is a breathtaking ride not least the heart stopping T-rex attack.

Jaws
Another Spielberg classic that may not only be the best creature feature of all time, but may just be the greatest horror film of all time. Based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name, Jaws was arguably the original summer blockbuster and marked a turning point in American cinema.

And that's the Top 6 Killer Animal Films list. To feel the full force of animal fear be sure to get your tickets to the Double Creature Feature now.

My Favourite Scenes: Jaws

There are many scenes in ‘Jaws’ that are a contender for my favourite. There’s the beach attack scene containing that amazing ‘dolly zoom’ shot of Sheriff Brody. Then, the first time we see the shark, Bruce (Spielberg’s lawyer inspired nickname for the mechanical shark) rising up from the water below in always its razor-toothed glory. That’s not even mentioning the shooting star, unintentionally captured film.

My favourite scene, however, is far more simple. No clever camera trickery, no celestial happenings, no mechanical man eaters, just 3 men, a boat a fucking great story.

For those not familiar with 'Jaws', what the fuck have you been doing with your life? A Great White terrorises coastal tourist town Amity Island over Fourth of July weekend. With a penny counting mayor unwilling to close the beaches it falls on new Sheriff Martin Brody, marine biologist Matt Hooper and rough, tough, salty sea dog Quint to hunt the water dwelling beast. Whilst Brody, Quint and Hooper bob about in search of the killer shark that’s terrorising Amity, they relax with a drink and a preverbial pissing contest of scar comparisions. Quint reveals a scar that used to be a tattoo, "U.S.S. Indianapolis '45." The mood changes instantly as Hooper recognises the name and Quint remembers everything.

The camera pulls in close on Robert Shaw's Quint, and stays there almost permanently, as he recounts the story with spine tingling horror. A hint of craziness peeks through Quint's voice as he rasps, slurs and mumbles his way through arguably the best monologue committed to screen. The tale of the U.S.S. Indianapolis has the ability to send shivers down the spine of the steeliest of men
and it's all based on a true story.

As an audience we feel the terror, the desperation, the sheer horror felt by the crew of the Indianapolis. We witness the reactions of Brody and the gobsmacked Hooper. Most of all, we get a glimpse past Quint's staring eyes and into his soul, we understand his determination to catch this shark, understand the feeling he holds and the retribution he longs for.

Quint is a remarkable character and interesting from his first scene to his last, but nothing gives more of an insight into the mostly mysterious man than this 4 minutes account of unimaginable terror he and his comrades suffered at the jaws of the beasts.

For all of modern cinemas gloss and shine, for all it's FX and CGI, nothing has ever terrified me as much as one story and three men in a boat. That's why this is my favourite scene, starring my favourite character, from my all time favourite film.

Hooper: You were on the Indianapolis? 

Brody: What happened?

Quint: Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte... just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail fin. What we didn't know, was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin', so we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle like you see in the calendar named "The Battle of Waterloo" and the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark will go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boatswain's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water just like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon, the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us. He swung in low and he saw us... he was a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw us and he come in low and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and starts to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened... waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water; 316 men come out and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

Are Horror Fans Too Biased Towards Directors?

Last week I stumbled across an article on www.horror-movies.ca which posed an interesting question, Are Horror Fans Too Biased Toward Directors?

The article got me thinking and, for me, the answer is yes and no.

It is true that horror fans place a lot of emphasis on who is helming a project; I include myself in this statement. If you hear that a director whose previous body of work you have enjoyed is directing an up and coming film, then are you more likely to see it? Of course you are.

For example, my wife and I rented the film ‘Bug’ when it was first released on DVD. For anybody who isn’t familiar with ‘Bug’ it’s a paranoid, thriller about a war veteran who believes he is infested by bugs with the line between delusion and reality gets more distorted the closer you get to the end. It didn’t sound like mine, nor my wife’s idea of a great film but, we were swayed by the director…William Friedkin. 

Friedkin also directed The Exorcist, one of my wife’s favourite films. Truth be told I probably would still not have seen this film had it not been for him and that would be a shame because the film is actually pretty good. It starts slowly and draws you in. The performances are great and with a budget that stretches to one room and a shed load of aluminium foil.

Similarly, the name Uwe Boll sends shivers down my spin and I tend to avoid his films, subconsciously or otherwise. I know for a fact I’m not the only one that feels this.

In a perfect world we would all allow a director to “start with a blank slate” but, there comes a point when it’s like giving your girlfriend another chance after she sleeps with your best friend every time she’s drunk. There has to be a line drawn for when enough is enough before you both end up on Jerry Springer.

After one film I let it pass, after two films I forgave Boll. But after repeated offences I kicked him out and promised never to go back to him again.

One or two ‘offences’ I can overlook (Tarantino’s ‘Death Proof’ being an excellent case in point) but repeat offences breaks the bond of trust between the film maker and the viewer, sometimes beyond repair. By the same token a director with a history of rubbish films may create a stand out film that’s a must see. Boll’s next film may be a fantastical epic horror, the kind of film that comes around once in a generation and changes the genre forever, like a horror version of Citizen Kane. However, it will most likely be dross.

A question to think about on this front is; is M. Night Shyamalan a great director with one or two blips, or a rubbish director with a few lucky, shining stars?

So, certainly, the director of a film can be a massive influence on the way we view a film. However, it isn’t only horror fans who feel this way.

Quentin Tarantino is shown massive bias by the cinema going public (again, myself included). A ‘QT’ film is always eagerly anticipated but rarely does he venture into the horror genre. The same can be said of Spielberg, Scorsese, Nolan, JJ Abrahams, Rodriguez, and others.

Such is the draw of these directors, whom work mostly outside of the horror genre, that they can make or break a film before they have even shouted action.

Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s totally your own free will which makes you think like this though. Film makers and advertisers know this. How many times have you heard “From the director of…”? Or “From the man that brought you…”? Producers, those in Hollywood especially, know that a director can influence you decision making and use it as bait to lure you to the cinema. “Hey, remember you liked this guy’s last film? Well, this one must be good too right?”

So, the question is did we decide we liked certain directors and it got used against us or did we get told we liked them and went along for the ride?

I personally think the reason horror fans appear more bias toward some directors is merely because we know who the directors are. The mainstream public don’t know who directs a lot of films, mostly because they don’t care. If you just want to watch things blow up then it doesn’t matter who’s blowing them up but, with horror the suspense is everything and some directors get it right, some don’t. It’s like a comedian with timing, two people can tell the same joke and one can make it the funniest thing you have ever heard but, the other may make it as funny as genital warts. With horror if one scene loses its tension and looks a bit silly, the whole film can fall apart and look little more than a farce.

Maybe the problem is we are looking at a niche group of people and comparing them to the mainstream when we should be looking at another niche. Maybe it’s just that we horror fans are more affected by who the director of the film is than the mainstream cinema goer because we know who the director is more often. What about film fanatics in other genres, who know and care who the directors are, are they just as influenced?

Also, are we just as influenced by actors? I have watched films just because of one of the stars. If Robert Englund’s name is attached more I am are likely to watch than if Zak Effron is the star. Fright fans would surely rather watch a film with Emily Booth in than the same film starring Miley Cyrus. Yet, horror fans are willing to accept bad acting in lieu of a good story or fun time?

So, are horror fans too biased towards directors? Probably, yes. But, is it more than other knowledgeable film fans outside of mainstream cinema goers? I don’t think so.

Let me know what you think.