Pigeon Army
Posts: 14611
Joined: 29/1/2006
From: Pixar HQ, George Lucas' Office.
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ORIGINAL: rawlinson
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ORIGINAL: Pigeon Army
The thing is, though, that good characterisation shouldn't be 'optional' in a film that requires us to be terrified for these people.
Ok, but let's take this back to musicals again. How well developed are the characters in Singin' in the Rain? I love that film, I think it's probably the best musical ever made, but the characters aren't exactly given a great deal of depth, are they? We're given thumbnail sketches and we care about them, but a lot of our affection is more down to the acting than us being given anything deep or complex in the characters.
Touche, I guess, but TCM can't even muster good performances. They're all wooden as fuck or, if you're Franklin, obnoxious to the point that I was laughing when he bit the dust. On top of that, there is actually something to invest in in Singin' in the Rain - Gene's and Debbie's romance probably constitutes character development a lot better than anything in TCM or F13, and Cosmo and Lina are fantastic comedy characters - they're broad, perhaps, but there's still a lot more to them than "Generic Teenager #1".
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With slashers, the characters do largely exist to be killed. You can't argue against that, you can say you think it should be otherwise, but look at the situation of your basic slasher. You have to have a large enough cast so that there can be a significant number of deaths, you have to establish these characters, establish the situation, establish some kind of motivation for the killer and then let them loose. All of this is being done in a running time of usually 90 minutes or less. There's no real time (or often inclination) to develop the characters, and there's not really any need to for a slasher to work.
I am arguing against that, because I think it should be otherwise, and accepting it as something that happens when there are clear examples of where slashers have given us good characters that we can invest in seems self-defeating. I'm not asking for in-depth backstories and constant development for every single character - I'm asking for personalities, I'm asking for good performances, I'm asking for characters, not planks of wood. It's not a slasher, but The Thing is about fifteen minutes longer than TCM and has a similarly-sized cast, much more time dedicated to violence and atmosphere, and still manages to give us great, immediately recognisable characters we can invest in. Halloween manages two characters - Laurie and Dr. Loomis - and I don't hold its characterisation against it.
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Most films don't take that approach. Now you can call that out as a flaw of the genre if you like, but it still remains the way the genre works. Add to that the fact that most of the 70s/early 80s slashers you'll see were very low budget productions made with actors who couldn't act. But like I say, atmosphere is key. If you don't find them atmospheric then they're not going to work, but that's a personal thing and it can never be argued as objective. I'd disagree about Mandy Lane, btw. It's just a slicker version of the 80s slashers, some nice direction, but I hated every one of the characters and it never does anything all that special.
I don't recall arguing this as something objective - of course whether characters and atmosphere work for you is subjective, and Mandy Lane's a good example, because I got some of the characters, particularly Bird (poor Bird) and Mandy, but you clearly didn't - but I still don't see why I should be satisfied with this just because "that's the way the genre works". It's like pointing at a Hummer that burns through fuel like a motherfucker and ignoring the way it burns through fuel because "that's just the way it works". Just because something is like that doesn't mean it should be like that, and that's the problem I have with the characters in TCM and F13 - they don't have to be like that. In fact, if you're arguing budget as an issue, then it would probably be cheaper to spend more time developing character in locations and less time pulling off horror set pieces, because the set pieces generally bring more people, are more complex in their set-ups (if you want to get an atmosphere) and cost more.
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But that's a personal thing.
I don't think I've ever denied this.
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What scares you is an incredibly individual thing and something that usually taps into our own deeper fears. I mean you just gave Ravenous as an example, it's a superb film, and the fact that it's a two-hander for much of the running time allows it greater time to develop the characters, but I never once found it frightening. If you need to connect with a character to feel scared then most slashers aren't going to be for you, but not everyone requires that. 
Ravenous isn't overtly frightening, but it is creepy as all fuck a lot of the time (Carlyle just knocks that out of the park), and it doesn't sacrifice characterisation for atmosphere. You seem to be suggesting that there's some sort of inevitable trade-off here, yet there are numerous examples that display how wrong that assertion is.
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ORIGINAL: Rinc
She's supposed to be 13! I'd want her to be very attractive though
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ORIGINAL: MonsterCat
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ORIGINAL: Pigeon Army
Stop being mean to Deviation
No.
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RE: Top 100 Films I've Watched This Year: 2010 - 
And this doesn't change the fact that you're just trying to stir up debates because you thrive on them and you're missing your regular sparring partner. 
WELL I AM NOT YOUR WHORE! 
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