Quark Cognition: Horror Movies Defined

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Horror Movies Defined

I have not seen every horror movie ever made, so there are going to be some exclusions that I must apologize for. I do not know what those exclusions are, since I can only tell you about those horror movies I have actually watched. There are thousands of different horror movies and due to the large amount, it is too broad a category to signify with one list. Thus, it is necessary to subcategorize the genre known as horror. These subcategories are my opinions, based on what I have seen. Someone else would likely make different subcategories, or make none at all.

These are my subcategories of horror movies, along with my top picks:

REALISTIC

          A realistic horror movie is based on events that happened sometime in the past or could happen right now. It does not invoke any monsters, aliens, ghosts, dinosaurs, or zombies for scaring crowds. However, it can use viruses - because viruses are real.
          Top Pick: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
          Other significant releases : Silence of the Lambs, The Last House on the Left (1972), The Hills Have Eyes (1977), 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Hostel, Hostel II, Devil's Rejects, Audition, Blue Sunshine

SUPERNATURAL

          A supernatural horror movie uses ghosts, demons, bogeymen, trolls, gods, etc. This type of movie can also rely heavily upon possession. Vampires seem to be a main theme in this category, however. And Asian horror heavily invokes the supernatural.
          Top Pick: Hellraiser (1987)
          Other Significant Releases: The Exorcist, The Shining, Amityville Horror II, Hellraiser II, A Tale of Two Sisters, The Ring, Mirrors, Whispering Corridors, The Eye, Uzumaki (Spiral), Demon Knight, Phantasm II, An American Werewolf in London, Scarecrows

ZOMBIE

          I would guess there are more than 100 different zombie movies, so this is complicated enough to deserve its own subcategory. A zombie is not a cannibal nor a virus infected person. If zombies were cannibals then they would eat each other and if they were infected with a virus, then they would be alive. A zombie is a dead human that eats living humans.
          Top Pick: Dawn of the Dead (1978)
          Other Significant Releases: Return of the Living Dead, Day of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead (2004), Bangkok Zombie Crisis, Shaun of the Dead

EXTRATERRESTRIAL

          This type of horror movie involves something that did not originate on the Earth or takes place on an environment that is not the Earth. Supernatural environments do not qualify as extraterrestrial, although they are technically so.
           Top Pick: Alien (1979)
           Other Significant Releases: The Thing, Aliens, Predator, Predator 2, Sunshine, Event Horizon, Alien 3, Alien 4, Alien vs. Predator 2

ZOOLOGIC

          A horror movie based on zoology, or the study of animals, is one that exaggerates or offers variations on, the reality of animals. Dinosaurs are a main theme in this category. Bear in mind that humans are also animals, and so variations on humans qualify.
          Top Pick: The Descent (2005)
          Other Significant Releases: Jurassic Park, Jaws, The Host, Kingdom of the Spiders

SLASHER

          This type of movie shows a lot of people being killed in various ways, by some sort of stalking human or supernatural human. These are not realistic because the antagonist often displays superhuman strength or healing abilities.
          Top Pick: Halloween (2007)
          Other Significant Releases: Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th

OTHER

          I'm not sure how to classify some movies, so they are just 'other'.
          Top Pick: The Stuff (1985)
          Other Significant Releases: Can't think of any.

          Some notes about what I have typed:

28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later are often erroneously labeled as "zombie" movies. I must point out that the people are infected with a virus, which is similar to rabies. Also, they are not dead. Those movies are realistic.
The creatures in The Descent were possible variations on humans, so I could technically move that to the Realistic subcategory. Their existence could come about by species cleavage, which is explained by phylogenetic systematics.
A vampire is not a possible variation on a human, so all vampire movies are supernatural.
The Host used a fish, heavily mutated, by chemicals.

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About Me

I am made of particles, known as quarks and electrons, that are at least 13.72 billion years old. Although my body is very young, the constituents are very old and come and go as they please. It's astonishing that individuality exists when each one of us are made of the same basic parts. It's even more astonishing that self-awareness exists, since even objects as simple as paper clips are made of the same parts as human beings.

My body was here before I was born and it will be here after I die.

So while I am in this brief configuration known as life I try to learn as much as possible, since my personality enjoys it. My first fascination in this short life was dinosaurs; I won a Dinosaur Expert Award in kindergarten. For most of my childhood, I read about the Animal Kingdom. I also read more than 100 Choose Your Own Adventure books and numerous other young adult fiction from my school library. Since age 5, I have been reading at a sometimes voracious pace. I didn't start seriously reading science fiction until age 19, though.

My interest in politics is as great as my interest in professional sports and I drink alcohol as often as I get lung surgery. I am heterosexual, but I rarely date women and prefer to read a tale, rather than chase some tail.

Qool Quotes

"The brain, knowing that a person can't live forever in this world, rationalizes a future, or other-dimensional, world in which immortality is possible. In other words, religion is the earliest form of science fiction."
-Philip Jose Farmer (1977)

"Forget Jesus, the stars died so you could be born."
-Lawrence M. Krauss (2009)

"When you ask what are protons and electrons I ought to answer that this question is not a profitable one to ask and does not really have a meaning. The important thing about electrons and protons is not what they are but how they behave - how they move. I can describe the situation by comparing it to a game of chess. In chess, we have various chessmen, kings, knights, pawns and so on. If you ask what a chessmen is, the answer would be that it is a piece of wood, or a piece of ivory, or perhaps just a sign written on a paper, or anything whatever. It does not matter. Each chessmen has a characteristic way of moving and this is all that matters about it. The whole game of chess follows from this way of moving the various chessmen."
-Paul Dirac, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1933

"You will be astonished when I tell you what this curious play of carbon amounts to. A candle will burn some four, five, six, or seven hours. What, then, must be the daily amount of carbon going up into the air in the way of carbonic acid! What a quantity of carbon must go from each of us in respiration! What a wonderful change of carbon must take place under these circumstances of combustion or respiration! A man in twenty-four hours converts as much as seven ounces of carbon into carbonic acid; a milch cow will convert seventy ounces, and a horse seventy-nine ounces, solely by the act of respiration. That is, the horse in twenty-four hours burns seventy-nine ounces of charcoal, or carbon, in his organs of respiration to supply his natural warmth in this way, by the conversion of carbon, not in a free state, but in a state of combination. And what an extraordinary notion this gives us of the alterations going on in our atmosphere. As much as 5,000,000 pounds, or 548 tons, of carbonic acid is formed by respiration in London alone in twenty-four hours. And where does all this go? Up into the air."
-Michael Faraday (1860)

"In modern war, one individual can cause the destruction of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. He could do so by pushing a button; he may not feel the emotional impact of what he is doing, since he does not see, does not know the people whom he kills; it is almost as if his act of pushing the button and their death had no real connection. The same man would probably be incapable of even slapping, not to speak of killing, a helpless person."
-Eric Fromm (1955)

“Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that people don’t have to experience it."
-Max Frisch

Quark Cognition

I may not seem like it, but I am a human.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Horror Movies Defined

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