I was resigned to simply give it a rest this year, to close up shop for a month and pretend October never happened. Dire times, dear reader! But pal o' Final Girl Brent Schoonover came up with an idea that struck my fancy, and so here we are at SHOCKtober Day 1. This month I'll be taking a look at horror movie title screens and treatments and talkin' about what's what. Maybe Halloween will happen after all!
Let's kick things off with...
Friday the 13th (1980)
What in the world, Friday the 13th? What is that? It is 100% pure ridiculous, although future entries in the series would defy all laws of math and physics and reach even higher percentages of pure ridiculousness with exploding logos, a James Bond-esque Jason Voorhees, and more.
But it's also absolutely perfect, isn't it? Coming on the heels of more serious and/or artistic horror offerings like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist, Friday the 13th came out of nowhere and smashed through audience expectations with its explicit gore and simplistic teens-for-the-slaughter formula. The title sequence doesn't need a "scary" font or dripping blood or any of that; it's a heavy, silly monolith that gets in your face with a punch and a fuck you. It immediately bull in a china shops its way into your consciousness, where it will stay forever whether you want it to or not. I mean, look at it! It's not a logo as much as it's a monument. It seems as if it's 30 feet high and carved from marble...in fact, it should be. I want my picture taken in front of that damn thing!
Yay, SHOCKtober! Thank you Stacie, and thank you Brent Schoonover for this fab idea! And Lawd knows I don't envy you this one, cos when I just tried to think of what titles might feature in the upcoming days - I couldn't think of a FREAKING ONE. Why can't I think of one?? There is surely somePSYCHO!! Psycho! I just thought of one!
ReplyDeleteI think you're right about the simplicity of the titles working in its favor. Corporately, the film was a product of Paramount, but in spirit, it was a product of the exploitation film tradition. "You want pretty and sophisticated? Go to someone who's selling pretty and sophisticated. We're selling the stuff that decent people won't touch; come to us if you want that." Grainy film, rough photography, minimalistic titles - they all contribute to that feel of "This might really be farther over the edge than I should be going," with all the thrills that brings.
ReplyDeleteThis is fantastic. I always loved this title sequence, and I think you hit it right on the head, with a "punch and an F--- you!"
ReplyDeleteAnd I feel you with not getting revved up...I change my facebook profile every day in October with horror movie pics to lead up to Halloween, and this year (my 6th) was a little tougher to get it going. Don't know why that is. I'll blame Obama. Or Bill O Reilly. Or Ebola. Or wait. Tom Bergeron. Yes, that feels right. He's got to be guilty of something.
"Hah, there's no such thing as Scotchtoberfest!"
ReplyDelete"Ya used me Skinner!"
Nice Friday the 13th Gif.
Now we need a new Friday the 13th movie so that we can see the 3-D IMAX version of this opening graphic!
ReplyDeleteThis is like Santa not being in the Christmas spirit. I'm starting SHOCKtober by watching Sleepaway Camp 2, which I own on your recommendation :)
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, guys, you're the best.
ReplyDelete"We're selling the stuff that decent people won't touch; come to us if you want that." - Antaeus, you hit it right on the head with that one. With a sledgehammer!
And I don't know, y'all, there seems to be a bit of a pall over the Halloween season so far this year. Everyone seems to be kind of lethargic. We'll all perk up as the holiday draws nearer, I'm sure. I hope!
This month would not be the same without SHOCKtober :)
ReplyDeleteWas hoping you were gonna be around this month. Yay!
ReplyDeleteStacie, are you ever going to be EVEN more awesome and give us your thoughts on NBC's Hannibal? I've been waiting since forever!
ReplyDeleteHa! I certainly appreciate that you'd like to hear...err, read...my thoughts on it, but I haven't seen it yet and it will probably be quite a while before I do. My backlog of stuff to watch- especially TV shows- is ginormous. I don't have cable, so I don't watch any shows regularly, and even so I only watch stuff maybe once or twice a week. So I'd say...sometime in 2085, maybe? :)
ReplyDeleteHooray for SHOCKtober! My favorite part of that FT13 intro logo is when the movie screen defies expectations by actually being a window.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere out there in the world, someone believed that the title sequence broke their TV screen. Which clearly shows they don't know how TVs work.
ReplyDelete