Are you uncomfortable talking about horror movies? What if you ignore the ghosts and talk about the other aspects of these films, like the social issues that they try to address?
This will guide the discussion, organised by the meetup Dialogues with Cinema. The host Shivankar Jayaprasad says, “This is the first edition. We thought this would be a good genre to start with but since many people might not be comfortable talking about horror films, we will be talking about the social issues that a few films try to portray. They use horror as a backdrop for the thrills and adrenaline rush.”
It depends on each person’s perspective as well because these films do not explicity talk about social issues, he says, adding, “Some movies talk about issues such as the grief of abandonment and racism. The film Babadook, for example, talks about grief of having lost a father/husband. The movie is about a mother and a son who deal with an imaginary monster living in the basement of their house.”
Korean film The Wailing talks about xenophobia or the fear of outsiders. “It is about Koreans who believe that an old Japanese guy, who speaks Korean and who does witchcraft, is possessed.”
A moviebuff Jay who worked as an entertainment news writer in Chennai, says that he finds Indian horror films more entertaining. “South Indian films are doing well now with horror comedy. Demonte Colony, a Tamil film that balances horror and comedy, is quite good. It is about this colony in Chennai that was rumoured to be haunted... But I haven’t personally come across any Indian horror film that talks about social issues.”
Jay, who now works as a copywriter, says that he watches two to three movies in a week. He prefers to watch it late night at home. “I switch off all lights and shut all doors and windows when I watch a film.” He says a good horror movie is the one that keeps you awake all night. He recalls an experience. “I was watching a horror film at home a few years ago.
My laptop was slow and the video player took time to start running. After a while, I heard some noises in the background. I ignored them at first, thinking it’s coming from the film, then to be sure I paused the movie... but the noises continued. I took off my earphone and the noises stopped. That’s when I realised that I had clicked the video app twice and two tracks of the movie started running parallelly. It was scary but funny too.”
The event Dialogues with Cinema will be held at Dialogues Cafe on June 27 from 4 pm.