A Little Seasonal Inspiration

What better time of year to film a horror movie than Halloween? I can't think of any. Okay, so SUBMISSION isn't technically a horror film, but it's a close relative. If I wasn't so obsessed with making sure all of my DVDs at home were in alphabetical order and instead were arranged by genre, I would have THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE in close proximity to my super-mega-ultra-platinum edition of OLDBOY (one the best Korean drama/suspense/dark films of all time).

So anyways, this is my first Halloween season having Netflix, so as you can imagine my queue is flooded with movies full of blood, guts, and gore (as opposed to what??). Recently we've watched THE CRAZIES, the original STEPFATHER, the remake of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and the film DEADLINE. I can't say that all of these were inspiring for me, but I did like elements of each and will be drawing on some of that when we start shooting. Growing up, the original STEPFATHER film was one of my favorites, and really to this day I still think it was way better than a good majority of the dark suspenseful films of that decade. It really shows that with a little more attention put on the acting rather than the special effects, you can get a far creepier environment. When it comes to horror you can't go wrong with massive amounts of blood and gore, but what your brain comes up with is by far worse than anything that Tom Savini can throw together with some tubes and liquid latex... no offense Tom.

I dropped THE STEPFATHER back in the mailbox today and will be getting STIR OF ECHOES next, which I'm pretty excited about. I've not seen it since it probably came out, but I think that it'll be a good refresher to some more modern-day dark suspense... which I guess is really what SUBMISSION is all about. My queue has drifted away from the slasher films I typically watch during this time of year and is now (probably subconsciously for the most part) leaning more toward the "make you actually think" movies that I've either heard so much about or know that I liked in the past and am brave enough to give another viewing after ten or twenty years... something that isn't always a good idea (the DARK CRYSTAL, for example).