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Danse Macabre :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 163 из 359It was another Everest House editor, Bill Thompson (who has been my editor for about a thousand years; perhaps in a previous life I was his editor and now he's having his revenge), who reminded me of The Night of the Hunter -and mea culpa that Ishould have needed reminding-and told me that one of the scenes of horror which has remained with him over the years was the sight of Shelley Winters's hair floating in the water after the homicidal preacher has disposed of her in the river. It happens, naturally, after dark.
*God, it's fun to think about some of the desperate gimmicks that have been used to sell bad horror movies- like those Dish Nights and Bank Nights used to lure people into the movie houses dring the thirties, they linger pleasantly in the memory. During one imported Italian turkey, The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (nifty title!), the theaters advertised "bloodcorn," which was ordinary popcorn with a red food dye added. During Jack the Ripper , a 1960 example of "Hammer horror" written by Jimmy Sangster, the black and white film turned to gruesome color during the last five minutes, when the Ripper, who has unwisely chosen to hide in an elevator shaft, is squished under a descending car.
There is an interesting similarity between the scene in which the little girl kills her mother with a garden trowel in Night of the Living Dead and the climactic scene in The Birds , where Tippi Hedren is trapped in the attic and attacked by crows, sparrows, and gulls. Both of these scenes are classic examples of how dark and light can be used selectively. We will remember, most of us, from our own childhoods that a lot of light had the power to vanquish imagined evils and fears, but sometimes a little light only made them worse. It was the streetlight outside that made the branches of a nearby tree look like witch fingers, or it was the moonlight streaming in the window that made the jumble of toys pushed away in the closet take on the aspect of a crouching. Thing ready to shamble in and attack at any moment.
During the matricide scene in Night of the Living Dead (which, like the shower scene in Psycho , seems almost endless to our shocked eyes the first time we see it), the little girl's arm strikes a hanging lightbulb, and the cellar becomes a nightmare dreamscape of shifting, swinging shadows-revealing, concealing, revealing again. During the attack of the birds in the attic, it is the big flashlight Ms. Hedren carries which provides this strobe effect (also mentioned in connection with Looking for Mr. Goodbar and used again-more irritatingly and pointlessly-during Marlon Brando's incoherent monologue near the end of Apocalypse Now ) and also provides the scene with a pulse, a beat-at first the flashlight beam moves rapidly as Ms. Hedren uses the light to ward off the birds . . .
*God, it's fun to think about some of the desperate gimmicks that have been used to sell bad horror movies- like those Dish Nights and Bank Nights used to lure people into the movie houses dring the thirties, they linger pleasantly in the memory. During one imported Italian turkey, The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (nifty title!), the theaters advertised "bloodcorn," which was ordinary popcorn with a red food dye added. During Jack the Ripper , a 1960 example of "Hammer horror" written by Jimmy Sangster, the black and white film turned to gruesome color during the last five minutes, when the Ripper, who has unwisely chosen to hide in an elevator shaft, is squished under a descending car.
There is an interesting similarity between the scene in which the little girl kills her mother with a garden trowel in Night of the Living Dead and the climactic scene in The Birds , where Tippi Hedren is trapped in the attic and attacked by crows, sparrows, and gulls. Both of these scenes are classic examples of how dark and light can be used selectively. We will remember, most of us, from our own childhoods that a lot of light had the power to vanquish imagined evils and fears, but sometimes a little light only made them worse. It was the streetlight outside that made the branches of a nearby tree look like witch fingers, or it was the moonlight streaming in the window that made the jumble of toys pushed away in the closet take on the aspect of a crouching. Thing ready to shamble in and attack at any moment.
During the matricide scene in Night of the Living Dead (which, like the shower scene in Psycho , seems almost endless to our shocked eyes the first time we see it), the little girl's arm strikes a hanging lightbulb, and the cellar becomes a nightmare dreamscape of shifting, swinging shadows-revealing, concealing, revealing again. During the attack of the birds in the attic, it is the big flashlight Ms. Hedren carries which provides this strobe effect (also mentioned in connection with Looking for Mr. Goodbar and used again-more irritatingly and pointlessly-during Marlon Brando's incoherent monologue near the end of Apocalypse Now ) and also provides the scene with a pulse, a beat-at first the flashlight beam moves rapidly as Ms. Hedren uses the light to ward off the birds . . .