Horror Films 101

Thought you might enjoy this semantic map I created for a class assignment.  Click to enlarge.

Great Performances: Jason Miller in The Exorcist

From time to time, I want to highlight a performance that I find truly remarkable.  This may be from film or TV and could be a leading role, a supporting role, or even a guest appearance.

I am not sure what is more amazing: Jason Miller's performance in The Exorcist or the fact that it was the first movie that he had ever acted in.  The studio wanted a marquee name for the role of haunted Jesuit priest Damian Karras.  Jack Nicholson was reportedly screen-tested and Stacey Keach was actually hired for the part before director William Friedkin spotted Jason Miller (father of actor Jason Patric) in an off-Broadway play and asked that the studio buy out Keach's contract.  The play in question was That Championship Season, which had also been written by Miller and it made him an overnight success as a playwright, going on to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1973.  Friedkin won the battle with the studio, who banked on the fact that an adaptation of a bestselling novel had a built-in audience.

The Decaying American Family

In honor of Halloween, I wanted make an observation about one of my favorite genres: 70s horror.

Movies exist as a sort of window into the subconscious of the society in which they are produced.  They reflect people's hopes and fears - both purposefully and accidentally - just like every other form of artistic expression.  This has always been especially evident in the American horror genre where clear connections can be drawn between the subtext on screen and real-world events shaping American society.  When Universal released films such as Dracula and The Mummy during the 1930s, there was fear of exotic terrors from far-away places.  In the 1950s, at the height of the Red Scare, Americans were afraid that their neighbors could not be trusted.  Fear had moved to U.S. soil and films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers came out.  Then, it the late 1960s, another shift occurred.  American horror films began depicting terror as coming from within people's own families.