Hyper Horror Movies

I’ve never been into movies that use hyper editing and hyper acting to make it scarier or more adrenaline filled. Movies like the remake of Day of the Dead and more recently Pandorum suffer from this technique that makes me want to close my eyes but the only difference is that Day of the Dead is an awful movie and Pandorum is actually quite decent. Personally for me, I think hyper anything in a horror movie just takes away from the mood and the scare tactics and makes it seem as though it should be a game instead of a film and ultimately ruining the experience for me. But Pandorum, compared to most hyper movies isn’t that bad but I still hated the hyper reality that it created.

Throughout Pandorum the editing is so choppy and almost as though it was adapted from the Bourne series, not to mention the sped-up performances of the cannibals scaling the walls and the ground on all fours. I understand where they are coming from when it comes to creating this hyper reality and their intentions are good but this technique is ultimately silly looking and takes away from the rest of the movie. Pandorum is a great film atmospherically and had they skipped on the hyper reality of it, it could have been pretty frightening. But as I stated before, most hyper horror movies fall completely because they rely too much on this technique to keep their film afloat.

With films like Graduation Day, the remake of Day of the Dead, House of the Dead, Resident Evil and The Decent (to name a few), they all use fast-paced editing and sped-up motion to create a sense of shock and disorientation. I’m not sure why this technique worked in The Decent and why it failed in every other movie but I guess I’d have to rewatch it and look closely at it. With Graduation Day, it was the editing that made the film seem like it was an acid trip and only added to the corniness of the film. House of the Dead and Resident Evil were based on video games so I guess their reasoning was to follow in the footsteps in creating an adrenaline action horror film. Day of the Dead… was just stupid.

I don’t think horror movies need to have a hyper reality to create a sense of disorientation, paranoia and confusion… ‘cause honestly I think this technique is sort of an easy way out. I think it’s a terrible trend in horror movies, mainly because I’m old school horror. Pandorum had the best space atmosphere since alien and it had the potential to deviate from the videogame-looking realm but instead it’s action sequences seemed laughable and bland. Pardon this random rant on hyper horror movies but it can get annoying at times.