Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film

"Nightmares" is as much of a social and political history lesson as it is a documentary of the origins of Horror films. I was taken back at how extensively and intelligently this film covered my favorite genre of film. There is a constant link made between the different subcategories of horror that have emerged over the years and the different social and political ties that drive them. "Nightmares" ended up being far more philosophical in its approach to the reasons why our society craves horror and violence on film. This is the closest I've ever seen to a "Ken Burns" history lesson on Horror Movies. I not only loved it, I learned something.

When it comes to film-making, horror flicks have carved out quite a nice little existence for themselves. This documentary does two things: it reflects back on the history of the horror movie, as well as gives some reasons as to why they have evolved over the years.

That first part, the reflection, is truly what carries "Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue". It is interesting to see the history of the genre, remembering all the terrifying (whether physically or emotionally) images that have branded themselves into our collective "film conscience".

However, the "discussion" parts of the documentary leave much to be desired. The approach here is very political (in one laughable segment, former President Ronald Reagan is compared to Freddy Krueger!) and really tries to understand why the "Monster Era" of the early 1900s gave way to the aliens of the 50s, the slashers of the 80s, or the psychological thrillers of the 90s, for instance. While I appreciated the effort, the reasoning just seemed a bit ridiculous at times, almost as if the panel of guests were reaching for conclusions where perhaps none in fact exist.

Overall, then, "Nightmares" is a great doc if all you care about is a history lesson on horror movies. If you want anything deeper, be prepared to take pretty much every comment with a grain of salt or that nagging feeling of "this is all just being trumped up to sell a genre".

This review may seem as though it outlines the entire documentary, but believe me, it only scratches the surface. :) No spoilers to be had here!

The pros: There are some interesting clips with some horror heavy-hitters - George Romero, John Carpenter, Mick Garrison, Joe Dante and more - interspersed with clips from everyone's favourite scary movies. We catch glimpses of other great talents behind the stories, too, like Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven, David Cronenberg and Stephen King. And when the description of of the documentary says that this is the history of the American horror film, they're not kidding: we're shown clips from the very first "Frankenstein" in 1910, through the classic Monster Movies ("Dracula," "The Phantom Of The Opera," "The Wolfman," "King Kong" and so on) all the way up to much more contemporary films, like "Se7en," "American Psycho," and franchises such as the "Saw" and "Scream" films. It's all narrated by the great voice of Lance Henriksen, who takes us on a chronological journey through what has been popular in American theatres since the silent film days and gives context to how (and why) we got from there to here.

The cons: I felt it was too short for the ground it wanted to cover; a three-part series would have allowed more time and space to get into what each director wanted to say, rather than limiting them to sound bites.

Also, for me, a lot of the attempts to politicize the evolution of horror films feel ham-fisted. Saying that Freddy Krueger's "making the children pay for the sins of the father" was a mirror of what Reagan was doing in office at the time? Tying in the ever-more excessive gore of the remakes like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Dawn Of The Dead" with the media coverage of the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan? Commenting on how there's a new moralistic level to horror films like "Saw" because victims now have "the power to choose"? "Hostel" being nothing more than a metaphor for xenophobia? According to some of the critics and writers giving their two cents, every horror film is made to have a moral (yes, they even manage to moralize "Gremlins" and Poltergeist"!). It's all a bit of a reach, really. Certainly art imitates life, though I wouldn't go as far as some of these guys do. Perhaps its brief running time adds to the problem, as each of the examples I gave above are no more than one line out of the entire documentary.

Still, none of the cons take away from this being a fun and entertaining look into the history of scary movies. If all you're seeking is 90-ish minutes of great nostalgia (or a crash-course intro to horror), along with some face time with many of our favourite directors of the genre & clips of a whole lot of films that'll make you think, "Oh, I need to rent that again!"...then this is definitely for you!

||| ***½ out of 5 ||| ******½ out of 10 |||

"Nightmares in Red, White and Blue" is a chronological march from the earliest horror movies to today. It begins in the thirties with movies such as "Dracula" (1931), "Frankenstein" (1931), and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1931) and takes the viewer up to current day movies (2009) such as the "Saw" franchise and "Hostel" (2006).

The commentators are some of the horror genre heavyweights. There was John Carpenter, George A. Romero, Darren Lynn Bousman, Larry Cohen, Joe Dante, Tom McLoughlin, Brian Yuzma, and Tony Timpone.

They cover monsters, animals, serial killers, demons, slashers, aliens and more. They don't get to much into the paranormal scary films. They mention classics like "The Exorcist," "Poltergeist," and "The Amityville Horror," but don't mention "Paranormal Activity," "The Ring," or "The Grudge." All of it is commentary about the era and times in which the movies were made with something about a deeper meaning of the movie itself, so don't expect to see how the movies are made. It's a cool documentary for horror buffs.

Free on IMDbTV.

Can you believe that even today (56 years later) Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" still continues to have a substantial impact on the general direction of contemporary, American, horror movies? Well, it does!

And, with that in mind - Is it any wonder that this particular genre of film has become the stalest and most predictably trite movie category of them all?

According to all of the horror-movie directors, story-writers and historians who offered up their opinions in their fright-flick documentary - It was completely unanimous by all that Psycho was, indeed, the turning point. In the decades to follow, Psycho single-handedly set the inevitable direction that horror movies would head.

And, of course, in order to continue to compete with such a significant milestone as Psycho, horror-movie scenarios quickly accelerated into fast-pace mode and became a helluva lot messier and horrendously more sadistic in those years that followed Hitchcock's unforgettable slasher classic.

Yet, as is clearly evident today, it has been proved virtually impossible to fully satisfy and quench America's seemingly insatiable thirst for buckets of blood, and geysers of gore, and horrific stories that escalate into a non-stop barrage of pure, x-rated ultra-violence.

2 things that quickly lost this documentary some serious points were -

(1) All of those who offered up their opinions on the subject of horror movies placed a ludicrous amount of emphasis on directly connecting up these films with the socio-political mood (especially since 1950) that was clearly present in American society (at any given time in their nation's turbulent history).

(2) Way too much screen-time was given over to focusing in on director John Carpenter's half-baked opinions. As well, far too many film clips from his movies were spotlighted in this documentary. Also movies adapted from Stephen King novels were given too much attention, too.

P.S. - In order to make a point, I thought it was really pushing things a little too far when a particular scene from Disney's animated, 1940, classic Pinocchio was included in this film as yet another example of a horrific movie-moment worth discussing..... Spare me!