OMG Horror

Perhaps too often a horror film location is overlooked.  Taken for granted.  Perhaps an audience is more geeked up to see ferocious death sequences, a close-up of a demented killer, a half-naked woman running for her life, whatever.  But the best horror films know how important it is to cull as much discomfort from where the film is set than the actual story itself.  Well OMGHorror has compiled a list of the top dozen horror film settings.  From the deep oceans to the vast cosmos, from the heart of the jungle to the eateries of the mall - we've got it all.  Enjoy!

Boat/Ocean - There’s something awfully terrifying about a horror film set largely on a boat.  You have the claustrophobia, the isolation, the vast unknown of a surrounding ocean, and of course, whatever the hell is lurking in the waters.  The fear lies in inescapability, the utter vulnerability the characters endure throughout the film.  Such (at sea) scenarios inherently foster true suspense, and it’s the mounting tension that becomes a large part of the narrative.  It’s not just the startles and abrupt jump fright that is so instrumental to the terror, it’s often all about the build up and ultimate payoff.  It might be worth noting Alexandre Aja’s Piranha 3-D is currently filming (with Liz Shue no less). 

Best Example: Jaws

Honorable Mention: Piranha, Rogue, Leviathan (haha)

Carnival – Carnivals, fairs, boardwalks – all of them are infinitely rife with horror potential.  Clowns, mascots, mimes, the darkness, the weird flashy lighting, the exotic rides and games – all of them lend perfectly to mayhem and all things morbidly macabre.  Not only are the settings in such films intrinsically fun, an interesting counterpoint is usually derived.  To set a horror film in a typical place of fun and excitement, you’re sort of lulling the audience into a false sense of security.  Expectations are flipped, and what may seem like a capricious steam blowing good time often ends in brutal, sadistic carnage.  A lovely juxtaposition! 

Best Example: The Funhouse

Honorable Mention: Freaks, The Lost Boys, Killer Klowns from Outer Space  

Cemetery/Graveyard – A horror no-brainer, it would seem.  Crypt lore and gravesite horror has been around for eons, so it comes as no big surprise such locations anchor a glut of horror flicks.  I mean, filthy putrescent corpses reanimating and stopping nowhere short of sating a depraved bloodlust is, and should always be a horror mainstay, shouldn’t it? Really, what could be more basic and primal, at the same time so damn effective in its eeriness?  Whether it’s Nosferatu or Coffin Joe, or a blood-parched zombie battalion rising from the soot, graveyard/reanimation horror, in all its forms and fashions, remains quite supreme.  As it should!               

Best Example: Night of the Living Dead

Honorable Mention: Dellamorte Dellamore, Pet Semetary, City of the Living Dead 

Desert – Hot, humid, barren - the desert can often be no picnic.  The level of unsustainable living should raise immediate flags, so to catapult a horror story into a desert setting, you’re already pushing the envelope.  You’ve got the blinding sun, lack of water, the swirling vultures, hell, even the cacti look grisly enough to some major damage.  Then you toss in some governmental mutant deformity, giant graboids, people eating other people, you name it – you’ve always got a fertile breeding ground for all things horrific.  Like the ocean or outer space scenarios, most of the desert terror derives from isolation and the inability to escape to safe ground.  The best type of horror!   

Best Example: Tremors

Honorable Mention: The Hills Have Eyes, Ravenous   

Hospital – Think about it, what’s more mortifying than being terrorized in a place that is supposed to save lives?  In a place that is solely in existence to preserve life?  If you can’t trust doctors, who can you trust, right?  That is the common thread stitched throughout most hospital horror.  A clean, sterile environment often becomes sullied by blood and oozing viscera in a way that not only makes you uncomfortable, but in a way questions why we go to hospitals in the first place.  The best examples also call to question the abuse of medical authority and test the credence of a doctor/patient privilege.  For my money though, it’s the throng of ghastly medical tools and equipment that conjures the greatest fear.

Best Example: Dead Ringers

Honorable Mention: Altered States, Halloween 2, Session 9  

Hotel/Motel – Some of the all-time horror greats have been set at a hotel/motel.  You’ve got the Bates Motel, The Overlook Hotel – two iconic locations that draw instant recognition of their respective films.  Why is that? A ton of it must be accredited to the heavyweight status of each filmmaker at hand, Hitchcock and Kubrick, respectively.  But there’s something both exotic and unfamiliar about a hotel that still retains a level of the mundane.  Meant to coddle and accommodate with placatory pleasantries, hotels/motels cater to your own comfort – and when that becomes subverted by true terror, all human emotion becomes convoluted.  A slice of advice: it might be wise to skip room service. 

Best Example: Psycho

Honorable Mention: The Shining, Toolbox Murders 

Jungle – Dense, exotic, mysterious – the jungle can be frightening enough on its own, sans a horror story.  For those who’ve seen the great Werner Herzog documentary “Burden of Dreams” have an idea of just how grueling and disagreeable the heart of the jungle can be.  Survival alone is a hefty chore, staying clear of deadly poisonous snakes, bugs, spiders, plants, water sources, etc. is no easy task.  Then add the element of tribalism, savage cannibalism, ritual sacrifice and the like – what do you get? An odd soldering of veracious fear and foreign territorialism that renders you flat out paralyzed.  The best films of this ilk shoot entirely on location and capture the true mystique of nature’s peril.       

Best Example: Cannibal Holocaust

Honorable Mention: Predator, Cannibal Ferox

Mall/Department Store – I don’t know about you, but there’s something so damn compelling about people getting gorily killed in a mall or some other venue of commerce.  Is it just me?  Am I just so jaded by retail consumption and superficiality that I actually root for easily duped automatons to get their bloody just due?  Either way, you can’t really deny the fun films of this ilk offer.  You’ve got all the different stores, the food court, the rooftops and basements, the requisite lobby fountain – all of it seem familiar but if done right quickly turn into malevolent crime scenes so unholy that they’ll make you think twice about frequenting even your local mom and pop shop.         

Best Example: Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Honorable Mention: Dawn of the Dead (2004), Night of the Comet, Into the Mirror

School/Classroom – Ah, good old classroom terror.  Hard to top it.  When done right, horror flicks set in the halls of a school can be pretty damn rad.  You’ve got the punk-ass students, tyrannical teachers, inclement principals – all people we can usually root to get their pretty little heads lopped off.  Not for nothing, but I personally love it when filthy little cheerleaders get their comeuppance, Thanksgiving style.  Because most horror films encourage the nighttime, not enough well made school-set examples can be enumerated.  Too bad, I’ve always had a fatal pencil sharpener fantasy I’m quite desperate to see onscreen.  Oh, keep an eye out for the Megan Fox film Jennifer’s Body later this year.      

Best Example: Carrie

Honorable Mention: Prom Night (1980), Scream, Graduation Day     

Spaceship/Station – It’s always fun extending a reign of terror into the cosmos.  Much like the ocean, exploring the uninhabitable can be downright terrifying.  Think about how haunting the spare, desolate images of the universe we saw in a flick like 2001: A Spacey Odyssey, a non-horror film.  It is daunting, overwhelming, and that in its own right is pretty unsettling.  But to throw in a horror premise, a malefic monster wreaking havoc or something of the like – well now you get a deft blend of both visceral terror and psychological uncertainty.  In addition, being confined to a spaceship or space station disallows you to break for a safe escape, making for an even more restless experience.          

Best Example: Alien

Honorable Mention: Aliens, Jason X    

Summer Camp/Cabin – A long running horror staple, some of the best horror films (at least in the slasher subgenre) have taken place at a summer camp/cabin.  When you’ve got a gaggle of young teens, alone, away from home, welcomed by the serene beauty of nature, only to be savagely interrupted by some psychotic-wacko with a penchant for blood – you’ve got a sure fire recipe for simple yet effective horror delight.  In the halcyon days of pre-MPAA butchery, summer camps were an all too in fad.  Now to set your film there, unless done impeccably, seems laughably platitudinous.  Rarely executed, incorrigibly imitated, summer camp/cabin horror is no doubt bound to persist.                      

Best Example: Friday the 13^th

Honorable Mention: The Burning, Cabin Fever, Sleepaway Camp

Theater – Seriously, what better way to spend 2 hours in the dark of a theater watching a petrifying film set in, you guessed it, a movie theater (or opera house).  A bit of wink-wink pastiche can be had, a sort of art imitates life event both fun and engaging in a way that brings something new to the film-going experience.  First off, a theater is dark, amply filled with potential victims, and perhaps most importantly, has a physical proximity meant for mass chaos and confusion.  By that I mean a killer can fell a person and easily mingle in the heard as to avoid being seen.  A theaters geographic confinement plays to the claustrophobic nature, thereby culling true suspense.  A perfect horror setting!          

Best Example: Demons

Honorable Mention: Suspiria, Opera, He Knows You’re Alone (opening sequence)