Is Oldboy horror?

[FreddysFingers]

It's horrifying but it's a different type of horrifying. Torturing and sibling setups are scary but not in the same sense as seeing a killer jump out of the closet or having a monster lunge out at you from a lake. Both horrific but completely different.

[mytee]

Again it comes back to how you define horror in your own mind.

[NicoleMayCanaday]

Fair enough. That's sadistic horror but that's really only one scene. Even if there are a few more, does Oldboy build the movie around making your feel horrified because of these scenes or does it build itself around Oh Dae-Su's character?

It's like Scareface. That bathroom chainsaw scene was terrifying, but that one scene doesn't qualify Scareface as a horror movie.

Just throwing your statement back to make sure I get this....
So, for it to qualify as horror, one would need to feel scared/horrified through the whole movie?

I think that would eliminate many horror movies.

[NicoleMayCanaday]

So, can we just call it sadistic horror and be satisfied?

[FreddysFingers]

Just throwing your statement back to make sure I get this....
So, for it to qualify as horror, one would need to feel scared/horrified through the whole movie?

I think that would eliminate many horror movies.

What horror movies would it eliminate?

[NicoleMayCanaday]

What horror movies would it eliminate?

Mostly comedy-horror comes to mind right now because the viewer is laughing or in horrified. Some I can think of I wasn't horrified the whole time, per say....

From Dusk Till Dawn
Jennifers Body
Bulletproof
Spiral
Wishmaster 1 & 2
..........I wasn't horrified the whole movie, but they are still great horror movies.

I think we need to establish ingredients for a movie to qualify as horror. A movie can have all these ingredients, or a combo/ hybrid of a few....but it has to have at least ONE characteristic to qualify as a horror movie.

One characteristic could make it a weak horror movie to some, or it may be brilliant to another. Again, art is subjective.

So what are the components of a horror movie?

[FreddysFingers]

Well, first off... Dusk Till Dawn is tricky because half of the movie is a damn Western crime drama and then it turns into a horror movie. That is a straight 'hybrid.' I don't consider Jennifer's Body horror, mainly because it sucked, and two because it felt like a teen drama with horror elements. I haven't seen Bulletproof or Spiral so I couldn't say. Wishmaster 1 and 2 are both horror because they rely on making the audience jump out of their seat or by grotesque makeup.

The one characteristic is that a horror movie has to scare the audience by use of psychological or physical scares. That characteristic has to be present throughout the entire film or at least half of the film. Having a few snit bits here and there shouldn't constitute it as a horror, otherwise we'd have a hell of a lot more horror movies out there.

'Hybrids' are crosses. There is a difference between a comedy-horror and a horror-comedy. A comedy themed horror would be Shaun of the Dead. A horror themed comedy would be Zombieland but that's getting too complicated.

[TerrorScribe]

It's horrifying but it's a different type of horrifying. Torturing and sibling setups are scary but not in the same sense as seeing a killer jump out of the closet or having a monster lunge out at you from a lake. Both horrific but completely different.

But the thing is that the idea of torture is horrifying whereas a jump scare is just merely startling. I think a lot more movies are accepted as horror movies because they are truly horrifying. Take "The Human Centipede" for instance. There are no jump scares in that movie, and it's really not overtly scary but conceptually, it's horrifying.

The one characteristic is that a horror movie has to scare the audience by use of psychological or physical scares. That characteristic has to be present throughout the entire film or at least half of the film. Having a few snit bits here and there shouldn't constitute it as a horror, otherwise we'd have a hell of a lot more horror movies out there.

Some movies that I think I have psychological scares throughout: The Silence of the Lambs, Misery, Se7en.

Just sayin'.

[FreddysFingers]

Yes, however, from what I remember... Oldboy wasn't all torture and violence. Most of the movie was him trying to figure out the web of conspiracy around him and take revenge on his captors. Torture is horror if the entire story is build around that like Saw. What separates Oldboy from Unleashed?

I don't thin Silence, Misery or Se7en are horror either. Misery is a drama. Se7en is a murder mystery. Silence of the Lambs is also a murder mystery. They just have really dark atmospheres and motifs.

[Creamy Goodness]

Hope you don't mind me reviving an old thread...

I've never really viewed Oldboy as horror. I label it as my favorite movie of all time, but I've always viewed it as an intense thriller with disturbing visuals and a little bit of drama for good measure. The film is more about Dae Su-oh discovering who imprisoned him for 15 years along with how they're connected to him and why they did it. The torture scenes are horrific at times, but kind of secondary to a man looking for his captor. I've had similar discussions with Ichi the Killer, as well. Another film I don't really view as horror.

[FreddysFingers]

A thriller is a great way to classify it. I haven't seen it in a while but I know that it relies heavily on characters, right? If that's the case, it definitely is a thriller. Unlike horror, a thriller relies on suspenseful plot elements and characters with the occasional jump scare.

[Creamy Goodness]

On another forum, most of the people who post regularly say that "thriller" is just a mainstream term for horror films that become popular and/or are liked by critics.

[Mfish618]

Hope you don't mind me reviving an old thread...

I've never really viewed Oldboy as horror. I label it as my favorite movie of all time, but I've always viewed it as an intense thriller with disturbing visuals and a little bit of drama for good measure. The film is more about Dae Su-oh discovering who imprisoned him for 15 years along with how they're connected to him and why they did it. The torture scenes are horrific at times, but kind of secondary to a man looking for his captor. I've had similar discussions with Ichi the Killer, as well. Another film I don't really view as horror.

I totally agree with you, Creamy. Jaws is another example of a thriller mislabeled as horror.

[Creamy Goodness]

I totally agree with you, Creamy. Jaws is another example of a thriller mislabeled as horror.

Yep. Agreed. I feel the same way about Silence of the Lambs and Seven, too.

[FreddysFingers]

I got to agree with you on Silence of the Lambs and Seven Creamy. I don't think thriller is a mainstream definition because there are is some merit to the term. However, on the debate of Jaws, I can see it both as a horror and as a thriller. Horror fans want to believe that thriller is just a "classy" term for horror because they want the genre to have more movies, but it's not. Hell, even Gremlins is categorized as horror when I would categorize it as a comedy if anything.

[LolliePop]

Silence of the Lambs, Oldboy, Jaws, Seven... none of these are horror. Just because there are elements in a film that are horrific does not automatically lead to it belonging in the horror genre. There is a world of difference between the nature of these films, which I do catagorise as thrillers, and their villians. Horror villians are not confined by the reasonable realms of reality or probability. Thrillers, while they may contain the same elements of horror, are stories essentially grounded within worldly sensibilities. Just my opinion....

Oh - and gremlins is nothing but a great kids film. To call it horror is just laughable.

[FreddysFingers]

So horror villains have free-range between reality and fantasy and thriller villains are confined to realty based actions?

[LolliePop]

So horror villains have free-range between reality and fantasy and thriller villains are confined to realty based actions?

Confined is a strict word, but there is a consistent element of the possible, no matter how thin. In horror that is broken. Jason is a stalker but you can kill him as many times as you like but you know he's coming back. If Hannibal Lector is truly dead, without some human-based escape loop hole, he's not returning from the grave.

And who said Gremlins was horror? Does that mean Count Von Count is too?

[FreddysFingers]

I disagree because a thriller doesn't necessarily mean that it shouldn't be outside the realm of possibility. Film like White Noise, Mothman Prophecies and What Lies Beneath are all thrillers that use elements of horror to become more impacting. A thriller, to me at least, is the genre that's between horror and drama and by mixing elements from each of those genres you get a thriller. A thriller is based more on character and plot rather than horror, which is the opposite.

[LolliePop]

I think the waters can get very muddied when the film's feet are in both camps. Its always going to be speculative to people whether or not a film is more of one genre or the other, especially when adding elements of the supernatural etc. As I think many would agree a film could be both two people could both legitimately say the same film is a thriller with horror elements or a horror with thriller elements. However, when a film is missing what I view as including traditional facets of horror, such as Silence of the Lambs for example, I would be interested in someone who believes it to be in the horror genre to persuade me why beyond 'horrible things happen'.

Just to throw an extra spanner into the works... does anyone really see something like Shaun of the Dead as a horror film? To me thats a comedy with horror elements. But I'm sure plenty feel otherwise...