So this is off topic, but why (well except maybe Scrooged) haven’t there been truly scary versions of “A Christmas Carol?” With the muppets you know what you to expect, and the version with Alistair Sim had a very frightening ghost of Jacob Marley. To me it cries out for a real fever dream treatment, make it as dark as possible. (Well except for the Tiny Tim scenes, obviously).
The original, and many adaptations, use morality to show the horror.nthere is no abject and outright scary shit except for the ghost of Marley who was deliberately scary to Scrooge. But even Marley was soon shown to be a miser in chains who is more grumpy than scary and there’s no way to fix that because he’s a ghost who has to tell Scrooge what’s happening. Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees are scary because they say nothing. Having a ghost give a message instantly undercuts the terror.
I disagree about your last point. Talking ghosts can absolutely be scary if it’s done right. The Exorcist demon is pretty famous for both frightening people and never shutting up, and demons and ghosts often serve similar purposes in horror movies. It could have easily been framed as a ghost possession instead of a demonic possession.
Well being dark doesn’t automatically make something a horror story to be fair, does it have horror elements or presentation? Like does it try to frighten or at least unnerve the audience purposefully?
So this is off topic, but why (well except maybe Scrooged) haven’t there been truly scary versions of “A Christmas Carol?” With the muppets you know what you to expect, and the version with Alistair Sim had a very frightening ghost of Jacob Marley. To me it cries out for a real fever dream treatment, make it as dark as possible. (Well except for the Tiny Tim scenes, obviously).
The original, and many adaptations, use morality to show the horror.nthere is no abject and outright scary shit except for the ghost of Marley who was deliberately scary to Scrooge. But even Marley was soon shown to be a miser in chains who is more grumpy than scary and there’s no way to fix that because he’s a ghost who has to tell Scrooge what’s happening. Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees are scary because they say nothing. Having a ghost give a message instantly undercuts the terror.
I disagree about your last point. Talking ghosts can absolutely be scary if it’s done right. The Exorcist demon is pretty famous for both frightening people and never shutting up, and demons and ghosts often serve similar purposes in horror movies. It could have easily been framed as a ghost possession instead of a demonic possession.
How would you rate the 2009 CGI version with Jim Carrey?
Very good. Not my favorite though, I still have to go with the Alistair Sim version because it just looks so much grimmer and more gothic.
Check out Jim Carrie’s version. It gets dark.
I did and I especially liked the Marley’s ghost in the doorknocker scene. Really creepy!!
Well being dark doesn’t automatically make something a horror story to be fair, does it have horror elements or presentation? Like does it try to frighten or at least unnerve the audience purposefully?
It would be interesting to see a take on the story that went for horror as the genre.
I keep hoping someone will go full scale horror show with it - atmospherically speaking. It’s really quite a frightening story in many ways.