Murderous emus to slasher classics: What I learned from a week of horror films

Watching nothing but horror for a week can drive you a bit crazy. Walking at night feels like a life-or-death mission, gruesome death scenes flit across your mind during your commute, and gooey foods fill you with disgust.

This is what Monster Fest did to me. I’ve been a horror buff since high school, so when I found out Melbourne’s Cinema Nova was hosting a 10-day horror film festival, I immediately wanted in. But why not up the ante? Instead of just watching one or two flicks, I decided to watch as many as I could fit into a week.

Overall, I saw 11 films, or approximately 16 hours, over seven days. Granted, it was a rollercoaster experience – I barely ate dinner one night because the spaghetti bolognese looked too much like intestines, and I woke up in a delirious sweat twice. But physical impact aside, it was a chance to reflect on the power of horror – a genre that’s often underestimated critically, yet continues to pull in big audiences.

From classics to brand-new releases, Monster Fest ran the gamut. Not all the films could be classified as straight-cut horror – there were thrillers, martial arts flicks and crime dramas – but all navigated some form of fear, proving monsters come in different shapes and sizes. The deeper I sank into the horror rabbit hole, the more I learned about the genre. Here’s what stood out.

Horror is constantly re-inventing itself

Having watched films spanning from the late ’70s to current day, I noticed three distinct eras of horror, operating as windows into society’s collective anxieties at the time.

The first was its embrace of on-screen nudity. This included Bruce Le’s martial arts thriller, Challenge of the Tiger (1980) with its 20-minute topless tennis scene.

The second was the slasher era. I watched Jason Goes To Hell – The Final Friday (1993) and The Last Video Store (2023) back-to-back on Friday the 13th (appropriate, given Jason is part of the Friday the 13th franchise). Splatter films are defined by high kill counts – there was a kill on average every 3.83 minutes in Jason), so I knew I’d leave feeling a bit nauseous. But deeper down, these films seemed to punish those who have sex, and reward abstinence – clearly delineating them from the sexual liberation era.

The third era was the fear of the future. Time travel, artificial intelligence, eternal life – these are its key themes, as the films examine the dark futures we may encounter. For example, Restore Point (2023), Czech director Robert Hloz’s sci-fi thriller, is set during a future where people can choose to be revived in the case of an unnatural death. Leaving the cinema, I’d never appreciated mortality more.

Subtlety goes a long way

I love horror that rips into meaty themes, but a forced delivery can spoil the experience, something I lost patience for as the week went by.

On Wednesday, I watched Nabil Chowdhary’s short sci-fi thriller, Recollector, about a detective who attempts to solve a murder by infiltrating a victim’s remaining memories. Its long-winded final monologue felt like being spoon-fed an anti-corporation campaign. But I appreciated the original concept.

But by the time I watched Trim Season (2023) on Friday, I was not as open-minded. The story, which followed a group of women hired to trim cannabis on a Californian weed farm, was meant to be an allegory of addiction and intergenerational trauma. However, once this was painstakingly explained by the villain, I no longer cared. Enough with the dialogue, cut off more hands!

Conversely, Jim Jarmusch’s crime film, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), allowed me to revel in the nuance. It follows Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker), a hitman who models himself after the ancient samurai, as he’s targeted by the Italian mob. Beyond its killer soundtrack (produced by RZA), it speaks volumes about violence across cultures without spelling it out.

Don’t underestimate a short film

Monster Fest’s two short film programs featured work from around the world. Given most of these pieces were no longer than 15 to 20 minutes (with some of them running as short as 2 minutes), they didn’t get bogged down in exposition or over-complicated plotlines.

Krsy Fox’s Hims (2023) follows a single mother who discovers an evil entity living in her daughter’s room. In 16 minutes, we learn all we need to know about her – she’s recently single and has a daughter she wishes to protect. It’s simple, but it made me care about the character enough that I gasped out-loud when she was skewered through the chest by a demonic claw.

Similarly, Deadline (2023), Idan Gilboa’s stop-motion comedy horror, manages to transform a sweet old lady into a deadly killing machine intent on avoiding the Grim Reaper at all costs, even if it means killing everyone in her path – in 13 minutes.

Australian horror kills

Some of the best films to come out of Monster Fest were our own. The Australian content offered thought-provoking masterpieces paired with a humble Aussie attitude.

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On the second-last day of the festival, I watched Sam Odlum’s Time Addicts (2023), about two Melbourne drug dealers who travel through time using a mysterious drug. I was about 12 hours into my marathon at this point, so the confusing labyrinthine narrative somewhat eluded me, but I was impressed by its ability to offset disturbing sci-fi concepts with humour.

I ended the week with The Emu War (2023), a comedy thriller directed by Jay Morrissey, Lisa Fineberg and John Campbell. It’s based on the real-life Great Emu War of 1932, but in this film a ragtag platoon must kill the Queen Emu to defeat the birds.

After a week of dark, sinister content, it was cathartic to laugh in the packed cinema. Each joke got progressively more Australian (two soldiers search for “bush tucker”, which ends up being meat pies and fish and chips) and the entire story was coated in irony.

I voluntarily watched over 16 hours of film in a week to prove there’s more to horror than blood and guts. It can be creative, unpredictable and sophisticated while offering a safe place to examine your own fears.

But this lesson comes with a “don’t try this at home” warning. On average, I’ve probably been watching about two horror films every week since university. This was like my Olympics, I had mentally trained for it, and even I still slept with the light on after convincing myself “Hims” was in my wardrobe. For most, horror remains best in smaller doses.

Monster Fest will take place in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth from October 27-29.

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