Horror movies often seeming "idyllic" at first

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This seems to be a cliche in horror films -- perhaps it's just a necessary setup -- but so many of them begin with ultimate peace and/or happiness. Indeed, so many horror movie descriptions have the word "idyllic" in the first paragraph.

I suppose that's there to clear the stage for the horror. I mean, what horror movies begin with crappy, everyday life as usual? Being an extreme newbie to the genre myself, I notwithstanding have more respect for the horror films that don't begin with the characters' implausibly-perfect lives, thus artificially ratcheting-up the emotional effects of the horror to come.

Then again, if movies aren't artifice, what are they?

Yeah, that's always bothered me too. Of course I've had particular trouble relating to the characters onscreen at the beginning of the movie, what with having AS and all, and there they are up there enjoying themselves and having huge groups of friends (which in horror movies usually die off one by one until the hero is the only one left); but I still don't see how everyone else is supposed to relate to that, either. I mean, the characters' lives at the beginning of the film are portrayed as as close to perfect as one can get, but even NTs don't have perfect lives. Nobody has that.

The victims of the bogeyman are usually young and attractive too. Jason and Freddy Kruger don't go around murdering the terminally ill! Why? I think I know, but what do you think?

It may not be horror... but how about Shaun of the Dead...

His like sucks...

I can't remember the beginning of Saw, but I doubt it's idyllic.

Horror's a journey into darkness anyway, so it doesn't bother me, if it starts and ends with sunny stuff.

one of my favorite movies, trouble every day.

things are pretty deeply messed up right from the start, and it only gets darker.

Best example: The first time we meet Darth Vader in Star Wars is as a looming black tower against a white, clean set. Not on the bridge of the Death Star, or some other evil setting, (Which is why the sequel didnt work.) Thus his evil,his darkness, is emphasised by the setting.

It stands to reason that the drop from idyll to horror is further than from medicority, normality, or even shitness. Its a simple way to do it.

David Lynch uses this whole concept a lot in his work but also tends to warp it a little. Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks are probably the best examples of this - BV is certainly the most overt - in that the horrors are commonly perpetrated by normal people with very malicious intent who have been living "just below the surface," so to speak, the entire time. A common theme in Lynch films is that of the "idyllic suburban paradise" being suburban, but neither idyllic nor a paradise. Makes you wonder what his childhood was like.

well, the more idyllic, the bigger the shift to get it to horror...

Speaking of horror movies, this quote from Roger Ebert about the new Friday the 13th movie had me laughing out loud:

Now that's commitment from Jason.


'I love what I do.'