What a great question! I realize in retrospect that my favorite horror films are ones in which people confront horror rationally, and the horror is rationally understandable. Some examples:
Splice (2009) They‘re not mad scientists, they’re perfectly sensible (albeit ambitious) scientists who have unleashed a manmade horror beyond their comprehension. Nice escalation of the reasons to keep the experiment around as the horror escalates, so you can see why they don’t just kill it while it’s small. A lot of movies would just let the characters hold the idiot ball.
Altered States (1980) More perfectly sensible ambitious scientists. Moral: if something incomprehensible and terrifying happens to you, stay in the lab until you figure it out; don’t go home and try to sleep it off.
What a great question! I realize in retrospect that my favorite horror films are ones in which people confront horror rationally, and the horror is rationally understandable. Some examples:
Splice (2009) They‘re not mad scientists, they’re perfectly sensible (albeit ambitious) scientists who have unleashed a manmade horror beyond their comprehension. Nice escalation of the reasons to keep the experiment around as the horror escalates, so you can see why they don’t just kill it while it’s small. A lot of movies would just let the characters hold the idiot ball.
Altered States (1980) More perfectly sensible ambitious scientists. Moral: if something incomprehensible and terrifying happens to you, stay in the lab until you figure it out; don’t go home and try to sleep it off.