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Quote:

Originally Posted by ChronoGrl (Post 696093)

You just said my favorite M-word...

I honestly believe that Miike is a master of "intelligent horror," though not necessarily in the realm of "story" or "plot," in fact he goes out of his way to deconstruct stereotypical concepts of story and plot and instead focuses on character. I think that Ichi: The Killer is an excellent example of this; Miike takes the popular Yakuzza construct but completely makes it his own and turns it into a deconstruction of the weaknesses and codependencies that are inherent in Man.

I started Miike thread in the JA horror section - You should check it out when you get a chance.

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One genre that we haven't touched upon in this thread that I honestly consider "intelligent" horror is the homage/parody genre. I would name the following as examples:

Evil Dead II - Raimi creates this film as not only an homage to the slasher/haunted house genre but as a parody of his original film. What makes this movie intelligent is that it works well not only as homage to the haunted house (in the splatter punk genre), but it also works well as a haunted house film. There are some good creepy moments, when you're not grinning with Ash.
Shaun of the Dead - It's obvious that Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright have done their zombie homework. You see homage in lines such as, "WE'RE COMING TO GET YOU, BARBARA!" (an obvious nod to Romero's Night of the Living Dead's, "They're coming to get you, Barbara!") as well as parody of the genre. But at the same time, this is a true zombie film with some fairly intense moments.
FEAST - An incredibly well-made, directed, acted, and written homage to monster siege films, this Project Greenlight winner was a pure gem. Strictly a nod to pulp splatter horror that stands up as a good horror film.

I consider this subgenre "intelligent" because it causes the viewer to reexamine the popular constructs of the horror genre and recreates them in another light.

woh! Talk about an intense and intelligent whatever...

Those are very interesting perspectives CG. Sam Raimi is amazing. I have not seen too much that he did that I have not enjoyed. I also appreciate Bruce Campbell a great deal and am reading his autobiography currently. (and Marlon Brando's and Nikki Sixx's as well)

Bubba Ho-Tep is a monstrously cool and intelligent movie. (just had to throw that in)

I honestly can't give MR. Miike the Most Intelligent award because I feel he has much further to travel before that honor can be truly applied in his case. I do think he is the most up and coming potential director in the Horror genre. That's just it with Miike to me. Because his films are so completely original you get the feeling that he is some type of artistic prodigy that has only just scratched the surface of his capabilities. It's like the guy is just playing with your mind the way Hitchcock would when he refers to directing the audience's reactions. That don't don't mean squat though. It's just my opinion.

That's the thing about the arts. It's so subjective and universal in terms of true intelligent appreciation. Just when you have it dissected six ways from Sunday and think you've looked at all the angles, some new perspective opens up for you and your mind is more blown than ever.

some worthy directors IMO

Corrado Farina
Marc Caro
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
David Cronenberg
Mario Bava
David Lynch
Rob Zombie
George Romero
Lucio Fulci
Peter Jackson
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Juan López Moctezuma
Brad Anderson
Toby Hooper
Christophe Gans
Shusuke Kaneko
Avery Crounse
Werner Herzog

and about a 1000 more!