Genre Debate: Would you consider Oldboy a "horror" movie?
 

Topic is coming from a discussion forming in the The Official HDC Asian Top 100 Compilation thread.

Since Oldboy is one of my favorite movies of all time and has come up in conversation time and time again on this (horror) forum, I think it's worthy of a debate:

Would you consider Oldboy a "horror" movie?

Why, or why not?

No.

Because it's not a horror movie.

Personally, I consider Oldboy a horror movie, and this is why:

I think that Oldboy most certainly qualifies as horror. With Oldboy, Park is exploring Gothic Horror (Dickensian horror) to its extremities. It's horrifying. It's pulp. And it's iconic. It's the struggle of the human condition against itself and against all odds. And there are certain twists in the film that are honestly horrifying. Oldboy has classic gothic horror themes that make the movie more than just another Asian action flick.

How is it not horror and how would you classify it?

As an action/suspense movie like many other revenge movies, such as "A bittersweet life" and "Death Sentence".



Just because you like it and you're a horror nut doesn't make it more of a horror movie.

See, that argument I can understand. It's a bit more coherent and intelligent than just saying, "Because it's not a horror movie" or "Your argument stinks."


Look at my argument. It's not just about enjoying horror and enjoying this movie. It's a well-articulated point that Park draws from Romantic Gothic horror themes and that could very well place him in the horror genre.

If you agree with it fine. You obviously don't, and that' fine too.

But don't insult my intelligence, asshole.

Go die in a fire.

I don't agree.

And i find your argument overly analyzed to the point of snobbish.

If you'd come up with the same heartfelt arguments about Visitor Q i would tend to agree with you, coz that movie is, to me, much more in between genres. But Oldboy... As much as i love that movie i'd still have to say it would never become horror in my book.


Vote Angra!

no





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...

I think the problem with Oldboy is that it's more "Pulp" than it is "horror" I suppose - And "Pulp" can really be a sub-genre of Mystery, Thriller, Action, and Horror genres. Though, again, I would argue that its themes make it more horror.

Re: Visitor Q

I would absolutely make a similar argument for Visitor Q: I feel as though Visitor Q is testing its audience more than Oldboy or any of the Vengeance Trilogy; I think that it's seeking out to define what horror truly is; in Visitor Q, the audience is faced with an array of human atrocities from
rape and incest to different levels of violence (from the harsh beating of the mother to the more comical kung-fu-like violence that you see in their backyard. It's very much like Blue Velvet in that the viewer is implicated in these atrocities.

Also - I think it's easier to classify Visitor Q as horror; Blue Velvet is classified as horror all the time and I think that Visitor Q is in that same vein.

No.


See, that line of thinking contradicts itself. Because there exists a line between horrifying and horror, IMO.

A big part of the plots in The Godfather and On The Waterfront are horrifying. Even Platoon and Taxi Driver have a lot of horrifying stuff which take things to the extreme.

What about Full Metal Jacket? or 2001 when HAL takes over? American History X?

Even the incest angle, in many of its knowing and unknowing variations, has been explored before in other movies too.

Chinatown? The Manchurian Candidate? Dangerous Liaisons/Cruel Intentions?

Like Doc said, Oldboy is a curious blend - touching upon many genres, but the subject matter, which matters in the end, is "a revenge thriller". Shocking, yes, impactful, surely, hard-hitting and brutal, most certainly...but horror? Nope.