Descendants of Deliverance: Tracing the Lineage of the Rural Horror Film

[KrugStillo]

Hey everyone.

Barricade and Hatchet seem like clear qualifiers and I gave the Dark Harvest series the benefit of the doubt. I'm really not sure about Slash though. What is Joseph's dark family secret? I would check it out for myself right this minute, but I'm backlogged.

Official List:



2001 Maniacs (Sullivan, 2006)

American Gothic (Hough, 1988)

Barricade (Rose, 2007)

Berserker (Richard, 1987)

Breakdown (Mostow, 1997)

Cabin Fever (Roth, 2002)

Children of the Corn (Kiersch, 1984)

Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (Price, 1993)

Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (Hickox, 1995)

Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (Spence, 1996)

Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (Wiley, 1998)

Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return (Skogland, 1999)

Children of the Corn: Revelation (Magar, 2001)

Dark Harvest (Nicholson, 1992)

Dark Harvest 2: The Maize (Cowell, 2004)

Dark Harvest 3: Scarecrow (Dixon, 2004)

Deliverance (Boorman, 1972)

Devil's Rejects, The (Zombie, 2005)

Don't Go In The Woods Alone (Bryan, 1982)

Eaten Alive (Hooper, 1977)

Gator Bait (Sebastian & Sebastian, 1974)

Gator Bait II: Cajun Justice (Sebastian & Sebastian, 1988)

Hatchet (Green, 2006)

Hills Have Eyes, The (Craven, 1977)

Hills Have Eyes, The (Aja, 2006)

Hills Have Eyes II, The (Craven, 1985)

Hills Have Eyes II, The (Weisz, 2007)

Hoboken Hollow (Stephens, 2005)

House of 1000 Corpses (Zombie, 2003)

Hunter's Blood (Hughes, 1987)

I Spit on Your Grave (Zarchi, 1978)

Incident On and Off a Mountain Road (Coscarelli, 2005)

Jeepers Creepers (Salva, 2001)

Jeepers Creepers II (Salva, 2003)

Just Before Dawn (Lieberman, 1981)

Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (Burr, 1990)

Midnight (Russo, 1982)

Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968)

Pigs (Lawrence, 1972)

Pumpkinhead (Winston, 1988)

Redneck County (????, 1975)

Redneck Zombies (Lewnes, 1987)

Rituals (Carter, 1977)

Savage Weekend (Paulsen, 1976)

Southern Comfort (Hill, 1981)

Straw Dogs (Peckinpah, 1971)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The (Hooper, 1974)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The (Nispel, 2003)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre II, The (Hooper, 1983)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, The (Liebesman, 2006)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (Henkel, 1994)

Turistas (Stockwell, 2006)

Two Thousand Maniacs (Lewis, 1964)

Wolf Creek (McLean, 2005)

Wrong Turn (Schmidt, 2003)

Wrong Turn II: Dead End (Lynch, 2007)



Questionable:

Evil Dead (Raimi, 1982)

Frailty (Paxton, 2002)

Hillbilies in a Haunted House (Yarbrough, 1967)

Lake Placid (Miner, 1999)

Larva (Cox, 2005)

Night of the Hunter (Laughton, 1955)

Pumpkinhead (sequels)

Rawhead Rex (Pavlou, 1986)

Reaping, The (Hopkins, 2007)

Slash (Sundstrom, 2002)

White Zombie (Martinelli, 1932)

[KrugStillo]

At first I was skeptical about including the original Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968) on the Urbanoia list because it is such a clear example of a "zombie" film. Upon review of the film, however, I think a strong case can be made for its inclusion if the zombies are understood to be metaphorical rurals. The case is made even stronger considering that the majority of victims are outsiders (with the exception of Tom and Judy) and the majority of zombies are locals that rose from local cemetaries. Carrying this perspective a step further, the film tells a story about alienation from rural, small-town America.

The remake of the film (Savini, 1990) thrives to an even greater extent upon the urbanoia theme as it leaves Barbara to look on in horror as the rural townspeople torture the zombies at the end of the film. Her perspective is one that equates the living rural townsfolk with the zombies themselves through their behavior.

[neverending]

Nice job, Krug.

[KrugStillo]

Thanks Neverending!

I forgot about how much I love this subgenre of horror. Makes a person want to move out to the boonies, smoke corn-cob pipes, and collect chain-saws.

Of all the urbies I've seen so far, I have to confess that I have three favorites: The Devil's Rejects and Aja's remake of The Hills Have Eyes. I know they are both recent films and it is normally a bad thing to confess admiration for work that is derivative or remade, but there's a quality to both of these that can only be gained through a revision: clarification of conventions. Horror (like all genres) relies on convension and the reinterpretation of the same basic themes through contemporary circumstances. By capturing these and amplifying them, these two films allow for the simultaneous appreciation of this whole genre. Think of all the great grindhouse films that are called to mind in Rejects!

As we expand the list we're building in this thread, I am very psyched about watching new films from an Urbanoia point of view.

[Despare]

Originally Posted by KrugStillo

Of all the urbies I've seen so far, I have to confess that I have three favorites: The Devil's Rejects and Aja's remake of The Hills Have Eyes. I know they are both recent films

You're not good with the whole counting thing are you? ;)

[KrugStillo]

Ahhh...yes. I had originally intended to include Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Beginning as another of my favorites to further emphasize my point about remakes, but decided against it. I really like a couple of scenes in that film (walking out with the chain saw, Hewitt's speech), but the whole Vietnam subplot was nonsense.

[KrugStillo]

Obviously Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning is not a remake, but a prequel. However, it should also be pointed out that this film, along with two of the original sequels: TCM II and Leatherface, follow the same basic plotline with only slight variations. In fact, it seems that certain scenes in these film are as obligatory as a shower scene in a "Women in Prison" flick.

[KrugStillo]

Hi all!

Do you think we can tentatively call this list complete?

Can anyone thing of any "urbanoia films" we've missed?

Definition of Urbanoia: Films which depict urban or suburban characters traveling into rural areas and running afowl of the local inhabitants.

[ChronoGrl]

Timber Falls (2007)

[neverending]

Nothing But Trouble