(The Shining, 1980)
(The Cabin in the Woods, 2012)
(The Descent, 2005)
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(Dreamcatcher, 2003)
Countless horror films start with people driving away from the safety of the city and into the dark heart of nature. In a way, it's kind of what horror does, at least since Poe shoved a narrator in a carriage and sent him to the House of Usher.
This image, however, is a little more specific and fun. Firstly, because these shots all take a God's-eye-view of the heroes via a helicopter. So in addition to the imposing vistas of nature, the viewer gets heroes miniaturized, made ant-like and almost pathetic. Secondly, the winding roads - a little creepier than straight roads. Winding roads don't uproot nature, they admit to it. Thirdly, the emphasis on pine trees. Aren't pine trees just a little bit worse than the usual forest? Pine trees are tough, prickly. They don't shed their needles during the winter. Some can live to be 5,000 years old. With their tapered shape, they look ready to stab. Pine trees are the obstinate, cranky bastards of the plant kingdom.
Funnily enough, it's likely that the three non-Shining examples here are all deliberate nods to The Shining. Dreamcatcher is another King story stuck in an ominous snowbound landscape, so why not start out the same way? The Descent is similarly interested in the idea of a lead character who snaps and gets "totes cray," as the kids say. And The Cabin in the Woods is trying to nod to every horror movie ever made.
Are there other examples? If you have one, leave a comment or shoot me a message - it'd be fun to build on this.
This image, however, is a little more specific and fun. Firstly, because these shots all take a God's-eye-view of the heroes via a helicopter. So in addition to the imposing vistas of nature, the viewer gets heroes miniaturized, made ant-like and almost pathetic. Secondly, the winding roads - a little creepier than straight roads. Winding roads don't uproot nature, they admit to it. Thirdly, the emphasis on pine trees. Aren't pine trees just a little bit worse than the usual forest? Pine trees are tough, prickly. They don't shed their needles during the winter. Some can live to be 5,000 years old. With their tapered shape, they look ready to stab. Pine trees are the obstinate, cranky bastards of the plant kingdom.
Funnily enough, it's likely that the three non-Shining examples here are all deliberate nods to The Shining. Dreamcatcher is another King story stuck in an ominous snowbound landscape, so why not start out the same way? The Descent is similarly interested in the idea of a lead character who snaps and gets "totes cray," as the kids say. And The Cabin in the Woods is trying to nod to every horror movie ever made.
Are there other examples? If you have one, leave a comment or shoot me a message - it'd be fun to build on this.
Given the effect of the camera looking down on those little humans like some kind of disaffected God ("Oh, it's people again, how cute"), you figure the only thing stopping F. W. Murnau from a helicopter shot in Nosferatu was the fact that helicopters, y'know, hadn't been invented.
(Nosferatu, 1922)
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