Should an Indy movie ever venture further into horror?

Montana Smith

Active member
Rocket Surgeon said:
Agreed, the only question is HOW graphic. I myself prefer suspense and menace to extreme bloodletting.

The main question proposed is "further" which I think is fine depending upon execution. Pun intended.

I can live with that. Some gore is just for the sake of gore, and as such it loses it's intended effect.

The old method of presenting an horrific moment off-screen or in shadows can be just as effective. An increase in horror would re-establish the idea that Indy occupies an adult world.

ROTLA gave us Toht with the hot poker, and later his implied threat to torture Marion for information. Then the destruction of the three main protagonists on screen.

TOD had obvious elements of horror, from human skins to heart-ripping and implied blood-drinking.

Was TLC low on horror? Donovan disintegrated like Christopher Lee's Hammer House Dracula. And Indy came face to face with the personification of evil itself in Berlin.

KOTCS didn't seem to have the same level of horror. It was muted. Even Dovchenko being carried away by the ants didn't really do it, though the concept was horrific enough.

TOD was a balance of wry humour, silliness and horror.

KOTCS was overbalanced on the side of humour and silliness. For #5 to redress that balance would require Indy going into horror, and maybe further than before in order to be taken seriously in today's market. Since it looks unlikely that Lucas wants to venture back into Indy's old territory, it is also unlikely that we'll see anything 'horrific'.
 

Dr.Jonesy

Well-known member
Rocket Surgeon said:
The only fit Sci Fi has with Indy is revisionist imaginings of lazy uneducated fools to be debunked. It brought nothing new to the "concept," a word I use loosely because it implies coherent thought.

I love how you're blanketing everyone.
:hat:
 
Dr.Jonesy said:
I love how you're blanketing everyone.
:hat:
Not everyone, just the psuedoscientist charlatains who have taken too many acid trips.

As presented it seems to me that's exactly the kind of tripe Indy would have debunked, not bought into or spoon fed us in Skull.:hat:

Care to explain how: "Horror and Adventure does not mix"?
 

kongisking

Active member
You're all going to hate me for this, but I actually like Lucas's idea of making each Indy film pay tribute to a different genre of B-movie, while remaining adventure at heart (no pun intended). Perhaps in the future, if we get an Indy movie set in the 80's, it'll pay glorious homage to one-liner filled action movies like Die Hard and The Terminator?
 
kongisking said:
You're all going to hate me for this, but I actually like Lucas's idea of making each Indy film pay tribute to a different genre of B-movie, while remaining adventure at heart (no pun intended). Perhaps in the future, if we get an Indy movie set in the 80's, it'll pay glorious homage to one-liner filled action movies like Die Hard and The Terminator?
Nah, I don't hate you, but I think it's revisionist history to make that claim. All these claims were made after the fact. It's not like they went into the projects with such an iron clad agenda.

Like Lucas said after Temple, you never really know what you're going to get.

If they had gone in with the clear, stated intention they may have turned out better.

By the time of Skull they had adoped this view of how things had panned out and justified a rushed script.
 

Indy's brother

New member
Rocket Surgeon said:
By the time of Skull they had adoped this view of how things had panned out and justified a rushed script.

I've read this interpretation before here at The Raven, and I don't get it. What evidence is there to support this view?
 
Indy's brother said:
I've read this interpretation before here at The Raven, and I don't get it. What evidence is there to support this view?
The voluminous plot holes. The muddled motivations. The spoonfed exposition in place of action. Undeveloped ideas. Loose threads all.
 

INCUBUSRATM

New member
I agree with you, Rocket Surgeon... Good way to put it. I also would like to add the corniness of parts. For me, it was on par with the corniness of the new Star Wars trilogy. Lucas has just lost his touch.
 
INCUBUSRATM said:
Lucas has just lost his touch.
He still has a spark...but withought dissent it's just a fart.

He divorced himself from people who would be honest with him and surrounded himself with "Yes-Men."
 
Last edited:

Montana Smith

Active member
Rocket Surgeon said:
He still has a spark...but withought dissent it's just a fart.

He divorced himself from people who would be honest with him and surrounded himself with "Yes-Men."

He has a vision. It's his vision. With age this vision has become softer and sillier. It's the place he's comfortable in, and one in which heroes are cleaner cut, and less roguish. It's as though his educational intentions via Young Indy came with a re-moralizing of two of his most famous anti-heroes: both played by Harry, of course.
 

The Drifter

New member
I was thinking (Attila's post in another thread spurred my lazy muse into action). What if the villain was something supernatural if there were to be an Indy V? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Vlad the Impaler (and he was an immortal vampire) was a villain of sorts in one of the Young Indy episode, correct?

Besides having a flesh and blood antagonist, Indy could be up against something that's not bound to the forces of nature (no, not aliens!). We've seen paranormal things in every film, but this time it's up against Indy full force Any thoughts on this?
 

Montana Smith

Active member
The Drifter said:
Adventure and horror could go hand-in-hand, IMO.
If done correctly, that is.

Perfectly in hand, as horror can provide an element of danger and suspense to an adventure.

It only tips the scales when a bloodbath over-shadows the spirit of adventure. So, while TOD has horror elements it remains foremost a tale of adventure.
 
The Drifter said:
Adventure and horror could go hand-in-hand, IMO.
If done correctly, that is.
Just saying Horror is pretty broad. There are many kinds, from menacing to slasher to torture porn.

Give me elements from other horror films you think might be appropriate for an Indy film...
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Rocket Surgeon said:
Give me elements from other horror films you think might be appropriate for an Indy film...

...there's being stalked by a wild animal...or a wild undead human...or just the general sense of evil that might pervade a location or inhabit a villain...
 

Attila the Professor

Moderator
Staff member
Rocket Surgeon said:
Just saying Horror is pretty broad. There are many kinds, from menacing to slasher to torture porn.

Give me elements from other horror films you think might be appropriate for an Indy film...

I've been wondering what would be suitable myself. Certainly only so much of the film could actually be spent in a thoroughly horrific environment; as with our Hitchcock musings, the danger is going too fully in such a direction. This is a part of why I'm still quite fond of the old Monkey King rendition on a horror-based opening.

Is <I>The Haunting</I> what we're talking about? Or more William Castle? Zombies, even if it's a bit early for them? Of course, the recent novel dealt with those, and the comic series did Lovecraft.
 

Mickiana

Well-known member
A really good bad guy is enough evil for me. Too much evil and we tip over into the manifestation of something devilish. I don't want the evil to come from a thing, I want it to come from a person. Hopefully there is enough mystical element to the macguffin object thingy sought after prize thing. In terms of having a bad/evil guy, a warped psychology is interesting enough (for me, that is).
 

Attila the Professor

Moderator
Staff member
Mickiana said:
A really good bad guy is enough evil for me. Too much evil and we tip over into the manifestation of something devilish. I don't want the evil to come from a thing, I want it to come from a person. Hopefully there is enough mystical element to the macguffin object thingy sought after prize thing. In terms of having a bad/evil guy, a warped psychology is interesting enough (for me, that is).

I agree with this. I don't want a demonic or even supernatural villain, most likely. (Going into the realm of the 1950s monster movie, however, might well be appropriate.)

An environment, however, with more of the supernatural about it, as of a haunted castle or some such, is something I could be on board with.
 
Top