When “ho-ho-ho” gives way to “horror”
DailyNews.Com has an article looking at the preponderance of horror-themed movies out in time for Christmas: the bloody SWEENEY TODD, the spooky THE ORPHANAGE, and the monster-fest ALIENS VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM. Less scary but still involing a monster is WATER HORSE: LEGEND OF THE DEEP. What’s goint on here? Is Christmas being totally debased by Hollywood? Not really. The article offers an explanation:
”It’s classic counter-programming,” says Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media by Numbers, a box-office tracking service. “There used to be this idea that horror movies were just for Halloween, but they’re for any time of year.”
Meanwhile, Guillermo Del Toro, who executive produced ORPHANAGE, points out that telling ghost stories at Christmas is hardly a radical departure:
“Actually, the Victorian tradition was to save ghost stories to tell around the fireplace at Christmas,” del Toro says. “The most famous of them all of course is Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.”
“Really, I can’t think of a better setting for a horror story than the holidays.”
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