Influence in Movies: The Past That Shapes The Future

 Given my indecisiveness leading up to this week's post, I decided to look at influencing in movies. A pretty general topic that let's me jump around to different things and describe what works and what doesn't work from these influences. Whether that be wholesale ripping something off, or using another piece of media or news story as a springboard. This is about the pieces that shape a work.

To ease into this topic, I am going to use A Nightmare on Elm Street as an example. The film was made in response to Wes Craven seeing the deaths of Hmong Refugees in the news. Seemingly random deaths that were most likely caused by the usage of chemical weapons. But the jumping off point for Craven wasn't the horrors of war, it was the hallucinations, and unwillingness to sleep that caught his attention. So, the film was born out of this fear of a boogeyman that haunts your dreams. Even the look of Freddy was based upon a random guy Craven saw when he was a child. 

The core idea behind A Nightmare on Elm Street worked on many levels due to its fluidity. Not being able to sleep to was scary enough. Adding a creepy, foreboding man just amplified this phenomenon. While I really liked what Craven did with this concept, I can see people being a little wary of using real events as material for your project, or even the whitewashing of it all. There is probably a world where this movie turns out worse, and this aspect gets brought up more, even with Craven's acknowledgement. Like, aside from the Hmong Refugee aspect, he does talk about centering it around suburban America. Made it more relatable and whatnot to the intended audience. 

Ultimately, this influence proved to work in favor of Craven on a more positive note. Can't say the same for the rest of the franchise as their scope zeroed in on Freddy himself. I've already talked extensively about this very thing, so go read that if you want more Nightmare talk. However, it is funny to think about how detrimental the comedic Freddy would be for Nightmare, but not the imitators like Child's Play. A series that would spawn its own imitators. While many lament the overabundance of comedy, the audience is still there and going strong. 

Going more into real life influences, it's funny how many pieces of media can be tied to Ed Gein. This being the result of so many people copying The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Friday the 13th, specifically Part 2 and onwards.  And it gets funnier when you factor in A Bay of Blood on the F13th side. So many iterations that you eventually have nothing but the shape. But they're not all bad. Yet for comparison's sake, let's look at both sides, starting with the Texas-likes. 

In this group, I can think of three off the top of my head. Those being House of 1000 Corpses, X, and Wrong Turn. All of them follow a similar structure in featuring a rural family in the middle of nowhere that target unsuspecting groups of people. No help getting in or out. While Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses  and Ti West's X understood the general concept quite well, the same cannot be said of Rob Schmidt's Wrong Turn. 

 The baseline is the rural family part. The next aspect goes to filling out your cast, and making your villains feel real. That's the bread and butter of what made TCM the hit that most of the sequels could never match. And it's what made Wrong Turn look so diluted in comparison. None of the main characters were discernible, and they were perpetually in survival mode. So, you never get any real, concrete moments with them. This resulted in the destressing moments feeling like they were there to fill time. But I think the villain group made it much more worse than it deserved. 

You can see the Hitchhiker from TCM in Three Finger (Played by Julian Richings). And you can see the Leatherface x Jason hybrid in Saw Tooth (Played by Garry Robbins) and One Eye (Played by Ted Clark). Yet you get none of the depth behind the characters. They're just inbred killers and nothing more. I didn't even know they had names before checking. But even then, these sound more like titles than proper names.

So, clearly the wrong message can be taken from an influence. But when it's done well, then the wheels start moving. And that's where House of 1000 Corpses excelled the most. A movie that clearly has the vision of Rob Zombie while being very close in line with Tobe Hooper's vision for TCM. Now thinking on it a bit more, House of 1000 Corpses felt like it mixed TCM 2 with the original. I'm not basing this on Bill Moseley being in TCM 2 and House of 1000 Corpses, but more on the setting. The house itself, the residents, the introduction of a third party that happened to be cops. The pieces were always set.

While House of 1000 Corpses shaves off the meat industry collapse motivation, the death cult family inherit the spirit that was present in TCM 1 & 2. A similarity that was shared with Ti West's X, as Ti West ignored that same TCM motivation and opted to instead make the focus on sex and body image. Something that I felt was inconsistent in the prequel, Pearl. But that's neither here nor there. X's approach to bringing the family closer, and appearing more docile, ended up making the turn that much more intriguing. To me, Pearl (Played by Mia Goth) felt more jealous than puritanical toward the Porn Crew. Instead of making the unknowing crew play their game. Pearl opted to take the ball and never let go. 

Ultimately, the hit-rate of the Texas-like is low. Many of them end up being more like Wrong Turn. Which is not the worst, but it could be better. At least they're not Friday-likes. The hit-rate feels so exponentially low that you either have to be extreme like the Hatchet series, and lean into the absurdity. Or you have to nail an insane idea like April Fool's Day. Because at the end of the day, the imitators are not trying to copy Halloween or A Bay of Blood. They're trying to make the next Friday the 13th. But if you can't replicate the ingenuity and artistry behind the kills, then you might as well pack it up. 

Friday the 13th was not just defined by Jason, but by how Jason was gonna kill someone next. An arm's race that still makes people try to out Jason the Voorhees. I mean, just look at Terrifier. I've never seen a series try so hard to outdo itself without understanding what made a kill so memorable. Like, you can only saw someone through the crotch so many times before it becomes old news. The gore's not the problem, it's just boring. 

I could go all day long about this topic, and I probably will in the future if I'm feeling indecisive again. But overall, movies and media in general operate like a game of telephone. The more it travels down the line, the more diluted the message becomes. A big problem that many pieces of media run into is only going back to the thing that influenced them and not going back to the thing that influenced the thing that influenced them. It's about knowing history and learning why something turned out the way it did. In order to understand the present and the future, you must first understand the past. As there is no future without the past. 

And remember to Free Palestine, Free Congo, Free Sudan, Free Venezuela and to Free Lebanon from the onslaught of their oppressors. Never stop talking about them. They think that we don't care, but we see everything. Never forget that. They are trying to suppress our voices because they matter, remember that. There may have been a ceasefire in Gaza, but Palestine still needs to be completely free.