Editorials
From ‘Suspiria’ to ‘Midsommar’: The Psychology of Color in Horror
Here’s a ridiculously obvious statement: movies are a visual form of storytelling. This means that everything that goes into a shot or frame is a deliberate choice, from camera angles, the set, character blocking, wardrobe, props, overall production design, etc.; anything you see on screen contributes to the overall mood or aesthetic that tells you something about the scene, characters on screen, or overall narrative whether you realize it or not. And color is a common tool used to manipulate audience’s emotions in all genres, especially horror.
Sometimes the use of color is overt and loud, like the vivid, psychedelic palette of Suspiria– namely the intense reds- for which Dario Argento drew inspiration from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves as a means of conveying an innocent heroine surrounded constantly by evil. Just as Snow White was in her story. The use of color was a visual stand-in for evil, or the unseen Mother. While Suspiria is on the extreme end of the spectrum, bold colors in horror tends to be the standard. Reds and blacks are the most obvious, but cool tones of blues and purples often lend a chilling, tense mood.
Guillermo del Toro has said that “color should tell you about the character,” and uses it a bit more subtly for thematic effect. Yellow represents light and hope in del Toro’s films. Lead heroine Edith (Mia Wasikowska) in Crimson Peak is often dressed in yellow; she is the lightness that contrasts the harsh rage of Lucille (Jessica Chastain), shown in her red gowns or the crimson clay and ghostly victims of Allerdale Hall. In Pan’s Labyrinth, the fairy world is warm yellow while the harsh real world is cold blue. The director is providing insight to how we should feel about his characters or his worlds through color. In The Shape of Water, green was mostly an unwelcoming, clinical color. Giles paints lime green jello, which he refers to as “mold green.” The key lime pie? Bad. The lab? An unpleasant place washed in mint green. The ruthless Richard Strickland’s car? Also green. So, too, is the creature to some extent, but his greens are earthlier, mixed with blues and neutrals.
In The Shape of Water, its the pastel and mint greens that provide an unsettling feeling, and it’s hardly the first time the color has been used in that way.
Stanley Kubrick was fond of using red in his films, and that was evident throughout the Overlook hotel in The Shining. From the patterned carpet, the elevator doors, the bathroom walls, and the copious amounts of blood, red was everywhere. Everywhere except Room 237. The moment little Danny Torrance stepped out of the bold halls of the Overlook into the excessively mint green bathroom of Room 237, something felt off before we even laid eyes on the eerie woman in the bathtub. Pastels and muted colors like the extreme use of green in Room 237 are meant to be soothing, but in horror it signifies psychological turmoil lurking beneath the surface. It’s exacerbated in The Shining by the jarring transition from bold hues to a muted palette, only separated by a single door in a sprawling hotel.
This color transition is the opposite in It Follows, where the muted pastel palette represents the innocence of Jay (Maika Monroe). In the beginning, she dresses in baby pinks and her room is painted and decorated in similar tones. But once she receives the inherited entity post-coital from a one-night stand, both Jay’s dress and surroundings shift into bolder, darker colors. Once again, pastel hues are prominent in psychological-based horror.
Director Gore Verbinski doesn’t dabble in horror often, but when he does you can count on him to go heavy handed with the mint, clinical green to deliver a feeling of unease. Both The Ring and A Cure for Wellness relied on washed out tones and greens to convey a sense of sickness. Something is very off in these worlds, and that green is the visual cue.
Last year’s Hereditary was packed with oppressive dread, and its color scheme reflected that. The dark undertones matched the bleakness of the narrative. Conversely, Ari Aster’s follow up, Midsommar, is vibrant and rich. The sunny blues, and yellows, and oranges, and pinks makes sense, given the summer and blossoming nature festival setting; but the soft focus lighting gives the colors a dreamlike quality that makes it feel off kilter. There’s something menacing hiding behind the lush greenery under the bright blue sky.
Production design is a vital component in filmmaking. In horror, it’s a necessary tool in creating dread and atmosphere, as is the sound design. Sometimes the meaning behind a film’s color palette is simply a preference, but often it’s something much more intricate and symbolic. The meaning behind the color’s use is ever fluid, too; red might be evil in Suspiria, but it represents a love of cinema in The Shape of Water. Color is a way to trigger primal feelings in an intuitive way, and it doesn’t get much more primal than horror.
What are your favorite uses of color in horror?
The problem with filming sequels back-to-back is that, unless you can afford expensive reshoots, there’s no easy way to adjust course in between movies if fans react badly to where the story is headed. That’s why it’s important to have a complete narrative thought out well in advance lest you accidentally kill a budding franchise.
However, this isn’t always the case. Every once in a while, it seems like the cinema gods smile upon certain chaotic productions and gift moviegoers with complete franchises that feel like more than the sum of their hastily produced parts. Ted Nicolaou’s Bloodlust: Subspecies III is precisely one of these miraculous pictures, with the raw talents of the artists involved (as well as the continued support from Romania) turning the feature into an effective conclusion for a series that kind of made things up as the filmmakers went along.
That’s why I’d like to invite my fellow readers to join me on this third part of our journey through the Subspecies franchise as we look into Bloodlust and talk about how it remains a surprisingly satisfying finale to the original trilogy.
A Trilogy Planned on the Fly
Released only a year after Bloodstone found plenty of success in rental stores and mail-in VHS catalogues worldwide, 1994’s Bloodlust was produced at the same time as its predecessor in (mostly) the same locations and with the same team. This means that the movie benefited from all the same upgrades as Bloodstone, with the crew now being more experienced with the ins and outs of surviving a low-budget Romanian production and the cast really settling into their characters.
At this point, everything from location scouting to the makeup process had been streamlined, with Wayne Toth and Norman Cabrera, the main duo behind special effects, even switching out time-consuming prosthetics for latex gloves in order to speed up Anders Hove’s monstrous transformation. The titular “subspecies” demons were also once again relegated to a mere cameo appearance due to the laborious puppetry required to bring them to life.
The only real hiccup came from the fact that actress Denice Duff had replaced the first film’s Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and was immediately expected to portray the character as both an innocent victim in part II and as a secondary villain in part III. According to behind-the-scenes interviews, the hectic production schedule that blended two different movies meant that Duff would often find herself having to alternate between two incredibly different versions of Michelle during the same shooting day – though it’s obvious that she’s having more fun with Bloodlust’s more traditionally vampiric version of her character.
In the finished film, we pick things up immediately where the previous entry left off as Rebecca (Melanie Shatner) is forced to leave her vampire sister Michelle (Duff) behind in the dungeons of Castle Vladislav due to the rising sun. This allows Mummy (Pamela Gordon) to use Michelle’s blood to revive the vicious Radu (Hove) so that he may continue his quest for the coveted Bloodstone – a magical artifact that perpetually drips the Blood of Saints.
Meanwhile, the dreamy US embassy agent Mel (Kevin Blair) agrees to help Rebecca plan a rescue mission, though they’re unaware that Radu has become infatuated with Michelle during his attempts to guide her growing bloodlust. This all culminates in a climactic confrontation meant to tie up all of the series’ loose ends in one of Full Moon Pictures’ most ambitious productions.
The Evolution of Radu
Like its predecessor, Bloodlust: Subspecies III was also warmly received by fans who argued that the series was an even bigger success than Full Moon’s other major horror franchise, Puppet Master. This praise wasn’t unanimous, however, as 1994 had seen the rise of a more modern breed of sexy vampire popularized by Anne Rice, with old-school Nosferatu like Radu being viewed as obsolete when compared to the likes of Lestat and Gary Oldman’s take on Dracula.
In a way, one might argue that Nicolaou’s film is something of a swan song for the classic vampire story, as Bloodlust combines all of the traditional elements we tend to associate with these tales into a single tragic yarn that ties a neat little bow on Radu’s story as well as the old-fashioned monster movies that he represents. The finale remains shocking despite the fact that this is the third time we see Radu get brutally killed onscreen, with the brief tease that he may one day return feeling more like a nod towards the nature of evil rather than sequel bait.
The film dabbles a bit in gothic romance and even explores the inherent power fantasy behind transforming into an immortal creature of the night, but the filmmakers never lose sight of Radu as a demonic force even when he’s willing to betray his beloved Mummy for Michelle’s sake. In fact, his twisted “love” for his fledgling makes him even creepier as we get the feeling that his passion comes from a dark and disturbing place.
Anders Hove is at his absolute best in this film, with the effects department boosting his moments of what the younger generation would call “aura farming” whenever Radu emerges from shadows like a 90s version of Count Orlok. There are even a couple of surprisingly effective jump-scares here, which is why I’d argue that Bloodlust cements Radu as one of the most memorable cinematic vampires of all time despite his humble origins.
Subspecies Saves Its Best For Last
Nicolaou and Vlad Panescu also saved the best for “last” (more on that in a bit) regarding the film’s visuals, with the cinematography and overall atmosphere of Bloodlust absolutely surpassing what we saw in the previous films. Everything feels appropriately climactic this time around (including the wonderful soundtrack that was co-composed alongside an authentic Romanian orchestra), and I appreciate how this is the fastest-paced entry in the trilogy since the film doesn’t need to waste time setting anything up.
Bloodlust still suffers from some of the same low-budget blemishes as its predecessors, but there’s so much creative passion here that no amount of wonky effects work or stilted dialogue can get in the way of appreciating the flick’s gothic grandeur. That’s why it’s not surprising that the movie’s definitive(-ish) ending would later be retconned as fans begged for more Radu.
Of course, the next entry in this series would be a different kind of vampiric endeavor altogether, with the filmmakers attempting to engage with the same trends that ultimately killed Radu and his antiquated kin. That, however, is a story for another time. For now, I’ll merely insist that Bloodlust: Subspecies III remains a highlight of Full Moon’s expansive catalogue and is definitely worth seeking out today.
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