Comments on: Scary Harry? Frightening Moments in Potter Films

By: aerisflowers

aerisflowers — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:11:16 +0000

Good points about Tom Riddle (and Christian Coulson) in CoS – I definately agree. Just wanted to add that I find moments like the scene with Riddle in the Chamber, and Dolores’s detention scenes to be much more frightening (maybe disturbing is a bettter word…) than the monster scenes. Moments when humans are being their worst, taking pleasure in the pain of others, are more bone chilling than any kind of beastie.

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:44:52 +0000

You’re absolutely right Fricka and I agree that Christian Coulson’s portrayal of Riddle is highly charismatic.

With regards to the Dorian Gray connection, note also that Dorian describes the portrait as his “soul”. It is implied that the portrait may indeed contain a part of his soul as at the end of the story after stabbing it he himself dies, similar to Voldemort becoming mortal after the destruction of his horcruxes. Another connection is that both Dorian and Voldemort are narcissists but whereas Dorian’s narcissism was somantic, like that of the original Narcissus, Voldemort’s is more cerebral.

I think the scariest HP film to date is definitely The Half-Blood Prince. The films are very much horror for kids, rather like Coraline (though the book is significantly scarier). I love the way the films can create a gothic, moody atmosphere through the use of heavy rain and music. On one side we have an aura of cosy, domestic happiness with Harry and his friends laughing in the rich warmth of the Gryffindor Common Room or dining on banquets in the great hall.
And on the other side we have Dementors prowling the Hogwarts grounds killing wildlife with their presence, Bellatrix and Fenrir Greyback skulking in the wet reeds around the Weasley family home and of course we’re shown the everpresent spectral presence of Voldemort lurking in graveyards or in Harry’s dreams, plotting, waiting for the right moment to strike. The films are adept at creating a contrast between the warm glow of the inside and the cold yet strangely seductive darkness of the outside where lie the unknown and the wild. Oh dear, I’ve got my storytelling hat on again.

By: Red Rocker

Red Rocker — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:28:39 +0000

That is a brilliant observation, Tom: a lot like a horcrux. It might even be said to be a prototype.

By: Fricka

Fricka — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:22:49 +0000

You are right, RR, it WAS aerisflowers who wrote the comments about the POA Dementors not being so frightening. Sorry about that, aerisflowers. I guess I didn’t read far enough in the back chat to catch that properly. Also, I find Tom’s comment about Oscar Wilde and the Picture of Dorian Gray very interesting. I recently watched a DVD version of a production of that story(THINK it was done by the BBC, but can’t swear to it). Once again, I think JKR has taken an idea that has been floating around for awhile, and given it her own twist. Voldemort does resemble Dorian at first, and by that I mean that we now know that he had killed his father and grandparents while he was still a student at Hogwarts. Slughorn saw him with the Gaunt Ring on his hand, and at THAT time, there was nothing about his appearance to indicate that he was so deep into Dark Magic. However, by the time he gets “reborn” in GOF, he hardly resembles the handsome Prefect he had been in his Hogwarts days.
(Slits for nostrils and red eyes not being all that appealing to look at, but more indicative of the true personality coming out).
In the film representations of Voldemort, I personally find the Tom Riddle in COS most chilling. He’s still a handsome fellow, and he’s managed to make Harry think he’s on his side, until he gets hold of Harry’s wand. THEN he reveals his identity. Note that Harry didn’t seem all that concerned about a possible connection between himself and Voldemort until after COS.

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:32:17 +0000

Oscar Wilde is a personal hero of mine but it’s been some time since I read The Canterville Ghost. My favourite book of all time is The Picture of Dorian Gray. The portrait itself is quite like a horcrux, don’t you think?

By: Red Rocker

Red Rocker — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:21:20 +0000

It was aerisflowerswho made the observation that the D men were scarier in Order than in Prisoner I don't find the D men visually frightening (I think it's because of their trailing shrouds: the ragged edges are distracting because they give me the urge to grab a pair of scissors and make the hems even). Speaking of the mundane intruding on the spooky, have any of you read Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost? It's very funny, and strangely reminiscent of the dominant theme of the Harry Potter books.

By: Fricka

Fricka — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:43:50 +0000

I agree, Red Rocker, the Dementors in the film version of OOTP were much scarier than in POA. However, the scene where the Dementor first comes on the train in POA, with those loooong black fingers opening the window first was pretty scary. Unfortunately, LOTR had already opened with its version of the Nazgul, and I think Curaon was experimenting with figures that would be as scary, but not obviously derivative of the LOTR figures. His experiment wasn’t altogether a failure, they just weren’t as successfully frightening as the Nazgul were. I’ve always had the suspicion that by the time Yates came on board, some of the artists who helped create the Nazgul might have been available for use on fine-tuning the Dementors. (Or Yates might have just figured out where the POA Dementors failed on the fright scale, and corrected that). Anyway, the scene where Harry and Dudley is attacked is really first rate frightening, I think.
(Sorry, Joivre, didn’t mean to gross you out so much!)

By: korg20000bc

korg20000bc — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:31:02 +0000

Genestealers from Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40000 universe infect humans with a similar parody of a “kiss”

By: Joivre

Joivre — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:17:56 +0000

Neatly put Aerisflowers.

By: aerisflowers

aerisflowers — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:51:25 +0000

I think that the name Dementor’s Kiss makes it all the more disturbing. Joivre, I think that your choice of the phrase “strange beauty” is really appropriate. The Dementor’s Kiss is such a perversion of a the idea of a kiss, but there is a real elegance to the phrase and how it describes what is essentially a monster’s method of attack.