Machiavellian Oil Men=The New Universal Movie Monster?
To me, one of the most fun games to play is genre mashups, or imagining works in different contexts. To me, among of the more obvious ones in recent years was Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterpieceThere Will Be Blood. One of the best scripted, acted, and shot movies of the 2000s, it received numerous awards and was on EVERY top 10 list for both 2007 and the 2000s. It’s certainly among my 25 all-time favorites. Recently, I thought it was both funny and enlightening to look at the film as a piece of modern horror cinema, which would certainly propel the genre if one were to look at it as such.
First of all, it’s not a stretch to see it as a horror film if you take a good, hard look at the title. It’s not “There Will Be Fluffy Kitties”. The film is telling us right off the bat that someone will be dead by the end of this movie, and most likely in a revenge scenario, assuring that it will be premeditated and brutal. Many have accused the title as robbery on the behalf of Anderson from the Saw series. I doubt he’s SAW any of those films (excuse yourself if you don't care for the pun). Some see the title as ant-climatic, with Plainview killing his imposter brother and Eli Sunday. But it means much more than a physical death. The whole idea of oil represents blood and how it tarnishes among the last frontiers of the American dream is central to one’s interpretation of the film.
The score is another standout quality of the movies that leaves one feeling frightened at times. Jonny Greenwood, best known as a prominent member of the world famous Radiohead, gives PTA a haunting musical backdrop that sticks with one well after the film’s conclusion. The use of violins and other lesser used string instruments, as well as ones that sound downright exotic, getting under your skin while unveiling the inner evils of the characters that they hide from one another. It collects like a menacing avalanche cascading down a steep mountain, leaving you waiting for the crash and the sound it’s going to make when it gets to the bottom.
Daniel Plainview is easily one of the scariest protagonists in film history. His moustache, hat, and accent present him to be a respectable business man and a kind father. Deep down however, he’s out for one thing: profits. His detest for prophets, wordplay aside, such as Eli Sunday shows his atheistic or agnostic worldview that allows his actions to have no consequences. The only people he seems to care for the whole movie is his son early on, when he goes deaf following the derrick accident and his “brother”. Once he realizes that he son is going to be a distraction from his business, he sends him off to a deaf school as far away as possible. His son is not useful anymore once he can’t be paraded in front of potential customers/business partners of Daniel. And later on, when a potential business partner offers concern and questions regarding H.W., it visibly disturbs Daniel and eventually tips him over the edge to threatening killing the man in his sleep. Coldly, later when talking to his son, he reveals that H.W. is really a deceased miner’s son, with Daniel referring to him as a “bastard in a basket”. On the subject of his supposed sibling, he kills him without any sign of remorse, more concerned that he was being used for his money than the plight of another man.
Maybe after reading this, you’ve reconsidered the modern classic into one that’s much more terrifying and morally unsettling than you saw previous. With the majority of contemporary horror movies lacking true scares, filmmakers are now looking for more subtle ways to find horror in characters that are unfortunately too much like ourselves.
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