The Blood Red Line Between Action and Horror

Broken bones, gallons of blood, and gruesome brutality… What’s the line between an action film and a horror movie? Ron tugs his philosophical beard in deep thought.

To steal a phrase from the immortal Bard of Avon, “Two houses, both alike in dignity.” Or in this case, blood splatter. I speak not of Montague or Capulet, but of two of the most stalwart horses in the stable of cinema, the humble action movie and the horror film. Throughout the 80s, the two competed for dominance in both the multiplex and the video store, and while the fortunes of both genres have mutated and changed over the years to reflect updated tastes, both are united by their unholy offspring, the action horror film.

Looking at my contributions to Memento Mori Ink’s blog, I was surprised by how little straight up horror I’ve discussed. Instead, the films I’ve looked at have tended to be hybrid films. PRETTY DEADLY, ICHI THE KILLER, THE GUEST, and THEY WILL KILL YOU are all action horror films and, unintentionally, the question came to my mind as I sat down intending to talk about another action horror film. Where is the line drawn? Is there even a line?

The initial thought would be to consider the hero of the film. Is it a muscle-bound beeftank, like every Arnold Schwarzenegger character or Marion Cobretti from COBRA, or is it a tough and resourceful final girl, like HALLOWEEN’s Laurie Strode or Nancy Thompson from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET?

Given the flexible nature of the two genres, there are certain characters who get to be both. Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Conner was a great final girl in THE TERMINATOR, which is basically a serial killer movie with a cybernetic eye and a shotgun rather than a hockey mask and a machete. However, by the time TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY rolls around, she’s as much a muscle-bound badass as any testosterone-filled murder merchant. Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley has a very similar story in a much shorter turn-around time. In 1979’s ALIEN, she survives the xenomorph by being clever and using her knowledge of the Nostromo; in 1986’s ALIENS, she’s carrying a giant gun and blasting drones alongside the Colonial Marines. Even today, you could argue that READY OR NOT’s Grace (Samara Weaving) serves as both a Final Girl and an action hero; if you put her in a chef’s coat and threw her on an aircraft carrier, she would be Casey Ryback (even the name works!).

If your dividing line between action and horror is a sense of dread, that’s perfectly reasonable. Horror movies are supposed to be horrifying, after all. While action movies may offer up similar thrills to horror films, the focus isn’t generally on making skin crawl, but on making stuff blow up really good. In short, it’s vibes; an original from a horror master and a remake are the perfect example of that.

John Carpenter’s 1976 ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 is a master-class in terror. At times it seems as though the invading Street Thunder gang are zombies armed with weapons, not just thugs bent on revenge. They seem to materialize out of the shadows in every nook and cranny before getting beaten back by the holed-up police and the (relatively) innocent convicts caught in the crossfire. These aren’t people, and they don’t behave in a way that people do; the Street Thunder are a wave, crashing against Precinct 13 and retreating, time and time again, with the knowledge that, over time, water always wins.

Counteract that with the flashy 2005 remake. It has most of the same elements, but it replaces the waves of thugs with a squadron of well-armed crooked cops. Rather than just being hate for hate’s sake, the motivation of the villain is merely financial; he’s attacking the police station purely as a CYA measure, without the blood oath and hinted-at Satanism element from Carpenter’s original. ASSAULT 76 feels like a dangerous thing; Assault 05 feels like a pretty standard action movie, with the villains having a little too much characterization to be truly menacing, and while it’s a really fun action flick, it’s a little too clean and polished to compare to Carpenter’s nervy original. The beats are very similar, but the execution (and frankly, lack of known faces) makes for a very different film indeed.

The difference might simply be directorial style. Carpenter started in genre films, and while he’s a skillful enough director to dabble in any genre, he ended up being a horror guy simply because that’s where his sensibilities meshed best with audiences. Even the all-time classic THEY LIVE interrupts the punch-ups and Rowdy Roddy Piper of it all with some pretty scary images of aliens and their insidious propaganda. Everything short of STARMAN in Carpenter’s filmography is a blend of action, horror, and comedy.

THE NIGHT COMES FOR US has two of modern action cinema’s best performers in THE RAID’s Iko Uwais and Joe Taslim, but director Timo Tjahjanto has consistently been a horror guy. While his stars are performing some of the best martial arts and action sequences in cinema history, Tjahjanto makes the most of the action by emphasizing the horrifying, realistic results of that level of violent mayhem to test the limits of the audience. It’s incredible action, but it’s also an endurance test to rival any of the French New Extremity films of the aughts while also being wildly entertaining.

It’s a muddled issue. There’s no cut-and-dry dividing line between the two genres. STARSHIP TROOPERS and ROBOCOP are both thrilling action films with some seriously horrifying moments; Paul Verhoeven by himself makes this whole question a difficult one, let along the hundreds of other gritty 80’s action films that blur the line like a great deal of Cannon’s Charles Bronson output. (Watch any of the later DEATH WISH films and tell me Paul Kersey isn’t the secret grandfather of TERRIFIER 2’s Sienna Shaw.) But what’s a horror film to one person is just gritty action to another, and vice versa.

To paraphrase United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s concurrence in the 1964 obscenity case Jacobellis v. Ohio, “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.” Maybe action horror, that beautiful hybrid genre, is in the eye of the beholder.

Ron Hogan is a writer, podcaster, gadabout, and raconteur from Louisville, Kentucky. You can read his written works at Den of Geek, Film Stories, and at several magazines and sites that no longer exist. You can hear his voice (and potentially see his magnificent beard) on the Film Strip Podcast.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing, nor do the views or opinions of Crystal Lake necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or its staff. Thank you for understanding.