A trip to the depths of your worst nightmare 
 

PostED ON 19.10.2024

Eight hours without a wink of sleep! That's what awaits audiences at the Halle Tony-Garnier that will screen a programme of four films that have shaped the history of genre cinema. Alexandre Aja elaborates...

HEREDITARY BY ARI ASTER (2018)
STARRING TONY COLLETTE, GABRIEL BYRNE. 2H03

As a rule, I go to the cinema for anything having to do with horror. And when it comes to the genre, there's a before and an after of Hereditary.

It's a masterpiece of the genre in which the notion of family is severely eroded – which is the case with each of the films featured during this all-nighter. Every time I see Hereditary again, it gives me a different impression. I'd already been hallucinating when I discovered Ari Aster's short films, but this first feature puts him up there among the great auteurs. Then he blew my mind again with Midsommar. It will be very difficult to dethrone him. His work is quite simply an apex of psychological horror based on a terrifying family malediction. 

THE HILLS HAVE EYES BY ALEXANDRE AJA (2006)
STARRING AARON STANFORD, KATHLEEN QUINLAN. 1H47.

I'm very excited - and impatient - at the idea of rediscovering a film on a big screen that I haven't seen again since its release. Shortly before that, I’d made High Tension, which attracted the attention of Wes Craven, my absolute master. Imagine how I felt, at age 25, when he asked me to direct the remake of The Hills Have Eyes, which he had released in 1977! With my co-writer Grégory Levasseur, we wanted to make a survival flick inspired by the radical streak of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974) or Deliverance (John Boorman, 1972)...

In post-9/11 America, traumatised by having armed its own enemies, we wanted to focus on these victims of secret nuclear testing, who were plotting their revenge, hidden in the desert. The relationship with Wes - who I eventually became friends with - was complex. During the preparation, he no longer believed in the film, to the extent that I suggested he shoot it himself. He gave me a chance anyway, right up to the famous test screenings, which were a resounding success. 

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET BY WES CRAVEN (1984)
STARRING ROBERT ENGLUND, JOHNNY DEPP. 1H31.

I have experienced the fear of falling asleep for years because of Freddy, long before I was able to see the film. I was 5 or 6 years old, and I was terrified by what older people had told me.

And then there was the poster on the bus! It was the horror film that triggered my vocation. At school, I met my future co-writer Grégory Levasseur thanks to a magazine that featured Craven on the front cover. After that, we saw the Freddy series in no particular order. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors - is also a great film, but I consider this first instalment to be the ‘Citizen Kane’ of the genre - along with Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II (1987). Its reservoir of terror is inexhaustible, with a staggering level of invention that generates moments of sheer madness. Every scene is a new discovery.

THE EXORCIST – DIRECTOR’S CUT )BY WILLIAM FRIEDKIN (1973)
STARRING ELLEN BURSTYN, LINDA BLAIR. 2H13.

The ultimate horror masterpiece, alongside The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980), Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968), Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) and Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975). Everything is so perfect! Radical! It doesn't follow any rules. The first half of the film is almost realistic, which makes what follows even more vertiginous. It's a sacrilegious work, the fruit of a desecration, which gives voice to the Devil in a historically puritanical America, complete with an infamous crucifix in the middle of its composition. Today, no one would dare go that far, even if Lars von Trier has tried....

Interviewed by Carlos Gomez

Master class
A conversation with Alexandre Aja
Saturday, 19 October at 10.30 am at the Pathé Bellecour
With the support of 

Saturday, 19/10 at 8.30 pm at the Halle Tony Garnier
All-Nighter: ‘A Trip to the Ends of Horror’

Entertainment and surprises all night long
Prohibited for ages under 16.