Breaking Emotions Blogathon Week #1 - Fear/Awkward

Blogathons are awesome. They're a great way for film bloggers to stumble upon sites that they may not have come across before and they're always fun to tackle. Lucky for me then, that I just discovered a brand new blogathon titled 'Breaking Emotions' on the Mettel Ray site. Each week, bloggers are asked to pick three movie scenes that best sum up a particular emotion for them. The first two emotions chosen this week are 'fear' and 'awkward'. To find out more about the blogathon, click here and to see which scenes I've chosen, read on after the jump. Go on. You know you wanna!

First up is fear. As a horror movie obsessive, the only thing I found difficult about this was narrowing things down. I was tempted to include classic scenes such as the moment when Sadako crawls out of the TV in Ringu or when Johnny's face appears through the door in The Shining but these choices felt too obvious and only came to mind first because they're so iconic.

3) Saying that though, I had to get my favourite horror movie of all time in there somewhere, so here's the opening scene from Halloween, the grandaddy of all slasher films. With one incredible long take and its shocking reveal, John Carpenter has never bettered the opening scene from his most iconic film. And that music! Wow...

2) Kubrick turned the concept of horror on its head with The Shining, a study of a man who becomes insane while looking after an isolated hotel with his wife and child. There are so many moments that freaked me out here but what disturbed me most was the scene when Wendy finally discovered what Johnny had really been writing on that typewriter. Think about it. Johnny must have gone mad much earlier than you're led to believe as the amount of pages he typed out is just staggering.

1) Finally, I've tried to choose something a little bit unexpected. Insidious was divisive for many but personally, I'm a huge fan of James Wan's direction and I think he's the only interesting horror talent out there at the moment. The first half of Insidious is one of the scariest things I've ever seen in the cinema and that moment when the red demon guy appeared behind Patrick Wilson just destroyed me. Seriously.

Ok, with fear done, we now turn to the second emotion chosen by Mettel Ray this week - Awkward. This choice felt more open ended as the selections could come from any genre and different people's view of what awkwardness actually is may vary. Personally, I've gone for those cringe moments in cinema which don't include any sorely needed humour to defuse the awkwardness. Disclaimer: The following options should not be watched with your parents in the same room.

3) Y Tu Mama Tambien was one of the first foreign films I fell in love with and the movie made worldwide stars of both leads, Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal. This choice is a bit of a spoiler unfortunately but if you have seen the film, then you know that the moment when the two boys wake up together after joining in a drunken threesome the night before is the definition of morning after cringe. 

2) Killer Joe was a fascinating film to watch, whether you can stomach the violence or not, but what stuck with me most was the scene where Matthew McConaughey's character degrades a woman by forcing her to fellate a chicken leg held against his crotch. Now that's not the kind of advertising you can just go out and buy so kudos to KFC for getting that free endorsement!

1) Finally, the last scene I've chosen that really sums up awkwardness for me is from the recent film adaptation of We Need To Talk About Kevin, which follows a mother as she struggles to raise her psychopathic and dangerously violent son. The kid clearly didn't like her from birth, which is pretty awkward anyway, but just in case we didn't get the picture, Kevin deliberately allows his mother to walk in on her while masturbating. Then, THEN, he carries on, staring her out without the tiniest morsel of embarrassment. Poor Tilda. You've gotta feel for her there. 

So there we have it. Week 1 of the blogathon offered some pretty interesting emotions to work with so let's hope next week is just as good. Let me know in the comments box below if you can think of any scenes that are even more scary or awkward than the ones I've chosen. See you next week!