What Bill brings up about The Exorcist is exactly what I was trying to get at in the debate about the horror genre. I hinted at a similar point about The Shining: there is no doubt these are horror films, and yet there's certainly much more to them than mere scares. Clearly the genre is capable of sustaining deeper inquiries and more substantial ideas.

I also think Bruce does a great job of poetically defining horror in terms of imagery, of innocence defiled by evil and ugliness. (Is that why Blue Velvet feels so much like a horror movie?)

Hokahey – About the blood on the curtain: the moment, like so many in the film, is metaphorical rather than literal. The question is, does June see the metaphorical "blood on the curtain" — does she realize at this moment that her husband is something dark and maybe evil, or does she overlook all her troubled thoughts about him and just fall back into his arms, and back into their marriage? Yeah, maybe she could see the actual blood and think nothing of it, but the moment still works with that one drop of blood representing the violence corrupting their marriage. There's a similar image at the end of the third season of the TV show Dexter, with a single drop of blood falling on a wedding dress, an image of violence staining innocence.

As I wrote it, my definition:

1) really only applies to good movies, since a huge number of films that are classified as "horror" (I'm thinking bad slasher movie here) are in no way frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting.

2) doesn't work for comedy/horror — Shaun of the Dead isn't very shocking, but it still is classified as a horror movie.

When talking about the Western genre, it's much more obvious what that includes. Same goes for the Musical. Horror movies are a little more nebulous. Most generically, people would include movies that had Universal monsters, ghost stories, zombies, demonic possession, slasher, and so on, regardless of the emotions they invoke.

So perhaps there are some basic genre trappings that one needs to include in the definition in addition to any movies that "cause a feeling of dread due to something that is frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting".

Basically, I'm all for as inclusive a version of Horror as possible.

Although I don’t think the film is “egotistically inscrutable,” I do find the “film’s inscrutability” frustrating. I really enjoyed the film’s minimalist approach – long stretches without dialogue, showing not telling; that aspect was excellent. But the film doesn’t give me enough to go on. What does June see in creepy-looking Shane in the first place? Is the ending ambiguous in regards to the streak of blood on the shower curtain? If June sees it, does she know Shane’s problem? No way! If she sees the blood, she’s gonna say, “Nick yourself shaving, honey?” How is she supposed to construe – oh, blood on curtain; my husband sucks blood? If the ending is ambiguous – the question is – is Shane gonna chomp on June?

In the final analysis, this film doesn’t give me enough to leave me with a satisfied feeling. It gives me enough stunning imagery: the river shots; the shot of Coré’s bloody scribblings on the wall – that was masterful; the single streak of blood on the shower curtain. It delivers some eroticism – though the whole scenario of the maid attracted to Shane and Shane suddenly appearing in the locker room and their wordlessly getting it on – that elicited a laugh from me. It seemed so French movie – like somehow you kind of expect that to happen in an erotic French movie – definitely that’s how it works in a porno flick. In real life, with a guy who looks like Shane, she’s more likely to scream. Not enough horror? Unlike Jason, I’ve seen a lot of trashy horror, and so maybe I’m jaded, but I wasn’t that shocked. There’s a lot of blood – and the bloodlust idea is shocking, but for most of the movie, I wasn’t unsettled. The most shocking element was Shane going down on the maid and chomping on her down there – but, boy, she didn’t struggle nearly enough! And the teenager that Coré chews in doesn’t struggle nearly enough, but maybe he kind of digs it in the beginning and maybe he’s weak from blood loss later.

But the rest of it doesn’t give me enough information, enough conclusion, enough – I don’t know, I need to consider that more, and I’ve said enough. But this movie didn’t do enough for me. Anyway, I’m glad I have your Conversations to provide your eloquent interpretations because this is the type of film that needs other viewers to fill in some of its gaps. I definitely agree with Ed here – “Maybe a less stringent definition of horror is in order, one that makes room for films that don't really intend to scare audiences so much as to explore the nature of fear, of what horrifies and disturbs us.”

Wow! Does sound like a horror movie! But you are right that it takes the conventions and manipulates them in different ways. Yes, very much so this film is about “impulse” and “desire” – the way I was thinking of it, it is literal bloodlust. Addiction? Yeah, I guess it’s about addiction in the sense that they are addicted to their lust for blood.

One of the very conventional horror elements here is simply how Shane, as played by Gallo, looks – the bad haircut, the old-fashioned moustache and burns, the bad shaving job. He’s the kind of guy who lives in the creepy castle and the innocent people come in out of the rain, and AT LEAST the audience knows that this guy is a vampire or something. In the world of this film, no flight attendant or hotel clerk or maid comments, “Whoa, that dude looks weird” – and I kind of thought that was odd.

As for the casting of Coré, they certainly picked someone with the right mouth. That’s a flesh-chomping, blood-sucking mouth.

You are right, Ed, that the film contains elements of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And you are right that the film allows for “alternate interpretations of its ambiguous chain of events.” Very true. The pills, for example. To me – all those pills Shane has and the three pills that Léo gives Coré are meant to suppress the urge. Doesn’t Coré knock the pills away? And in Shane’s toilette bag, there seems to be all sorts of different pills.

Since to my eyes genre isn't so much narrative constrictions or even a codified language to express them (what to do with A Serious Man, then, beyond tagging it the best horror movie of the year and moving on) as a compact with the audience. We share these self-evident truths, a genre tells its audience: that strange dames can't be trusted, the past can't be outrun, and a safe place isn't possible; love's just around the corner, it's better to lead with the heart than the head (echoing Jason), and friction ultimately leads to smoothly interlocking parts; and, for horror, that nothing is certain in this life except that there are bad things in it.

Trouble Every Day has that certainty in its bones. Other readings and meanings can follow (and I did enjoy and was swayed by the take on this as an addict's journey to the ends of his condition), but if science and love both fail to cool Dalle and Gallo's bloodlust, how far are they from some shambling allegory themselves? Unable to be argued with or dissuaded, a bloody-jawed affront to ratiocination and civilizing influences, pitiful, implacable, unresolvable. Sounds like horror to me.

As I recall, Denis in contemporary interviews actually set out a position in line with Jason's, distancing her film from horror films and genre altogether. Nothing wrong with her believing so, though the poetry you both rightly praise, of bloodied grass swaying and ominous flame licking towards unreadable eyes, seems closer than not to the still, transfixing imagery of Cat People's swimming pool, The Innocents's haunted grounds, the whispering leaves along the streets of Haddonfield, Ill., even one of Romero's sterile hallways before they're streaked red with gore. Innocuous, even attractive environs, just like the hotels and bedrooms of Trouble Every Day. Till the truth is found to be lies, and you realize you've stumbled into a very bad place indeed.

But two things:

1) I want to be clear that I have no personal stake (no pun intended) in what the definition of "horror" is. I'm not at all trying to place limits on what the genre can be or has been or is in some cases. Instead I'm trying to examine what I think the term means now, which is obviously very subjective. That leads me to …

2) In response to Bill R's comment (no offense taken, by the way, Bill; I appreciate a good debate): Yes, honestly, Trouble Every Day does to me feel closer to Rear Window and even Ordinary People than to Texas Chainsaw Massacre and for this one very important reason: Though — per Troy's comment — I think Trouble means to horrify us, more than that I think it wants us to look beyond the horror to something more significant underneath. With the caveat that I haven't seen TCM in probably 15 years (maybe it has more depth than I'm giving it credit for, but I'm sticking with that example for now), the films that form my own understanding of what "horror" is are about that surface terror more than any deeper significance.

I realize this sets me up to be at odds with horror fans. But to put it in a nutshell: If you only see the horror of Trouble Every Day, I don't think you've really seen the movie. On the other hand, if you only see the horror of TCM, I think you get the point. That's why I draw the line as I do.

Looking forward to more thoughts!

As for the nature of what makes a "horror" movie, not to be trite and simplistic, but the definition of the word itself is enough of a descriptor of the genre for me. Something to the effect of a film that causes a feeling of dread due to something that is frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting.

So, yeah, that definition creates a big bucket, but it works for me.

Jason, the thing is, Straub would probably largely agree with you that horror is widely perceived as one kind of thing these days — vaguely, it would be thought of as something concerning fright, usually by way of disgust — but the Straub quote that Ed offers was part of an introduction to an anthology he edited last year called POE'S CHILDREN (subtitled, by the way, THE NEW HORROR), and it is his intention, his hope, is to not change what horror is, but to remind people that horror is much more than they think, and always has been.

He's fed up with what's happened to the genre, and says later in the introduction that he got into some hot water once by telling a room full of horror writers, publishers, and editors that "horror was a house that horror had already moved out of". It had become debased, in other words, and real work needed to be done to reverse that.

And frankly, claiming that TROUBLE EVERY DAY isn't horror because it doesn't meet the criteria you've assumed apply to the genre isn't doing Straub any favors. Jason, you say that when a horror film moves beyond mere fright as its goal, then you mentally place the film in another genre — drama, or suspense. Does this mean that, in your mind, TROUBLE EVERY DAY has more in common with ORDINARY PEOPLE and REAR WINDOW than it does with TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE? No offense — I'm merely disagreeing with you here — but I see no logical basis for that idea.

As you guys discuss, TROUBLE EVERY DAY doesn't deal with jump scares or any of the other standard tools of the modern version of the genre (except disgust, actually), but it deals very closely with a very deep sense of terror and unease. Furthermore, these days all genres have at least two wings: the film wing, and literature wing. In horror literature, you can't actually pull of jump scares — it's impossible. You CAN pull of disgust, and unfortunately too much of horror fiction from that past three decades leans on that crutch almost exclusively, but beyond that, at its root, horror began with forboding, dread, terror, the unknown, the inexplicable, madness, death, allegories for all of the above, and things that are just plain awful. Plus also lots of other things.

It's not outside the realm of possibility that horror literature is where Denis drew her inspiration, rather than what too many people now think of as horror cinema. Just because someone wasn't influenced by Sean S. Cunningham doesn't mean they weren't influenced by the genre.

PS – Since I haven't been able to read the entire conversation yet, I hope I didn't just repeat things you guys have already said…