Hot Topic Feature: ShockHound Interview with Ville
Ville Valo would love to meticulously parse Screamworks: Love In
Theory And Practice, the latest grim (but sugar-hooked) concept
album from goth-tinged Finnish rock gods HIM. But he’d prefer to address
a more urgent matter first.
“Where are all the good horror films nowadays?” the frontman growls. “Remember back in the day, when you saw Evil Dead for the first time? Everything was so unexpected, you were like, ‘What the hell is going on?’ It was so unbelievably wrong that it was extremely right, and very few films have done that lately.”
The singer has, in effect, scripted his own personal frightfest via Screamworks, in the form of creepy anthems like “Heartkiller,” “Dying Song,” “Acoustic Funeral” and “Scared To Death.” The songs examine love from every possible angle…before clubbing it on the head like a helpless baby harp seal.
The formerly hard-partying Valo recently embraced sobriety at age 33, which could account for his burning desire for a new gore fix. But the eternally hungry culture-vulture tells ShockHound that he believes he’s found proper cinematic stimulation overseas.
“When you see an American horror movie, you usually know what’s gonna happen, more or less,” he explains. “But it’s the French who are doing it right — when you see a scary French film, you never know what to expect. Like that mesmerizing beginning of Martyrs, up until they find that girl with the weird mask on. The French just have this weird thing going, and it’s like a kick in the butt for the whole genre of horror movies, I think. And that primal sense of fear and shock — of actually being disturbed by a movie — I find very welcome.”
“Where are all the good horror films nowadays?” the frontman growls. “Remember back in the day, when you saw Evil Dead for the first time? Everything was so unexpected, you were like, ‘What the hell is going on?’ It was so unbelievably wrong that it was extremely right, and very few films have done that lately.”
The singer has, in effect, scripted his own personal frightfest via Screamworks, in the form of creepy anthems like “Heartkiller,” “Dying Song,” “Acoustic Funeral” and “Scared To Death.” The songs examine love from every possible angle…before clubbing it on the head like a helpless baby harp seal.
The formerly hard-partying Valo recently embraced sobriety at age 33, which could account for his burning desire for a new gore fix. But the eternally hungry culture-vulture tells ShockHound that he believes he’s found proper cinematic stimulation overseas.
“When you see an American horror movie, you usually know what’s gonna happen, more or less,” he explains. “But it’s the French who are doing it right — when you see a scary French film, you never know what to expect. Like that mesmerizing beginning of Martyrs, up until they find that girl with the weird mask on. The French just have this weird thing going, and it’s like a kick in the butt for the whole genre of horror movies, I think. And that primal sense of fear and shock — of actually being disturbed by a movie — I find very welcome.”
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