What scares
Andrew Goodridge?
He’s giving us a month to find out.
Follow along with Andrew as he plans to get into the spirit of his favorite holiday by watching a different horror movie every day in the month of October.
October 19
Dragons are awesome
“How to Train Your Dragon” (2010)
Directed by: Chris Sanders & Dean DeBlois
Screenplay by: Adam F. Goldberg, Peter Tolan, Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders
I probably shouldn’t have titled this column “A Horror Movie a Day.”
I think that’s too restricting. I really wanted to watch movies that would help get me in the spirit of Halloween. And Halloween, after all, isn’t about “horror,” but about being scared.
And being scared doesn’t necessarily involve blood and guts and gore and monster and murders. One of my favorite movies of the year, “How to Train Your Dragon” (2010), is all about the effects of fear, and how easily a fear of the unknown can turn into hatred and violence.
“HtTYD” is set in a world of Vikings and dragons, who have been enemies for longer than anyone can remember, and so long that no one really knows why they became enemies in the first place. The Vikings are completely obsessed with killing dragons and nothing else. Probably, I would assume, because they’re pretty dang scary. And isn’t it easier to kill them than to understand them?
Hiccup, a scrappy teenager, dreams of being a helmet-wearing dragon-slayer just like his dad. When he finally gets his chance to kill a dragon, he can’t do it. Instead, he befriends it, feeds it, and helps mend its wounded tail. Instantly, he realizes that everything his people know about their kind is wrong.
I was never much of a dragons kid when I was younger. But I have to imagine I would have been if I had seen this movie when I was about 6 years old. The dragon designs are all unique, imaginative, and, in some cases, kind of scary. I understand why the first reaction would be to kill anything that has two heads and breathes fire. On the other hand, I kind of want some HtTYD stuffed animals. For 15 years, Pixar has been – and still is – the gold standard for 3D animation. But Dreamworks has stepped up with some amazing visuals that complement a great story.
This is good news, because I’d really grown to have low expectations from Dreamworks Animation. But “HtTYD” is their first feature to ditch the obvious pop-culture references (so common in the “Shrek” series and “Over the Hedge”) and the pandering, childish humor (“Shark Tale,” “Madagascar”) and put a real emphasis on story and character. There’s nothing new about the idea that we should take the time to understand each other before being so quick to hate and judge, but “HtTYD” does it with such a cheerful, good-natured tone and an original, well crafted story that it seems brand new nonetheless.
No doubt much of this is due to directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, who came from Disney and massively revamped the original “HtTYD” story. Sanders and DeBlois are probably best known for writing and directing “Lilo & Stitch,” which is one of Lindsay’s favorites (and becoming one of mine, too). With two Disney veterans working for them, Dreamworks Animation could potentially become competition for Pixar.
I read more than one review that called this movie “irresponsible” because it teaches children that we should stop to learn about and care for our enemies, especially in a time of war. I imagine you could also argue that if we did that in the first place, we wouldn’t be in a time of war at all.
I’ve said in an earlier column that what scares me most are aliens and ghosts and the supernatural. That’s probably because there are so many unknowns with those topics. And fear, just like this movie teaches us, goes hand-in-hand with the unknown. But this movie also teaches us that we can dispel that fear with an open mind. After all, E.T. and Casper were lovable.
But I still hate Pumpkinheads.
Andrew Goodridge likes movies so much that he married one. He teaches Audio/Video production, Filmmaking, and Film & Television History in Fort Worth, Texas. He would one day like to have a Pug, or maybe a Bulldog.
Andrew Goodridge can be reached at goodridge@everythingnac.com
