For the most part, I can't argue with this view of horror cinema. Most horror fans don't mind this type of labeling and, in fact, relish in it.
However, every once in a while--on a rare occasion--there comes a film that is not only horror, but it is art.
Horsehead, distributed by Artsploitation Films (a company which specializes in art house style horror films), is one film that is classified as horror but ends up being so much more. Not since I first watched Rob Zombie's Lords of Salem have I been so engrossed, enamored, and impressed by a horror film.
The story follows a young woman named Jessica. Jessica is estranged from her family, specifically her mother. Jessica also has been studying the science of dreaming--specifically lucid dreaming.
Jessica gets a phone call from her mother saying her grandmother has died. Jessica heads back home to face her mother again. While there, Jessica becomes ill and begins to have lucid dreams. As she goes deeper and deeper into her fever dreams she uncovers the dark secrets within herself and her family's past.
I have a hard time labeling this film as strictly horror or exploitation. While it does have its fair share of gore, violence, and nudity (this film is not for the faint of heart) it is the way the film implements these elements over its ideas which makes it stand apart. Horsehead is an artful combination of classical Gothic literature, art house film making, and literary modernism. I'd go as far to label the film as a dark or Gothic fantasy.
The film is almost perfectly done in every way. The imagery is brilliant, beautiful, and everything has a place. Nowhere did it seem as if the filmmakers were just throwing in strange and beautiful imagery to get attention. Everything worked together in a stream of consciousness style. As reality and dreams blurred and multiple character viewpoints intersected the film hit a fever pitch of perfect rarely seen in modern cinema.