Lord of the Rings is in the horror movie canon thanks to Peter Jackson

The Fellowship of the Ring is our introduction to Peter Jackson’s model of Center-earth. It units the stage for the trilogy’s epic journey, serving to us take our first steps right into a world that had by no means been so successfully imagined on display earlier than. It’s obtained a tougher job to do than The Two Towers or The Return of the King, and it does it with aplomb.

2021 marks The Lord of the Rings motion pictures’ twentieth anniversary, and we could not think about exploring the trilogy in only one story. So every Wednesday all year long, we’ll go there and again once more, analyzing how and why the movies have endured as fashionable classics. That is Polygon’s Yr of the Ring.

However there’s one thing else that units it aside from its successors, two action-adventure fantasy epics that span the world of Center-earth and deal with half a dozen totally different characters. In contrast to The Two Towers or The Return of the King, The Fellowship of the Ring is a horror film. And that’s precisely why it’s nice. Each fantasy and horror require you to consider in monsters for just a few hours at a time — and scaring viewers might be the quickest method to make them consider in heroes.

Fellowship’s divergence in tone comes by advantage of its uniquely restricted perspective, principally targeted on Frodo or the hobbits. Whereas we could actually see occasions that Frodo doesn’t, it’s via his eyes and naïveté that we’re watching all of it unfold, as an alternative of hopping round to the journeys of a number of totally different characters. The opposite motion pictures often get spooky after we’re again with Sam and Frodo, like when Shelob is looking them, however Fellowship spends virtually each second in that creepy mode.

Picture: New Line Cinema

This type of perspective is integral to what makes a horror film scary. Horror is all in regards to the unknown, and the hazards that lurk in the dead of night. Whereas lots of the characters in Lord of the Rings have some familiarity with the extra harmful components of Center-earth, from Frodo’s standpoint every little thing we’re seeing is model new and terrifying.

Fellowship’s horror components begin virtually as quickly because the one ring seems within the Shire. We see Bilbo go from a kindly previous Hobbit to a ghoul on the considered giving it up. He solely snaps out of it when Gandalf betrays a touch of his full terrifying energy, bellowing at Bilbo to not mistake him for a “magican of low-cost tips.” We see the identical factor from Galadriel, the kindest and most gentle-seeming of the characters within the film, when she, too, is tempted by the ring.

In truth, a lot of the film is simply the hobbits and their companions transferring from one monster to the subsequent. Once they arrive on the gates of Moria — a haunting place in its personal proper — they’re compelled inside by the Watcher within the Water, an enormous tentacled monster that’s straight out of the work of H.P. Lovecraft. As soon as inside, they’re confronted with skeletal corpses, orcs (which bear a resemblance to the horrors in Jackon’s earlier motion pictures), and a troll. Lastly, their journey in Moria ends with encountering the Balrog, which resembles a fiery demon and pulls Gandalf to his doom in a the-killer-wasn’t-really-dead fakeout match for any slasher film. Even the Uruk-Hai are shot to emphasise that they’re horrific, decidedly inhuman, and monstrous.

Picture: New Line Cinema

In contrast to the remainder of the trilogy, Fellowship of the Ring’s battle sequences are largely assembled with a way of panic. Unstable, quick-cutting photographs give us a way of the chaos that the helpless hobbits really feel through the fights. In distinction, within the few moments towards the top of the film the place we see characters like Aragorn battling foes with no hobbits in sight, he’s proven in vast, steady photographs as he defeats a number of Uruk-Hai without delay.

However the film’s most harrowing scenes contain the Nazgûl. When Gandalf discovers that the One Ring is at Bag Finish, Fellowship takes on a wholly totally different shade palette, as if the Ringwraiths’ arrival has darkened your entire world. The wraiths themselves are additionally shot in shut ups of sure options, like horror-movie monsters like Nosfuratu or the Xenomorph from Alien, reasonably than the villains of motion or fantasy motion pictures, like Saruman who we are inclined to see along with his full face and higher physique in-frame. It takes Jackson hours to point out the Nazgûl of their full power and numbers, solely providing glimpses of them shrouded in shadows, their steel gauntlets, their shadowy-hooded faces, or their cloaks as they trip off display.

That is much more true when the Ringwraiths monitor Frodo and his associates down and start their pursuit. As quickly as Frodo realizes the Nazgûl are chasing him via the forest, Jackson makes his inspiration clear by using a zoom dolly shot — a signature trick of Alfred Hitchcock that he first used to unease viewers in Vertigo, and a horror-movie staple. From there, every little thing with the Ringwraiths is pure horror.

Throughout the pursuit, we spend way more time with closeups of the hobbits as they conceal — coated in bugs and attempting to not scream — reasonably than on the monsters which might be looking them. As an alternative the Nazgûl lurk on the edges of the body, looming and threatening the hobbits, at all times only one fallacious transfer or small sound away from catching them. It’s a transfer straight out of slashers like Halloween.

Jackson even makes use of bits of this when he introduces Strider. It’s straightforward to bask within the acquainted glow of Viggo Mortenson’s confidence as Aragorn and the reminiscence of the entire fearless issues he’ll do within the subsequent two-and-a-half motion pictures. However should you watch the scene the best way Jackon presents it, Strider looks like yet one more menace for the hobbits — as a result of all they’ve discovered outdoors of the Shire is terror. Frodo is our portal into this world, and for him (and us) it’s a scary place stuffed with hazard.

Picture: New Line Cinema

In the event that they weren’t so tightly related to a few of the finest fantasy and action-adventure motion pictures ever, your entire Nazgûl part of the film, from the second they’re launched till Arwen and Frodo are safely throughout the river, can be extra well known as stuffed with masterful horror sequences. You could possibly watch it with none context and immediately really feel a connection to the charming hobbits, and terror on the faceless creatures chasing them.

However then, horror is particularly good at introducing fantasy worlds. A Nightmare on Elm Road has to make you terrified of a person with knife-fingered gloves who can kill you in your goals whilst you sleep, The Exorcist has to make you consider {that a} lady is possessed by a demon, and The Omen has to persuade you {that a} 5-year previous is the satan. So why shouldn’t Peter Jackson use a few of the similar strategies he utilized in his time as a horror filmmaker to promote you on a world of goblins, elves, dwarves, and hobbits?

Picture: New Line Cinema

Horror is a style of purposefully heightened feelings, and every little thing of the horror film has to match. You just like the charming characters extra rapidly, snort with them extra simply, and settle for otherworldly concepts with fewer questions — which makes all of it simpler to inform a fantasy story with practically a dozen essential characters.

By the point you’ve rewatched the Lord of the Rings for the dozenth time, it’s straightforward to consider the sequence as only one large film. However that’s not precisely proper. The Fellowship is, by design, a a lot spookier film than you may bear in mind. In different phrases, it’s the proper film to rewatch this Halloween — plus it’s an important excuse to kick off the remainder of the trilogy.