The Decline of horror

[electric_warrior]

There is still lots of good horror

examples
The Devil's Backbone
The Orphanage
REC
Let the Right One In (is a horror film)
The Descent
Drag Me To Hell
The Mist (i thought it was very good, except for the overly bleak ending)
Eden Lake- which is both terrifying and disturbing


That's just from the second half of the decade, so we're not doing too badly

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I'm assuming its just we've all gotten older. The older I get the less scared I get of everything.

*points to Tax Returns*

Quite the reverse my friend.

 

[Casual Shinji]

For me it's CGI; It's just not scary.

The old horror movies had a "smell" and a tangability to them because they used practical effects.

All the new horror movies feel too digital and synthetic.

 

[weker]

Modern horror films bad? not so much I think nostalgia is getting the better of many people. As long as there are films like REC I will be happy with the horror genre.

Slashers I have found to be always a more dominant type of "horror" film, but really slashers are a different genre on their own, so some might be polluting what the consider horror with slashers films.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Let the Right One In (is a horror film)

I would say it's a horror movie in the same sense that Cronenberg's The Fly is a science fiction film; It isn't really.

It has elements of horror in it, but in the end it's a drama.

 

[Deverfro]

I'd say its becuase now people confuse horror with action films/games with flickery lights and lots of blood. Take Dead Space, I personally would not call that a horro game. This also demonstrates the point that most horror doesnt scare me (or anyone I talk too) It just startles every now and again.

Films like The Grudge make me wet my pants with terror, and games like Silent Hill 2 did the same. Thats becuase the understand horror is about building to a point where the terror is just too much and your hoping that something will just jump out and scare you. But it never does and your getting more and more scared. Those horror games understand the idea of pacing and atmosphere, and silent hill hides behind fog and darkness so your imagination fills in the blanks.

Dead Space (and most modern horro films) show us absolutly bloody everything, every cut, dismembered limb and chunk of flesh, so after the mild *gasp* you just get used to it. And there isnt any change in tone, its all jumpy all the time.

Frankly if you want great horror, you have too look away from America (and closely at Japan). Films like The Grudge, REC, The Descent are great, and American films like Let Me In, Donnie Darko and Event Horizon are all good, if a little goofy.

I seem to have gone completely off point here, but the basic is, good horror builds atmosphere and have pacing and juxtaposition. It uses a variety of techniques to make the viewer/player uncomfortable. Not just throw lots of body parts at the camera.

 

[electric_warrior]

Let the Right One In (is a horror film)

I would say it's a horror movie in the same sense that Cronenberg's The Fly is a science fiction film; It isn't really.

It has elements of horror in it, but in the end it's a drama.

I'd say that The Fly is a horror/sci-fi hybrid, in much the same way as The Thing and Alien, and that Let the Right One In is a hybrid between drama and horror. I certainly found it horrifying/scary, even if it doesn't have many individual moments that are horrifying, its the atmosphere that does it.

 

[SammiYin]

Horror has always been shit. Horror is a label used to describe any film that will make you either go "Ah" or "Urgh" "LOL", one is scary, another is grim, the third is 90% of the "horror" franchise.
From where I'm looking [an extremely high horse], there's been 1 or 2 decent to incredible horror films every year or so, followed up by about 30 shitty knock offs of the good one, gradually diluting the suspense and immunising ourselves to it because of cliche.

 

[benihanaman]

Horror movies are shit now - have been for the past ten years or so. Most horror movies these days should be classified as "Gore-er" not horror. These movies don't even take place in the dark anymore, which of course dimiishes the tension that horrer movies need to create. The genre was destroyed by tools like Eli Roth, who make movies like hostel - which is nothing more then masochistic antihumanism. Those movies aren't scary, they are just off-putting. Not only are they off-putting, but I think that they are killing the minds of youth with this proliferation of senseless and gruesome violence that is essentially presented as entertainment. Movies like Freddy and jason may be old and outdated, but they were some kind of cautinary tale to babysitters and campgoers about the dangers of sex and alcohol. The story's may have been rudimentary and usually predictable, but there was a narrative along the way that kept you involved. Movies like hostel ruin a genre and Eli Roth should be banned from directing anything other then traffic. I'll say it again. ELI ROTH IS A TOOL.

 

[GuyUWishUWere]

Something truly terifying has to have context, the slaughter in most horror movies does not. People are truly terrified of ideas(losing someone you love, having the unbarable urge to do something, but not being able to "I have no mouth and I must scream"). It's not dessensetization to feel nothing for the death of someone with the personality of a plank of wood. When that happens I can't say to myself "this is a real person, I hope there ok".

 

[chiefohara]

Special effects and gore have replaced tension and fear, If we don't see the monster our imagination makes it 10 times worse than it actually is.

The others was a great horror film and 90% of that was just Niole kidman acting.

 

[jumjalalabash]

Lack of suspense and likable characters, along with over used CGI gore ruined horror. All we get for scares are jumps whenever the music turns off. Also you can't really be scared for a group of people being chased by a killer when they are inhuman douchebags. And no one can take CGI blood seriously and its just silly of how they show the human body taking damage. (see Final Destination movies where the slightest trauma sends arms and legs falling off and human joints suddenly turn to jello at death.)

 

[Dogstile]

I'm assuming its just we've all gotten older. The older I get the less scared I get of everything.

*points to Tax Returns*

Quite the reverse my friend.

Every time I see you post you crush my hopes and dreams

*is terrified*

 

[Hosker]

There's the occasional horror I like. As someone said before, it has always been pretty rubbish overall. I think horror literature is scarier, albeit I am not well versed in it.

 

[demalo]

A good horror story needs drama. Without the drama we can't relate to the characters or the story and in turn have no attachment to the plot and can't be scared. Saw was a good horror movie because of the drama that drove the plot.

Some of the newer Saw movies have lost the connection to the drama and we're just not as concerned with the characters anymore. Same with Friday and Nightmare. Eventually horror movies turn into comedies because we start to laugh at the gore level or death scenes or the behavior of the characters in the film.

Horror is the sign of the times too. A horror movie must have a psychological affect on the viewer that has a lasting impression. Poltergeist, The Shinning, Misery, Omen, The Exorcist, Alien, The Wizard of Oz... All considered horror movies, but none of them have an extreme amount of gore (or any). Even Jaws could be considered a horror movie because of the psychological affect it had on the audience of that time. But someone seeing those movies for the first time now may laugh or be desensitized to the horror. However that may be because they've already watched a similar film that presented these similar types of horror aspects which the viewer has become desensitized to. Also, the viewer may have associated those horror aspects on another film in which case they're no longer affected by the current films horror aspects. Another surprising horror film may be Disney's 101 Datamations - it scared the shit out of my 5 year old brother (back in 2000).

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Another surprising horror film may be Disney's 101 Datamations - it scared the shit out of my 5 year old brother (back in 2000).

Water
Ship
Down

'nuff said.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

It would be nice to hear some opinions on the Found footage genre. I was counting on this new moon film (Apollo I think it's called) to convert me. It's presented in "found footage" style and takes place on the moon. Obviously anything set in space is 2x more likely to be badass, so I might just give it a go. Reading the terrible reviews hasn't helped though...

Speaking ONLY of the original Blair Witch and original Paranormal Activity, I can say without reservation that the "found footage" sub genre of horror is pretty much the only thing even coming close to doing horror the way I think it needs to be done.

You know what's not scary? Blood soaked mutants. Cackling torturers. Rubbery aliens. Jittery ghosts flickering all over the screen. Wan faced youngsters with spooky voices. Howling axe murderers. Unkillable demons. Etc, etc, etc. Watching special effects and questionable actors in rubber suits chase virginal teenagers across suburban lawns has never been very compelling.

You know what is scary? The things that live in the dark corners of your imagination. And that's why a movie like, say, the Blair Witch Project works for me. I don't need to see a hairy witch on a broomstick shooting fireballs. The Blair Witch is whatever I want it to be. It's whatever terrifies me about being lost in the woods, separated from my friends, alone and in the dark. It's specific to me, and my imagination is 1000 times better at freaking the crap out of me than any filmmaker could ever be.

I could care less about handycam footage and amateur actors and 10K budgets hamming up the works. My vote will ALWAYS go to the film that shows the least and implies the most. The Descent, for instance, was brilliant right up until the point where a bunch of goofy monsters start lurching around. Being stuck underground in the dark, not being able to see, not knowing if you can get out, thousands of tons of crushing rock looming overhead...the claustrophobia, the fear of what's ahead...that's scary! Goofy monsters? Less scary. Silly, even.

 

[Azure Sky]

I think the problem is what they try to pass off as horror.

Most horror movies these days are nothing more than gory action movies.

Being alone in a deserted wasteland city where 'something' could be watching you is creepy, a butt ugly monster that jumps out and goes 'boo' is not.

Here's an example:
Who here has seen Arachnophobia?
What about 8 Legged Freaks?
Which had a more lasting impression? =3

 

[DracoSuave]

But with the rise of Eli Roth and the Saw movies, a lot of horror movies have become more about grossing people out and less on being actually scary. This is not a good direction.

And how the HELL is this any different than the horror movies of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s?


I watched Halloween (Jamie Lee Curtis woo!) fairly recently. Man. That movie sucked.

Don't let the rosey glasses of nostalgia blind you to the fact there were some pretty sick horror movies back in the day.

The best horror is, and always has been, about something. It's about tying into a fear or anxiety of society, and riding it. The Saw francise doesn't work because of the gore, or any of that. That's not the scare. The scare is about identifying with the victims. It's not that they're all terrible shits who have no redeeming value (those die quickly.) It's those who have minor manners of wasting their life that make you identify with them. Donny Wahlburg's character had anger management issues, but he loved his son. Cary Elwes was cheating on his wife, yes, but other than that, he was simply an overworked doctor in an understaffed hospital. Riggs from the fourth movie didn't even do anything wrong... his only 'sin' was being unable to let go of an investigation.

Or look at Hostel, where it exploits the fear of being in a foriegn land, with no where to turn to even if you escape. Fear of isolation. Fear of being unable to communicate.

Or look at Devil's Rejects, which is even more subtle, being about the fear of revenge itself, where it is possible to become the evil you are trying to fight simply by going to far in the name of justice. Very interesting message to put forth given the post 9/11 release.

Horror is, at its best, a morality tale. It's been that way since Edgar Allen Poe, and been that way since the horrible little stories we tell children to freighten them into good behavior.

It's not about the suspense. That's just a mechanism of involvement. It's a technique. It's like saying space opera is about laser effects. It's just a means to the end. The -end-, the point, is the morality play.

 

[DracoSuave]

Here's a point against the 'it's all gore'.

The special effects used to make the gore in modern horror are not some new technology that allows this core to occur.

Most of then are decades old, and have only been refined over time. So... if the new movies are just about gore, and the old movies weren't...

...then where did these techniques for making Gore come from?

I think the problem is what they try to pass off as horror.

Most horror movies these days are nothing more than gory action movies.

Aliens is a gory action movie. It's also one of the best horror movies of all time.

Shitty over-commercialized horror movies have been around since they've been making horror movies.

Or, is this thread going to continue to insist Hammer Films never existed.

Let's look at a prototypical Hammer film. One Million Years, BC.

Basically, this is a story about Rachel Welsh sweating a lot. But other than that, this is what happens:

People grunt a lot.
ACK A DINOSAUR COMES OUT OF NOWHERE AND EATS SOMEONE
People grunt more.
ACK A GIANT SPIDER COMES OUT OF NOWHERE AND EATS SOMEONE.
People grunt.
ACK A PTERODACTL COMES OUT OF NOWHERE AND EATS SOMEONE.

Pretty much this, for two hours.

That, for the record, is what some of you claim is a 'modern' horror archtype, of sudden scares rather than suspense. I'm going to be honest... that 'sudden scare' stuff, it ain't modern, it's been around longer than zombie movies.

MovieBob should totally do a Big Picture on this.

Water
Ship
Down

'nuff said.

It's no coincidence, horror shares a common root with children's faerie tales.

Even that name 'faerie tales' is intended to give you the chills. When that stuff was written, faeries weren't the cute little girls with wings that helped manchildren in green leotards fly. They were alien-minded unknowable things that often gathered in packs to hunt people to the death for sport... and those were the NICE ones.