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The slippery slope of horror films

antemortem

antemortem

rest after tomorrow
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    A lot of horror made in recent years seems to be recycling old ideas, or is keeping a franchise alive that should've ended a handful of movies ago (see: the Saw series). I've always been a really casual watcher of horror, not one to judge any for anything in particular, other than the passive "that was good!" or "that wasn't that good" comment. However I watched Ouija the other day and it upset me so much how it seemed to be a decently-made movie that ended up deconstructing itself in the end with a poorly composed story and expendable characters in an all new sense of the phrase.

    What do you think of how horror movies are evolving (or, in some cases, devolving)? What are some movies of recent that would support your feelings?
     
    Most horror movies nowadays are based on gore more than frightening mood itself. A lot of stupid jump scares that doesnt scare the audience but for only a few seconds. A few horror movies that came out recently that are good are possibly ones like Paranormal Activity (mostly the first ones), Insidious 1 and 2 and The Girl Next Door just to name a few.

    I love horror movies, they're my favorite genre. Although while some of them are pretty bad, there's still some gems amongst the pile of poop that are being thrown at us.
     
    JayD said:
    Most horror movies nowadays are based on gore more than frightening mood itself. A lot of stupid jump scares that doesnt scare the audience but for only a few seconds. A few horror movies that came out recently that are good are possibly ones like Paranormal Activity (mostly the first ones), Insidious 1 and 2 and The Girl Next Door just to name a few.

    I love horror movies, they're my favorite genre. Although while some of them are pretty bad, there's still some gems amongst the pile of poop that are being thrown at us.
    Click to expand...
    How did you like The Ring? That was one of the first proper horror movies I watched, and still today I need a pillow to hide behind during parts of the movie. The first time, I hid and let the others describe what was seen when the tape was viewed for the first time 8) urrrr

    In general, I agree. I hate the Saw movies, because that is gore extreme. It sickens me more than it scares me. Paranormal Activity did apprehension coupled with jumpscares incredibly well.
     
    The Ring was a little bland compared to Ringu, the japanese version. But that's not saying it wasn't good. It had very good atmosphere especially with those tape segments and the lightouse. I remember watching it as a kid and I was so frightened by some of the scenes, when the wind blew one of the apartment door house close, I had to wait for my dad to come back home to make me feel un-scared again, haha.
    Aside from The Ring, you should try watching the Japanese version of the Grudge, it's a great horror movie.

    Tbh, I love gory movies. It's probably my huge interest in special effects in horror movies such as Tom Savini who have done a number of great gory visual effects for a ton of cult movies such as Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and Friday the 13th. So seeing gore in movies actually fascinates me a lot. So as for Saw goes, I loved the premise of the story and the visuals. But I can understand why some people wouldn't like it :)
     
    I personally love psychological horror, and it's probably my favorite movie genre in general. I love the way the story twists your mind around, so by the end of it, you're so immersed and frightened that you can't help but watch.

    Unfortunately, we don't get those movies anymore. Instead, we get Ouija.

    I feel like the main problem with horror movies is that the writers rely too much on jump scares to make people frightened. A good jump scare is great, but it has to be at the right moment. A common one I see is that the music is elevating, the camera shots go slanted and focus on a girl reaching into her dark closet. All of a sudden, a killer jumps out and... oh wait, that's not a killer, it's her brother. Great, now all of that momentum is ruined, and the suspense killed. Yeah, it scares the audience for half a second, but it absolutely wrecks any sort of immersion the writers are trying to accomplish. It's not that a fake scare is bad in itself, it's when everything leads to that scare. There have been plenty of big scares that turn out to be friends coming into the camera angle, but it's because the music didn't lead up to it, the momentum is carried on through, and the audience is even closer to the edge of their seat. The viewers know that the friend wasn't the big scare, so there's still something to lead up to.

    Horror movies today like to cram those fake scares with the music queue and everything, thinking it'll up the scare factor. Instead, it ruins everything. By the time the real climax rolls around, everyone is exhausted and not as into the movie as they could be. If you're going to lead up to a jump scare, it has to be of something you're supposed to be afraid of. Just take a look at Insidious and Sinister. Both of these movies had a lot of scares, but they were of stuff that the audience was supposed to be scared of. The scares weren't fake, and the movies themselves were decently frightening because of it.

    I don't watch horror movies anymore without reading a few reviews nowadays. I think The Purge: Anarchy was the tipping point with that, as I love, love, LOVE the concept, as it leaves a lot of room to explore human morality and how far someone will go to save themselves, but the movie itself is just utter crap. I will never recommend it, and whatever scares this was supposed to have, it didn't deliver. And because of it, I have to see if a horror movie is decent before I'll watch it.
     
    Best jumpscare in modern times imo: the kitchen in Paranormal Activity 2!
     
    All of the modern horror movies' reliance on jumpscares makes me hope there's a "Jumpscare: the Movie" in the works, where it's a satirical horror film containing nothing but jumpscares within each scene.

    The lack of actual monsters could also play a part, as today's horror movies only have serial killers and ghosts as the antagonist. Can't have an antagonist that's more like this?

    Spoiler:


    It'll still give the audience the shivers even if it's not human.
     
    Shutter is my favorite horror movie, the original, not the American remake. It's creepy and looks great, has good pacing and some good jump moments. The Devil's Backbone is another one of my favorites for similar reasons. Asian horror films are my fave though, I prefer ghost stories over slasher flicks and American horror has fallen into the found footage genera, I've been over that since Blair Witch... Or they try to hard to throw in a twist at the end, and it turns out too wonky and stupid. Paranormal Activity was kinda boring to me. I wanna see the Poltergiest remake, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
     
    Horror movies as a genre are historically famed for their lack of ingenuity, low budget and over reliance on the tropes they created. It's nothing new. Horror has always been about movies rather than film, though of course there are those who take it to a higher level. Bar porn, the horror genre is typically the easiest type of movie to produce, film, edit and release. For every two star drama, there are 5 two star horrors. For every average comedy, eight average horrors. The point of what I'm saying is that the mass 'badness' of horror films simply isn't a new phenomenon.

    Another point to be made is that the horror genre is often perceived to fall into a slump between the genre-defining (or genre-creating) hits. Peeping Tom & Psycho more or less created psychological horror as we know it, but the initial backlash to these films caused a slump in the genre before it had even started. Only when Silence of the Lambs came out did psychological horror as a film genre really experience the boom and appreciation it knows today, often being considered the highest form of horror flick. There were Rosemary's Baby and The Shining between 1960 and 1991, but they didn't kickstart the genre like Lambs did. Of course, there were plenty of great psychological horrors throughout those years, but that's besides the point. It's the perceived slump that causes the problem, the dismissal of horror.

    That's just my film nerd's opinion, anyhow. It's 3:30am and I could have said a lot more, but I'm too tired.
     
    Pinkie-Dawn said:
    All of the modern horror movies' reliance on jumpscares makes me hope there's a "Jumpscare: the Movie" in the works, where it's a satirical horror film containing nothing but jumpscares within each scene.

    The lack of actual monsters could also play a part, as today's horror movies only have serial killers and ghosts as the antagonist. Can't have an antagonist that's more like this?

    Spoiler:


    It'll still give the audience the shivers even if it's not human.
    Click to expand...

    It's just part of the horror style.

    In the 30's-40's it was gothic monster movies.
    50's it was B movies with aliens and giant monsters,
    70's-80's were all about demon possession,
    90's were about slasher films,
    2000's was a slow decade where people brought in foreign films to the mainstream culture and zombie movies started getting popular,
    2010's were more about remake/reboots but also made the horror genre more mainstream with Walking Dead, Bates Motel, American Horror Story, Hannibal and Scream/Friday the 13th getting a TV series in the making


    There are tons of movies with monsters that came out the past few years, you just gotta look for them and not stay in the mainstream :P
    Foreign films are always a good place to look.

    Also, have you seen Cabin In The Woods? It was a really good throwback to monster movies.
     
    JayD said:
    In the 30's-40's it was gothic monster movies.
    50's it was B movies with aliens and giant monsters,
    70's-80's were all about demon possession,
    90's were about slasher films,
    2000's was a slow decade where people brought in foreign films to the mainstream culture and zombie movies started getting popular,
    2010's were more about remake/reboots but also made the horror genre more mainstream with Walking Dead, Bates Motel, American Horror Story, Hannibal and Scream/Friday the 13th getting a TV series in the making
    Click to expand...

    The '70s was totally the demon decade, but '80s horror belonged to science fiction. That was the decade where plot, budget and mainstream appeal came together as one and gave us what the '50s lacked.
     
    Harley Quinn said:
    The '70s was totally the demon decade, but '80s horror belonged to science fiction. That was the decade where plot, budget and mainstream appeal came together as one and gave us what the '50s lacked.
    Click to expand...

    Budget not really, since a lot of them were B movies :P
     
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