why horror movies are dying (Blog Post)

1. directors are sadly missing the point

making a movie gory and gross is not scary just because you do not want to look at the screen does not mean that you are scared.

look at halloween (1978) the movie had little blood at all yet it created an unsettling "check behind you every 10 seconds" atmosphere that is yet to be replicated

now look at Saw(2004) sure its cool to see gory ways to kill people but not only was the acting a joke the whole movie was nothing more than an ugly sight.

in short i would rather have a ton of blood and organs in my room at 2 AM than Michael Myers.

2. jump scares

a jump scare can be good if done right it has to be mixed in with other tactics of creating fear if you want it to be effective.

but its not good if you just throw 100 jump scares in my face at once its just annoying not scary.

3. tired scares

old horror movies would play on humans basic instincts of being afraid HP lovecraft for example did a fine job, you were scared more after the movies just thinking about it.

4. crap like paranormal activity

a movie that is supposed to be made by a guys in movie camera is a great idea but it is done so so soooo poorly it was depressing.

if this is the innovating new horror movies are doing the industry is doomed.

5. people have lost what makes a horror movie a horror movie

i want a chilling movie about things that go bump in the night i want a movie playing on the fears i already have not some sadistic torturer porn.

6. slashers

halloween,friday the 13th,the terror train,the texas chainsaw massacre,prom night,i know what you did last summer,black christmas. THESE are good slashers i can not think of anything in the last ten years that has even come close. the genre has lots more to do its not dead its just hit a pause

Is it unfair to blame Saw? Because I'm gonna blame Saw. It was the real turning point for horror films as a whole and really when the gorn movies boom started. And those types of film aren't really my cup of tea so I'm not really pleased with Saw. Although I'm sure some more tradition horror films will start popping up once the gorn craze stops bringing in the bucks.

I actually agree here. Since movies like saw and hostel the focus has been primarily on gore rather than actually scaring the audience.

Horror movies are dying because companies spend so much time with remakes.

Remakes turn out to be trash and they only do it to see what the movie would of been like if it was made now instead of 10 or 20 or so years ago.

Plus the old Horror characters will be the greatest such as

Chucky

Freddy Krueger

Pinhead

Those 3 will always be the most badass ones ever.

i didn't know the horror movie genre was dying. Seems healthy to me. Maybe people just have to look outside of America.

Is Saw really supposed to be a horror movie? I always thought of it as more of a suspense type film- all the major plot twists are usually revealed at the end of the Saw movies, and its not really that scary- just disgustingly bloody and, to be frank, kinda gross.

I think that most of modern 'horror' movies have gravitated away from the chilling, creepy aspect of good horror films into other categories, like thrillers or sci-fi stories or plain action films, with extra gore. Directors and other people in the movie industry just want money now, of which they get plenty by making remakes of old films. Oh well.

@BiteMe-Fanboy said:

The real question is: why did western films die?

Probably because the West used to be romanticized as a border of civilization, a frontier that was, a while ago, impassable by modern civilization. The West isn't a border any more, and with that I guess goes the popularity of Westerns. We still have some 'westerns' today, I guess, but those are more about the life of cowboys and taverns and cattle and bandits etc etc etc rather than the mysterious, new land, so different from civilization and so far away. After that the new frontier was space, so there were tons of films about aliens and space travel and stuff like that. Nowadays I don't know what our frontier is...

Hey I guess you could maybe look forward to the Lone Ranger coming out? It looks pretty good, though its not quite the old Western films, like good bad ugly, magnificent seven, sabata, etc.

@Decoy Elite said:

Is it unfair to blame Saw? Because I'm gonna blame Saw. It was the real turning point for horror films as a whole and really when the gorn movies boom started. And those types of film aren't really my cup of tea so I'm not really pleased with Saw. Although I'm sure some more tradition horror films will start popping up once the gorn craze stops bringing in the bucks.

co-signed. Hostal is another one.

The excessive use of gore has killed the horror movies, it's like the CGI, is good when you use it wisely, but when you abuse of him ruins the movie.

Horror Movies aren't dying because of blood and gore, I disagree actually.

Horror Movies are dying because they are starting to become the same movies following the same formula. From the moment a horror movie starts I can pick out exactly who is going to die and I know when they are gonna die 10-15 minutes before it happens (sometimes even more than 10-15 minutes).

I'm not the biggest gore / torture fan, in fact, I don't care for it much at all (though oddly one of my favorite horror series of all time follows that exact description...). But I can live with it, it's just something needs to be present that actually scares me.

Remakes

The remake of Halloween I actually liked. I never saw the second one, but the first one really expanded on Michael, and why he was a scary individual. Overall, I thought it was a good movie.

I'm on of the few people I've met who actually enjoys when certain movies get remade. Because, lets face it, ten or twenty years from now, most people aren't going to watch the classic. And it saddens me that certain movies will just die down forever. Where some people find remakes to be stupid and worthless, I think they're a great way to bring a classic to the modern audience. As long as they don't butcher the original, I honestly have no issues with doing so at all.

What's really missing in modern horror?

However Saw, My Bloody Valentine, One Missed Call, featdotcom, etc. etc. Lacked imagination. Most of them I predicted the outcome of the movie within the first half hour...

It's like someone mathematically broke down hundreds of classic horror movies, and then put the formula to the test. And when it was successful, they didn't bother playing around with what they could do, they just kept replicating it over and over again.

Then you have the torture genre, which is....not my favorite. Generally have 1-3 characters who get tortured for the entire movie and the most gruesome manner possible. It's gross to watch, goes nowhere, and the villain usually gets away and appears in 10 more movies. Boring...

What makes the classics so much better?

Honestly, they weren't. I hear it from a lot of people why they are so much greater, but the truth of the matter is they aren't any better. Back when they appeared they were original, they were new, unique, etc. That's why people remember them as being better. But they generally follow the same formula.

To me, this doesn't mean that the genre has always been that awful, it just means that the genre has never evolved.

What were unique series?

Hellraiser (one of my favorite horror series) was a torture flick. It's bloody, scary, suspenseful, and makes you cringe, but you can't take your eyes off the screen. This one is still unique. Hell, magic, torture, sadistic bad guys, blood, hunting, etc. Hellraiser combined every other horror idea into one flick, and it was awesome. By todays standards, probably not as cool, but come one, this guy was just horrifying!

Aliens (might be my favorite) was more of a thriller, but oh my was it suspenseful. The first three just made your bones cringe. If you can honestly say that the first time you watched this movie you didn't jump, or cringe, then you are truly made of harder stuff than your average human being! No movie will ever top Aliens in sheer thrill factor. These things were deadly, dangerous, and when you killed them they killed you back with acid blood. Xenomorphs are still one of the deadliest alien races on their level (street level in comics I suppose).

The Shining (oh man, I can't even describe this one) is still a classic that could never be replicated. Somewhere between the concept of psychopath with an axe, haunted house, and ghosts, this movie took things to a whole new level. Jack Nicholson improvised the line "Here's Johnny" and the director loved it, as a result it's been engraved in the heads of all of us who have watched that movie.

There are more, but those are my top 3.

What's REALLY missing these days?

A new formula, and that's all I have to say about that.

Thanks for reading,

Floopay

I don't count Saw and the like (Hostel, etc.) as horror movies. They're gore, blood and guts movies, but they aren't scary.

@Decoy Elite:

* starts clapping slowly *everybody else joins in

They are dying because people are running out of good ideas.

Horror has alwayts been pretty lame. I like horror themed stuff, just not movies.

@Floopay: Then why was Friday the 13th so sucessful? 10 (11 with Freddy VS Jason) movies that all serve their purpose and all you have to do is watch 1 or 2 before you know that everyone is gonna die except the main character in every sequal.

No, its not that its all been done, its just being done badly.. I miss the good old days with actual fake blood rather then everything being CGI.

@Dragonborn_CT: that is so true

@Bruxae said:

@Floopay: Then why was Friday the 13th so sucessful? 10 (11 with Freddy VS Jason) movies that all serve their purpose and all you have to do is watch 1 or 2 before you know that everyone is gonna die except the main character in every sequal.

No, its not that its all been done, its just being done badly.. I miss the good old days with actual fake blood rather then everything being CGI.

Because the first 2-3 Friday the 13th were actually pretty different. After that I think people just kept seeing them for the same reason people kept watching Halloween, because you figured, hey you already went to see the ones before whatever the newest one is, might as well see how horrible the new one is.

Halloween falls under the same line, as does Nightmare on Elm Street.

Thanks for reading,

Floopay

@Floopay said:

@Bruxae said:

@Floopay: Then why was Friday the 13th so sucessful? 10 (11 with Freddy VS Jason) movies that all serve their purpose and all you have to do is watch 1 or 2 before you know that everyone is gonna die except the main character in every sequal.

No, its not that its all been done, its just being done badly.. I miss the good old days with actual fake blood rather then everything being CGI.

Because the first 2-3 Friday the 13th were actually pretty different. After that I think people just kept seeing them for the same reason people kept watching Halloween, because you figured, hey you already went to see the ones before whatever the newest one is, might as well see how horrible the new one is.

Halloween falls under the same line, as does Nightmare on Elm Street.

Thanks for reading,

Floopay

Sure, theres probably one group of people who feel that way, but as a big horror fan and fan of these movies you are talking about I can say that atleast for me and most fellow horror fans I talk too you are wrong.

Repetition can be entertaining, I mean people have been watching soccer for decades and its basically just a bunch of guys kicking a leatherball over and over.