HAPPY 25th!!!!

[yack]

Remake?

I'm tired of remakes. Not to mention remakes of movies that were fine the first time around. (I know it's not great, but it's a classic).


Why? Why?

[desperate hand wringing toward the heavens]

emeraldcite said:

[yack]

Remake?

I'm tired of remakes. Not to mention remakes of movies that were fine the first time around. (I know it's not great, but it's a classic).


Why? Why?

[desperate hand wringing toward the heavens]

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I'm not crazy about remakes either - I just couldn't believe they had a remake of The Amityville Horror out recently. I mean, it hasn't been THAT long.

Oh, and I would argue that HALLOWEEN started that genre back then. That movie absolutely terrified me - then the Freddy and Jason movies followed not long after. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's how I remember things.

Halloween: 1978
Friday: 1980
Nightmare: 1984

But Texas Chainsaw Masscre had them beat at 1974, which may be the real start of this, although the sequel didn't come out until 1986, but the grusome single murderous character and pointless bloodshed that makes these kinds of slasher films so great started then.

Just a contestable observation...

Maybe it all began elsewhere....

I'm probably the only person alive that has never seen any of those movies. (though I did see The Ring) LOL

gasp!

get yourself down to your nearest video store. your mission: watch all of these movies and their sequels. Don't come back until your eyes are bleeding and you suffer from night terrors.










just kidding. but you should watch them asap. your life depends on it.

emeraldcite said:

Halloween: 1978
Friday: 1980
Nightmare: 1984

But Texas Chainsaw Masscre had them beat at 1974, which may be the real start of this, although the sequel didn't come out until 1986, but the grusome single murderous character and pointless bloodshed that makes these kinds of slasher films so great started then.

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It wasn't the first, but the most notable and 'popular' of the movies based (albeit VERY loosely on the - crap...what was the murderer's name?) Ed Gein's, (that's it!) exploits. His case was also the inspiration for Psycho and about a zillion (obviously an exaggeration here) other movies that together launched the 'slasher' genre which completely destroyed the horror genre. Leaving us with what we have today - idiotic movies that strive to use gruesomeness to replace the good old suspense, timing and plotting that made movies such as "Psycho" so good.

Which, unfortunately, meant that we got such idiotic fare as anything Wes Craven has done (but really, the 'Scream' franchise far outweighed the "Nightmare" franchise for sheer stupidity - at least "Nightmare..." had some creativity behind it) and the Jason movies. As well as the 'teenage slasher' flicks that have come to replace the 'monster slasher movies' nowadays.

*sigh* I long for the days of *good* horror movies. Back when they were frightening and not just gross.

Rabe...

September skies said:

I'm probably the only person alive that has never seen any of those movies. (though I did see The Ring) LOL

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You have *no* idea how much I envy you being able to say that!

Rabe...

other movies that together launched the 'slasher' genre which completely destroyed the horror genre

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I don't think this is true. This is like saying that one sub-genre ruined the whole thing, like saying vampire fiction ruined horror fiction. There are plenty of non-slasher horror films out there during the golden age of horror (dates to be determined, but probably began in the early- to mid-seventies and ended when Scream came out).

Although a few good movies have come out in the past decade or so, I think that industry standards have ruined horror.

1. Remakes, sequels, and sure bets run the market currently, despite the surge in the popularity of horror. Everyone's afraid of making something new. No one wants to lose money.

2. The stricter guidelines for admittance to movies (I know that under 17 shouldn't be in an R movie, but they made it in). Horror movies have always been geared to a teen and young adult audience. There was an understanding that younger teens 13-16 would find their way into theatres, but now, with less making it in, they dumbed down horror to PG-13, which in many cases doesn't work in the film's favor.

I don't think slasher ruined horror, it was just a popular sub-genre. I think money ruined it. Money and a lack, or resistance to, ingenuity.

emeraldcite said:

I don't think slasher ruined horror, it was just a popular sub-genre. I think money ruined it. Money and a lack, or resistance to, ingenuity.

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I would agree with you provided that the industry went downhill in only the last decade or so, or perhaps a little earlier (when did the first of the inane Scream movies that really launched the 'teen slasher' subgenre?) However, the industry became ruined when the slew of abhorrent slasher films based on the Gein case hit the markets, which was far before the last decade.

It amazes me that movies made in the 50's and 60's remain more frightening today than anything made post 1975, which do nothing but disgust with their splashing the screen with gore and blood. Though there have been a few attempts to bring the 'horror' back into the genre, they're movies that are basically so nonsensical that they quickly fall apart and leave the audience more bored than actually frightened. (insert "Ring" into this category, as well as "the Grudge"). It's as if the director/producers/creators have forgotten how to 'chill' an audience and instead have decided that merely nauseating them would be satisfactory enough for them. They traded causing sleepless nights for merely causing massive flushing.

With the advent of the 'slasher' flick, the cliched rules of horror popped quickly into existence causing horror to become something completely formuliac and indistinguishable one from another. It's amazing, to me, to discover that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" which started off as really a 'spoof' of the genrey becomes then more horrifying than the genre it's spoofing.

Rabe...