The state of horror films

seun · Jan 4, 2008

After recently watching The Crazies, I've been thinking about current horror films. I honestly can't think of the last non-Asian horror film that gave me the creeps. At the risk of generalising, American horror has been crap for a long time. Entertaining, maybe, but actually horrifying...no. There were scenes in The Crazies I found disturbing and have had them stuck in my head for a few days. To me, that's the sign of a good horror film.

So, has something happened to American horror in the last few years, leaving it to wallow in sequel after sequel and attempts to be as gross as possible? Or is this just a blip and we can look forward to mature, frightening horror films in the near future?

DaddyCat · Jan 4, 2008

As long as people will pay enough to keep it profitable, the mainstreaming of grindhouse torture-porn will continue. It's tragic, but the last time I was genuinely scared in a theatre was Shyamalan's "Signs".

Perks · Jan 4, 2008

Making a horror film is trickier than any other sort, as I see it. Fear is such an immediate and fleeting cocktail; one shot of misstep sours the whole thing. Humans are skittish. We jump all the time at shadows and noises and creations of our own dozy brains, but most of the time we're quickly assured that there was nothing to be afraid of in the first place. And then the poison clears the veins and it takes forever to set it all up again.

If a horror film maker allows that to happen with stupid plot turns, bad acting, bad effects, or a poor grasp of subtlety, the fizz goes out of the soda, as it were. And it's almost impossible to get the piece back on track.

I can't think of another genre that depends so entirely on getting every little thing right. In a comedy, one flat-ish joke doesn't ruin the whole film. Drama's usually got the whole 'reality' thing going for it and sometimes, life just doesn't make any sense, so it gets a wide margin. Etc...

Anyway, I hold out hope for good American horror, but that's 'cause I'm a glass-half-full kinda girl when it comes to things I love. As it is, I haven't seen a good horror film that wasn't British in some time.

ETA - As much as I love horror, I have yet to find one with sub-titles that doesn't kill the mood with all that eyes-darting-to-the-bottom-of-the-screen-to-know-what-the-hell-is-going-on thing.

DaddyCat · Jan 4, 2008

Horror also gets ruined by sequel-itis, even more so than comedy. Horror begins with a scary idea, and by the third or fourth sequel it descends into self-parody.

Perks, if you want to see a Asian film that will scare you despite the subtitles, check out Kurosawa's "Kairo", and forget all about Wes Craven's "Pulse" hatchet job on it.

Perks · Jan 4, 2008

DaddyCat said:
Horror also gets ruined by sequel-itis, even more so than comedy. Horror begins with a scary idea, and by the third or fourth sequel it descends into self-parody.

How true is that? Sequels drive me nuts. Nobody does that more than Hollywood. It's shameful.

And thanks for the recommendation - I'll check it out!

Calla Lily · Jan 4, 2008

Pulse was a remake? Argh, where are the original films?! :headdesk: Altho the effects in Pulse weren't bad, it wa a seriously lame movie overall.

I sort of want to see One Missed Call, but I'd rather see the original, Chakushin Ari.

Bmwhtly · Jan 4, 2008

Not entirely offtopic:

Seun mentioned Romero's The Crazies. Aren't they remaking that?

DaddyCat · Jan 4, 2008

callalily61 said:
Pulse was a remake? Argh, where are the original films?! :headdesk: Altho the effects in Pulse weren't bad, it wa a seriously lame movie overall.

I sort of want to see One Missed Call, but I'd rather see the original, Chakushin Ari.

When I first heard about the writer's strike, I thought "Holy crap! With the kind of movies and TV we're getting lately, haven't they been on strike for years?"

Anyway, after "Pulse" I swore I'd never watch another Hollywood remake of Asian horror.

Perks · Jan 4, 2008

I thought The Ring was terrifying. The subtitles of Ringu put it out of my horror-grasp.

I like subtitles just fine in dramas and thrillers. I just haven't seemed to be able to hurdle it for out and out scares. Can't get lost in it like I need to.

seun · Jan 4, 2008

Bmwhtly said:
Not entirely offtopic:

Seun mentioned Romero's The Crazies. Aren't they remaking that?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455407/

I'd be willing to bet my life it will be nothing compared to the original.

Calla Lily · Jan 4, 2008

I must be odd. (Everyone stop laughing!) Subtitles don't bother me. I saw Ringu and Ju-On and got properly horrified by both. Especially that "holy s**t!" scene at the end of Ringu. That's one of the few times in the last 20 years a movie made me jump. the American version did it very well, too. The scene where the creepy little kid and the girl-with-the-hair are at opposite ends of the MC's ben in Ju-On was top-notch.

Not entirely OT either: The subtitles in Mel's Passion of the Christ helped me to distance myself from the unrelenting horror of it all. I could read something to distract myself, rather than puke.

Will Lavender · Jan 4, 2008

Something strange:

If you go into a Blockbuster, I bet the shelves are stocked 65-70% with horror films.

And the genre is as poor artistically as it's ever been.

I think there's a connection there.

Filmmakers see that they are going to have trouble getting their work into the studios, so they go indie, craft these schlocky little horror films, make a decent profit, and then make another one. No one is swinging for the fences in the genre; no one is trying to rewrite the old scripts; no one is trying to change the rules. The same basic concept -- half-naked teenage girls get chased and slashed as their frat boy boyfriends plot revenge -- is being redone over and over and over, and until someone can wrest control of the genre from the twentysomething videogamers, it's never going to get better.

Shadow_Ferret · Jan 4, 2008

I'm really wimpy when it comes to horror movies. The only thing that doesn't scare me are the old Universal and Hammer flicks, and that's probably only because I've seen them a hunnerd times.

Otherwise pretty much anything that comes out now scares the bejeesuz out of me.

ChunkyC · Jan 4, 2008

Perks said:
I thought The Ring was terrifying.

It certainly was better than the garbage that usually gets passed off as horror lately.

DaddyCat · Jan 4, 2008

Changing the rules is what made "Ringu"/"The Ring" so terrifying. The traditional ghost story ends with the ghost getting justice, instead here's a little bitch that just wants an excuse to kill and keep on killing. Brilliant, and disturbing.

seun · Jan 4, 2008

The Ring did nothing for me at all. Ringu, however, was very creepy.

maxmordon · Jan 4, 2008

I think is because they try to make the monster scarier and scarier and the scenes gorier and gorier forgetting the difference between shocking and scary

DaddyCat · Jan 4, 2008

maxmordon said:
I think is because they try to make the monster scarier and scarier and the scenes gorier and gorier forgetting the difference between shocking and scary

That was my reaction to John Carpenter's remake of "The Thing", the effects and gore were so over-the-top that it overwhelmed a potentially good story. But that's always been my problem with Carpenter's work - I get the impression that I'm being invited to laugh at inappropriate times.

Calla Lily · Jan 4, 2008

Although Carpenter's The Thing kept closer to the original story ("Who Goes There" by [I think] John W. Campbell) I agree that it was over the top. I prefer the Kenneth Tobey 1950s version. Terrific in every possible way, IMO.

I do enjoy Carpenter's Prince of Darkness, a shlocky 80s attempt to jump on the Evil Dead bandwagon. "Liquid Satan gets released" is the hook. Nubile teenagers, gore, zombies, gooey body innards, the usual Carpenter fare. But it's relieved by some humor and one very neat trick: Throughout the film, the MC has a recurring dream that looks like a snowy TV signal. The staticky voice over says "This is not a dream. We're sending you this fro the future so you prevent what's about to happen" etc., and it shows the doorway of the decrepit church the movie takes place in. Quite eeriie, possibly (especially?) because the bits are very short. The best part? No, it's not Alice Cooper as Head Zombie, LOL. As the movie progresses, the dream from the future alters to fit what's happening in the present. That's what gave me a good shiver.

DaddyCat · Jan 4, 2008

callalily61 said:
Although Carpenter's The Thing kept closer to the original story ("Who Goes There" by [I think] John W. Campbell) I agree that it was over the top. I prefer the Kenneth Tobey 1950s version. Terrific in every possible way, IMO.

I do enjoy Carpenter's Prince of Darkness, a shlocky 80s attempt to jump on the Evil Dead bandwagon. "Liquid Satan gets released" is the hook. Nubile teenagers, gore, zombies, gooey body innards, the usual Carpenter fare. But it's relieved by some humor and one very neat trick: Throughout the film, the MC has a recurring dream that looks like a snowy TV signal. The staticky voice over says "This is not a dream. We're sending you this fro the future so you prevent what's about to happen" etc., and it shows the doorway of the decrepit church the movie takes place in. Quite eeriie, possibly (especially?) because the bits are very short. The best part? No, it's not Alice Cooper as Head Zombie, LOL. As the movie progresses, the dream from the future alters to fit what's happening in the present. That's what gave me a good shiver.

I loved the idea behind Prince of Darkness, it's on my very short list of movies I wouldn't mind seeing remade (by someone else!) The only Carpenter horror movie I liked was In the Mouth of Madness. A cross between H. P. Lovecraft and the urban legend about 'the manuscript that drives you insane after you read it.'

Tiger · Jan 4, 2008

I did enjoy The Ring and The Sixth Sense--which wasn't horrifying but which still fits the genre, I think. Before that, the only American horror film that fascinated me was Angel Heart, from the 80s.

Shadow_Ferret · Jan 4, 2008

DaddyCat said:
That was my reaction to John Carpenter's remake of "The Thing", the effects and gore were so over-the-top that it overwhelmed a potentially good story. But that's always been my problem with Carpenter's work - I get the impression that I'm being invited to laugh at inappropriate times.

That wasn't how I viewed it. That movie just scared the crap out of me when I saw it when it came out. I didn't feel it was over-the-top, I felt it was just right startling scary. The head becoming a spider-thing was just too freaky.

I'd say the same thing about Polterguist with the guy ripping his face apart in the mirror. I think that just horrified everyone in the theater (now it looks so incredibly hokey).

DaddyCat · Jan 4, 2008

Shadow_Ferret said:
That wasn't how I viewed it. That movie just scared the crap out of me when I saw it when it came out. I didn't feel it was over-the-top, I felt it was just right startling scary. The head becoming a spider-thing was just too freaky.

I'd say the same thing about Polterguist with the guy ripping his face apart in the mirror. I think that just horrified everyone in the theater (now it looks so incredibly hokey).

I think we're getting at the difference between horror as 'what is the Bear going to do to my body' as opposed to 'what does the Bear mean to my existence as a person or the security of my beliefs'. Carpenter's movie had elements of the original story's shapeshifting alien and subsequent paranoia, but to me that got lost among all the flailing tentacles, spider-heads and arm-biting-off torsos. Sure, there's a shock while you're seeing it, but the kind of horror I'm talking about is something that extends beyond the physical and will stick with you long after we come to laugh at the primitive visuals.

Satan is actually an alien puddle of goo in a church basement, now he's waking up and infecting everyone? That's scary. Ghosts are coming through our electronics and depopulating the world by inducing suicidal despair? That's scary. A famous horror writer is in league with the Great Old Ones and writes a novel that drives the whole world to homicidal madness? Scary.

Calla Lily · Jan 4, 2008

DaddyCat said:
A famous horror writer is in league with the Great Old Ones and writes a novel that drives the whole world to homicidal madness? Scary.

Plus I got to watch 2 hours of Sam Neill (yum) as he drove us all to madness. I enjoyed that ride.

Speaking of horror with yummy stars--Event Horizon. Scared the crap out of me the first time I saw it. Showed it to my teenage son and he announced he was going to go detox with mindless cartoons before he even thought about closing his eyes.

zahra · Jan 4, 2008

I'm tired of going to horror movies and reacting with 'meh'. I'm tired of being grateful when they aren't complete crud. Last time I was genuinely scared? 'The Ring', I guess. 'The Descent' and 'Severance' were quite nail-biting, but it was suspense rather than horror that sustained those films, for me. Little shocks and moments of a sense of peril in some other films, but we're used to too much that horror films rely on.

Writing horror, I've dreamed up a few set-pieces which I haven't seen used in any other movie, but it's not easy to be completely fresh.

I hate the teens-in-peril thing. I like eerieness. That's hard to get right, whereas running and blood and screaming isn't.

Also, one of the things I think modern horror is missing is good, creepy dialogue. Yeah, shocker, I know, it's show-not-tell, but for me, a line like, 'If the woman in the window is Norman Bates's mother, who's that old lady buried out in Greenlawn Cemetery?' creeps up the spine in a way that a lot of tired visual cues don't manage.

But it's a sad thing when I'm digging out 'The Uninvited', circa 1940s, as an antidote to some godawful piece of crap I've just wasted £5 on.

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