Is Horror Dead?

[Vausch]

Nah, it's just too easy to make a bad one.

Zombie? Get some makeup from Spirit Halloween, tear their clothes, fake blood can be made by the gallon on the cheap. Then make some props, get gory, boom.

Monster? Find the guy working toward a CGI animation degree that needs a credit. If you do it wrong, as many do, overexpose it and show how crappy it looks. Same can be done with a cheap prop costume and it will still look bad.

Murderer? Oh that's easy, torture porn! Atmosphere isn't needed any more, just show lots of blood and squick.

The problem is that most just go with the fact that horror has an easy turnover rate. It's cheap to make and many just ignore the writing process and go straight for the formula:

Find generic plot of people that get isolated somehow, most likely college kids. Opening kill. Things happen, first kill. Things happen, start up the kills and start ramping up the torture porn if applied. Ending comes around, monster/killer isn't really dead for a cliffhanger and done.

 

[suitepee7]

no, but they certainly are dying out of mainstream releases. that being said, it has been a while since i've seen a goo horror movie. personally i despised the paranormal activity films. 2 was ok at best, but 1 and 3 were really boring and i hated them.

last horror movie i enjoyed: insidious. seriously, that film did so much right for me. subtle creepy shit which if you blink you miss it. good suspense throughout, a wonderful soundtrack, and minimal gore. i disliked the premise which gets unveiled just over halfway through (anybody who has seen the movie knows exactly what i mean), but because it did everything else so beautifully i can overlook it for once.

also, props to cabin in the woods for being one of the most interesting 'horror' movies i've ever seen.

TL;DR suspense makes horror for me, and many films do away with suspense in favour of gore and 'shock value'

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Horror is never dead, it just needs a person to make it scary. American horror movies are more interested in making money than scary movies, only indie directors seem to do it well. That and European directors are making good stuff. Go watch Martyres and Inside.....two great movies. There is great horror movies out there, just that you wont find it in the cinema.

As for being scary? They dont scare me, and jump scares do not count as a scare as they are cheap. Are like movies that unnerve you why you watch it, make you feel tension. But then whats scares one person is different to another. Like Insidious, that film was an utter joke.

You just got to find the gems in the rough.

 

[floppylobster]

You're probably just getting older. Ever seen any geriatrics in the audience of a horror film? It's not because they don't like them, they watched them when they were younger. They just aren't as scared of death or the unknown anymore.

 

[BurningWyvern90]

I think part of it is that I just have watched so much horror that there's not much I haven't seen or that surprises me anymore, but yeah, things don't seem to be nearly as scary as they used to. I didn't even like Paranormal Activity; I found it incredibly boring. I keep watching and hoping, but for the most part horror movies have been extremely disappointing lately. A lot of what they do is either jumpscares or gore-porn, and that's so old at this point. Honestly, any horror I've liked lately is either old horror stories or foreign stuff.

I really think Amnesia and all of the indie games that have started coming in the wake of it can be really creepy, and they're a lot more interesting and potentially scary than other games and movies and things. The bigger titles they've been trying to pass off as horror lately just...aren't.

I don't think it's dead; I just think that, on the major-money-making side of things, it's being handled by the wrong people.

 

[FalloutJack]

No, snuff and shock is dead. They are sub-categories in horror which are sort of dubious in my opinion. Horror comes in many flavors.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

I think there's still potential for some genuinely terrifying games/films. But they'll have to be made by someone who isn't a complete fucking idiot, and they'll have to be made with a niche audience in mind, so getting anything approaching a AAA horror game ever again is a futile hope...