A) Slender isn't the slightest bit scary--it's on the same level as the boogey man and monsters under your bed. A mysterious being that creeps on children and... stands around. Terrifying. The recent game is equally as mundane; the entire thing consists of walking down a single path and rubbing your face against walls to collect drawings.
B) Found footage movies are snooze feasts, with 99% of the screen time taken up by shaky-cam closeups of faces looking constipated. They're all the same and all as shit. Bunch of kids go looking for blah, blah, shit happens, one of them gets separated, tension in the group, no one can tell what the fuck's going on, they all die.
C) ... There is no C.
Horror should make you uncomfortable. Horror should make you nauseous. You should want to get up and leave. It should show you things, put you in situations and make you think about things you don't want to. Horror should make you feel dirty for watching it. It should be taboo. After being a part of it, you should lose sleep at night, not because the big bad monster under your bed or in your closet might jump out, but because you've been apart of horrible things. A tall man chasing children to kill and/or molest them isn't scary. When the focal point of your fear is intangible, alien and faceless, it's redundant, replaceable and decidedly unscary. When the monster in your dreams is what human beings can do to one another, what horrible sounds people make when they are tortured, the anxious feeling you get in your stomach when you know you should look away--that's horror. It's human, it's real and it's terrifying.
Salo, or the 120 Days in Sodom is horrifying.
Set in the Nazi-controlled, northern Italian state of Salo in 1944, four dignitaries round up sixteen perfect specimens of youth and take them together with guards, servants and studs to a palace near Marzabotto. The young teens and children are used as play things, with each officer taking their turn to act out their wildest fantasies. Along with the men are four women, three with a story to tell and one with a piano. The film consists largely of these three stories, relayed to the Nazi dignitaries through song and vivid dance. Afterwards, each child is executed, the men once again taking turns to exercise their control.
A Serbian Film is horrifying.
The retired and down on his luck porn star, Milos, is contacted by a director with a once in a lifetime deal: one movie for one million dollars. Catch is, he won't say what the film is or what it's about. All he'll tell Milo is that it's an "art film." In desperate need of money to support his wife and son, Milos reluctantly agrees. However, shortly after filming begins it's soon revealed what kind of movie they are planning on making--a snuff film full of paedophilia, necrophilia and sadism, designed to shock and horrify. How far will Milo go to earn his much needed money and can he prevent his family from becoming part of the director's vision?
Martys is horrifying.
Fifteen years after being kidnapped and held hostage in a hellish factory, the tormented Lucie embarks on a mission to uncover the mystery behind her captives turned oppressors. She is joined by childhood friend, Anna, whom she met at an orphanage. Things unravel quickly after the pair came face to face with their childhood abuse, quickly descending, without hope, into madness and delusion. The painful truth behind Lucie's torment becomes all too clear and the human spirit is pushed to breaking point.
Shakey cam of kids fucking around and pretending to be scared is boring.
