MiserableOldGit said:
I've got a theory that the reason the horror genre doesnt really scare like it used to is because real life boogy men make made up monsters look like a right bullshit operation- with vampires, at least you have a chance to leg it while they suck on someone else, or stab em with a bit of old stick or something. What do you do about a nuke, other than turn into a lightbulb and leave a silouhette on the nearest wall?
Not really. The problem is that the vampire has been bastardized. Since, at least 1897 when Dracula was first published, the vampire was an allegory for sex. Most can tell you about the trepidation they felt about their first sexual encounter, unless they lie. But this has been abandoned in favor of a D&D player's irrational obsession with irrelevant details. 30 Days of Night using UV lights being a good example.
It's sad to think that for all its awfulness, Twilight at least keeps the sexual element of the vampire in place while other productions fail to keep this core element. A vampire is a sexual predator. We can relate to this because we all feel a bit like predator and prey when seeking sexual partners.
But the vampire has been overused and misused to the point where it would be difficult to make it work anymore. I think it has more to do with this than any new horror replacing old horror.
But there is something to your theory. new horrors crop up as the zeitgeist changes (hey guys! fancy word!) The 50's saw an influx of atomic horror films. Mostly giant things, like Godzilla, as an allegory for the threat of nuclear war.
But fear of global destruction gets boring after a while, so as the 60's gave way to the 70's, a new genre of environmental horror came about. These movies often had an environmental message of some kind. Often the killer whatsit was created by pollution but sometimes it was just nature itself striking back or running amok. Most of these movies were, of course, terrible with the most recent being M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening.
So what concerns people and would make for good, timely horror can change over time. These days, fast-spreading diseases might be scarier than mythological bogey men. But it all still boils down to a matter of taste.
