The Decline of horror

[Sir Shockwave]

To be honest, worse since things like Final Destination became a franchise and Saw came along...but lately I've been noting a spring back of genuinely scary and/or creepy Horror works. On the games side, go play Amnesia:The Dark Descent. Since we're talking about Movies however, I'd pick out Apollo 18 (which is a different form of scary - it tries to be more claustrophobic and tense than outright scary) and the remake of Don't be Afraid of the Dark (This is what happens when Del Toro can't adapt Mountains of Madness for the big screen!).

If Horror produces more films like the above two (and move away from Torture Porn and rehashing the same idea over and over (looking at you, Paranormal Activity)), I may have to reconsider Horror getting some credibility back.

 

[Astoria]

I think it's worse because they tend to focus on gore rather than suspense. The movies that scary people the most are ones where you don't see what is killing people until the very end if at all (like Jaws and Alien). They also seem to use the same basic plot line for all of them. The characters tend to be unlikeable too so you find yourself routing for the killer rather than being scared by them.

 

[TheKramers]

Read this page. I think this page deserves it's own thread.

Don't read the spoiler if you haven't seen the movie.

http://cinemapsycho.wordpress.com/2011/05/07/catching-hell-why-the-ending-of-insidious-makes-perfect-sense/

After reading that, then post your response. This is by far the best horror movie to come out in a long time. It was the best one I've ever seen, including the old ones.

 

[Trivea]

"Horror" hasn't gotten worse, but the thing you need to remember is that there are three subdivisions of the "scary movie" genre, and horror is one of these subdivisions. The reason horror hasn't really gotten worse is because people don't really make horror movies anymore, or even thriller movies - the third subdivision, slasher, is what brings in the most money, so that's what people make.

Thriller is defined by a mostly psychological bent and completely story-driven with the occasional and sometimes graphic murder or scene to drive the plot, and horror seeks to mesh the chaotic violence with the story to balance them out; slasher is just chainsaw-induced bloodsplattering linked together with a paper-thin story at the last moment.

The few horror movies that have come out since the rising popularity of things like Saw or Final Destination haven't necessarily been better or worse than their predecessors just because of what they are; if the story was bad, it was bad, but that has nothing to do with them having been made recently.

 

[chaosyoshimage]

Horror? Isn't that called torture porn now?

 

[Custard_Angel]

A good horror story needs drama. Without the drama we can't relate to the characters or the story and in turn have no attachment to the plot and can't be scared. Saw was a good horror movie because of the drama that drove the plot.

Some of the newer Saw movies have lost the connection to the drama and we're just not as concerned with the characters anymore. Same with Friday and Nightmare. Eventually horror movies turn into comedies because we start to laugh at the gore level or death scenes or the behavior of the characters in the film.

Horror is the sign of the times too. A horror movie must have a psychological affect on the viewer that has a lasting impression. Poltergeist, The Shinning, Misery, Omen, The Exorcist, Alien, The Wizard of Oz... All considered horror movies, but none of them have an extreme amount of gore (or any). Even Jaws could be considered a horror movie because of the psychological affect it had on the audience of that time. But someone seeing those movies for the first time now may laugh or be desensitized to the horror. However that may be because they've already watched a similar film that presented these similar types of horror aspects which the viewer has become desensitized to. Also, the viewer may have associated those horror aspects on another film in which case they're no longer affected by the current films horror aspects. Another surprising horror film may be Disney's 101 Datamations - it scared the shit out of my 5 year old brother (back in 2000).

The Wizard of Oz?

 

[agentorange98]

The iPhone killed horror, no one wants to wait for anything anymore so no one's willing to allow tension to build or deal with anything slow moving anymore

 

[FalloutJack]

Now I hear this statement alot "horror movies are shit nowadays, there nothing like they used to be".
I agree with this statement in the sense i used to enjoy horror alot more say 10 years ago I'm 25 btw to put that into context.
Now my question to you lot is do you think horror is declining because or the scripts or do you think it has to do with the desensatisation(not sure if that's a words) due to more graphic movies and games becoming the norm or just the scripts are repeating it self over time.

I am asking this because i used to always say this but recently i watched all the old nightmare on elm streets remembering them to being amazing when i was younger but after i watched them i found that today horror is actually better minus the ring and brain dead .

Do you think horror is better or worse nowadays?

Why is it better or worse?

Regards
Anthony

I say no better or worse than 20 years ago on account that you still have slasher films, suspenseful films, monstrous films, and so on. It really hasn't changed that much, and patience will earn you a REALLY good gem every now and then still. (For instance, I await the dark-as-hell prequel to The Thing in October.)

 

[SkullKing84]

Problem 1: We don't give a flying crap-cake about the characters. Just because 90% of anyone with a name is going to die doesn't mean they can get three second stereotyped personalities and that's the end of it.
This is true particularly when the stereotypes are of people we, as a whole, are not supposed to like or relate to. Are you going to feel bad when the archetype douchebag gets the ax? Does anyone cry for the brainless skank?

Problem 2: We can see the countdown timers above everyone's heads. It seems like in most of these horror movies, we figure out who the survivors will be before 10 minutes in. The result of this is that we tend to distance ourselves from the people who we just KNOW will die.
Couple this with the above mentioned poor characterization, and the only reaction the audience has when these people DO die is maybe a little squick if it's that kind of gore-fest movie. This nicely segues into...

Problem 3: Squick and torture are NOT horror. It might elicit similar responses from the audience as true horror might - tension all over the body while the gruesome murder is happening, for example - but it's mostly just a conditioned response. Speaking of conditioned responses...

Problem 4: Loud noises and scary images appearing very quickly are NOT horror. The best example I can think of are the "screamer" tricks all over the Internet. You know, where a page says something like "this magic eye message will blow your mind" so you concentrate on the image, and then it very quickly switches to something scary-looking, usually accompanied by a scream of some sort.
That stuff isn't scary, it's just startling, and it's annoying.

Problem 5: Desensitization. Be it from movies, video games, the news, the Internet in general, or maybe some other cause, people in general seem to be developing a tolerance to both the old-school and the new horror. Did you know that a lot of people consider Jaws to be one of the best horror movies ever made? My humble opinion: It isn't.

Problem 6: Horror just isn't that popular anymore. Action (mostly sci-fi and comic book based), romantic comedies, big damn Oscar bait dramas, some comedy, both high-brow and cheap, that's what today's viewing audiences like.

I 100% agree. What also annoys me is "Hollywood" tries to make it so most ages can go see their scary movie. And so it gets heavily edited (rewritten or poorly planned from the start) and becomes a PG13 piece of steaming crap. A bunch of good looking teens having more drama then horror in a HORROR movie makes me rage a little inside.

 

[Phoenix09215]

There is still lots of good horror

examples
The Devil's Backbone
The Orphanage
REC
Let the Right One In (is a horror film)
The Descent
Drag Me To Hell
The Mist (i thought it was very good, except for the overly bleak ending)
Eden Lake- which is both terrifying and disturbing


That's just from the second half of the decade, so we're not doing too badly

Damn, you stole all of my examples of a good, modern horror film.

The thing with the horror genre is that for every good movie that is mades there is a hundred that are bad. Thats just how it is, simply because horror is low budget and so a lot of smaller production companies can afford to produce horror films without limiting themselves to what they include. Also, because of todays technology, a lot of the time the production group feels the need to take advantage of the technology they have at their disposal, which can ruin a potentially very instense and frightening atmosphere in a movie. A common starting point for any horror film is the fear of the unknown and thats why when we have all the fancy effects showing us what we should be afraid of, we're not scared of it anymore.

For a horror film to succeed at scaring its audience, it is imperative that it focuses on the narrative. Two examples of this are in the list above me; Eden Lake and The Descent. These are both brilliant horror films. Eden Lake takes a common fear in todays society (this being teenagers) and twists it in to a very disturbing story. Whereas The Descent has such a massive focus on the characters and if you disagree then I'm afraid you watched it wrong. Seriously, go watch it again and just think about what each of the characters purposes are. That film is one massive metaphor and it is a perfect modern example of how a good narrative, which follows the conventions is essential in making a good horror film.

 

[demalo]

A good horror story needs drama. Without the drama we can't relate to the characters or the story and in turn have no attachment to the plot and can't be scared. Saw was a good horror movie because of the drama that drove the plot.

Some of the newer Saw movies have lost the connection to the drama and we're just not as concerned with the characters anymore. Same with Friday and Nightmare. Eventually horror movies turn into comedies because we start to laugh at the gore level or death scenes or the behavior of the characters in the film.

Horror is the sign of the times too. A horror movie must have a psychological affect on the viewer that has a lasting impression. Poltergeist, The Shinning, Misery, Omen, The Exorcist, Alien, The Wizard of Oz... All considered horror movies, but none of them have an extreme amount of gore (or any). Even Jaws could be considered a horror movie because of the psychological affect it had on the audience of that time. But someone seeing those movies for the first time now may laugh or be desensitized to the horror. However that may be because they've already watched a similar film that presented these similar types of horror aspects which the viewer has become desensitized to. Also, the viewer may have associated those horror aspects on another film in which case they're no longer affected by the current films horror aspects. Another surprising horror film may be Disney's 101 Datamations - it scared the shit out of my 5 year old brother (back in 2000).

The Wizard of Oz?

This has some great pointers: http://horrordigest.blogspot.com/2010/08/scary-moments-in-oz-wizard-of-oz-turns.html

But it all boils down to horror being a sign of the times. Compared to today's horror OZ is about as tame as an earth worm. But in it's day there were all kinds of horrific things going on.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

It's all been down hill since the late 70's or early 80's. The first few slasher films were actually pretty scary, but as the various series went on, they stopped being about suspense and started being about gore -- with the modern oversaturation of torture porn being the logical conclusion. Granted, truly bad horror is, in many ways, better than the good stuff -- I encourage everyone to get drunk and watch Troll II at least once in their life.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Here's a point against the 'it's all gore'.

The special effects used to make the gore in modern horror are not some new technology that allows this core to occur.

Most of then are decades old, and have only been refined over time. So... if the new movies are just about gore, and the old movies weren't...

...then where did these techniques for making Gore come from?

I think the problem is what they try to pass off as horror.

Most horror movies these days are nothing more than gory action movies.

Aliens is a gory action movie. It's also one of the best horror movies of all time.

Shitty over-commercialized horror movies have been around since they've been making horror movies.

Or, is this thread going to continue to insist Hammer Films never existed.

Let's look at a prototypical Hammer film. One Million Years, BC.

Basically, this is a story about Rachel Welsh sweating a lot. But other than that, this is what happens:

People grunt a lot.
ACK A DINOSAUR COMES OUT OF NOWHERE AND EATS SOMEONE
People grunt more.
ACK A GIANT SPIDER COMES OUT OF NOWHERE AND EATS SOMEONE.
People grunt.
ACK A PTERODACTL COMES OUT OF NOWHERE AND EATS SOMEONE.

Pretty much this, for two hours.

That, for the record, is what some of you claim is a 'modern' horror archtype, of sudden scares rather than suspense. I'm going to be honest... that 'sudden scare' stuff, it ain't modern, it's been around longer than zombie movies.

MovieBob should totally do a Big Picture on this.

Water
Ship
Down

'nuff said.

It's no coincidence, horror shares a common root with children's faerie tales.

Even that name 'faerie tales' is intended to give you the chills. When that stuff was written, faeries weren't the cute little girls with wings that helped manchildren in green leotards fly. They were alien-minded unknowable things that often gathered in packs to hunt people to the death for sport... and those were the NICE ones.

Correction: Aliens was a gory action movie -- and a good one, but pretty much exclusively a gory action movie. Alien was the film in that series that was one of the best horror films of all time.

As for One Million Years B.C., I grew up watching that movie, and it never struck me as horror. More of an adventure movie in the vein of 1930's pulp novels, with the main draw being Raquel Welch in a bikini. Just because Hammer studios was involved doesn't mean it's horror -- they did other stuff too, including a historical movie about Rasputin.

 

[Kagim]

Horror isn't declining, that's silly.

Horror has always been kinda crappy.

The problem with horror has always been that people scare differently. Older 'scary' movies aren't that terrifying. Children of the damned made people shit their collective pants, i fell asleep.

A very good point to remember is that horror movies are not good if they scare you during the film. That can be achieved by startling people.

No. A good horror movie is one that follows you. Take the signal for example. I wasn't scared when i watched it, or the six hours after it ended.

I was shitting myself in terror walking to work the next morning at 4am. A good horror buries the fear deep inside your brain, ready to shit kick you when your down. A good horror stays with you.

A good horror makes you shiver in fear when the tv in your room still glows faintly after you turn your light off and forces you to throw the blanket over it.

Has horror declined? No. It never has been that awesome. Really old movies terrified people not because they were scary but because it was a new concept to them. Tv and movies is common place these days. You not desensitized to violence like you may think. It's just the idea that the tv monster is going to getcha isn't that scary anymore.

What's scary is when a good horror movie plants just a little seed. A tiny little seed. That grows into nightmares the next time your headset at work crackles oddly and sounds like a voice.

 

[Riff Moonraker]

We are going to have to agree to disagree on Halloween.

It was JUST so formulaic.

'Look. Tits. Now she's gonna die. Look, no one believes the psychiatrist. Big shock.'

Take every horror movie cliche you can think of, and just show them. It was awful. And not in a 'Yeah, but it started a lot of things we know and love today' way.

It was bad even by 1977 standards. But, it's a classic so... rosey colored glasses.

In todays standards, I would agree with you, however... It was anything BUT formulaic when it came out. Like Alien, Halloween was one of the forefathers of todays slasher films. It kind of set that formula you are talking about.

 

[LITE992]

Genuine horror movies look like they're being replaced by tortue flicks, where they try to scare you with excessive amounts of gore. I think what makes a horror movie work well is what it does to your mind. Suspense works well.

 

[StrixMaxima]

Horror is a strange genre. I think that the overall quality of it has remained pretty much the same (with some notable bursts of creativity during the 30's, 60's and 80's).

The problem, IMO, is that Horror encompasses way too many subgenres. Slashers, gore, creature feature, etc, etc. The list just goes on and on. Some subgenres are more prone to "bad" movies. By bad, I mean weak story, paper-thin characters, poor cohesion and terrible cinematography.

Strangely, nowadays we can film pretty much anything we can imagine, but we are too tethered to the past. There is a certain consensus about what construes a Horror movie, and this is the biggest burden dragging the genre back.

However, Horror, due to its very nature, has a great boon: the possibility of scavenging tons of filth and encountering a real pearl. The best horror movies are way up there with the best cinema ever made, and they are seldom in the limelight.

Finally, due to culture clash, looking for horror movies from different countries can be extremely refreshing, like the J-Horror craze mid 90's. It was such a breath of delicious putrid air. Europe also produces some outstanding movies. You just need to be patient.