In your opinion, when horrors were actually scary? In 80-90s or now?

I think modern horror movies aren't even tried to scare you. Just some screamer ****

In my opinion the 80s and 90s were not that much of an improvement when it cames to a lot of American horror movies, and the best ones are foreign films. Even now, foreign is still far superior to a lot of American ones I would say.

Probably the 70s?

They meant business in the 1970s. This was new territory, because hardcore porn was legal with an X rating. You could now depict anything you liked. They ran with it. In the 80s the slasher turn was less horror and more gore. And the turn was also to bloody burlesque. Compare Evil Dead to Evil Dead II and then Army of Darkness. The first film wants to hurt you; the last film wants to shake your hand with a "buzzer".

In the 90s we got into ironic postmodern horror The K-horror thing was cool, but more of a blip with only one competent American remake (The Ring). After that, super heroes swooped in along with found footage horror.

Watching an ad for a modern horror film is sad. Here is the monster. Here are the monster's rules. Don't break the monster's rules. COMING IN JUNE.

90's horror, in general, are garbage. Almost certainly the worst era of movie horror since the silent era. You have to dig reallly deep into the 90's to find anything of much worth. And its still usually a stretch to really champion many of them once found. It's a bad bad decade.

I’ve wondered about this so many times. Emphatically disagree re: ‘70s, though, I’m afraid. No taboos, true, and that could go a long way, but lord, the special effects and editing were largely awful.

Hence laughable. Very fake and so obviously ““unreal””.

I think to get hung up on the datedness of the effects is to overlook the qualities of the actual filmmaking. A good filmmaker can sell a kid running around in a rubber monster suit.



As for the editing part, ummmm, I don't even know where to begin. If you are looking for perfectly slick, fluid editing maaaybe I see what you are saying. Maybe. But I personally think that is a really bad metric and has nothing to do with the artistry of actual editing.


If you want editing to cut to the heart of the movies intent, whether that be gritty realism or disorientation, or that knows how to either cut around superfluous details or linger on the mundane (again, depending on the intent of the film in question) the 70's is kind of the decade of some of the best editing of all films. Regardless of genre.

It's dangerous to judge the objective quality of an early period by modern expectations. If I arranged to have you reborn in say, 1960, and had you watch The Exorcist and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, those films probably would not have been laughable to you. 1970s horror substantially raised the platform from which you are judging them. When I look at the 2000s and ask "Did this decade raise the platform?" I am only left with the ruby glitter of modern special effects.

Every now and then, watching old stuff, you can complete the gestalt and "get it" -- you can get into the story because you've filtered out special effects and you've calibrated for cultural coding, and mechanical storytelling. These are great moments to have. I'll never experience The Creature from the Black Lagoon the way my parents did, because to me it's all too laughable. But at the same time, I know I am missing something in not being able to experience classic monster movies the way the original audiences did. I am missing out on some of the fun.

... .... ... you know what. Read that a few times and you’ve convinced me. Sold.

I will rephrase: the kind of horror films that spring to my mind when I think of ‘70s horror (admittedly, never was a huge fan) have rather substandard editing (in a way that really jars to me) but as per your point above, that might be part of what they’re all about.

Yes, I find myself agreeing with yours and crumbsroom’s premise. But I tend to feel my enjoyment is occasionally affected by the ‘sleeknsss’ aspect. Not to say some ‘70s films aren’t gorgeously edited. Just doesn’t tend to be horror except Beladonna of Sadness, which isn’t even horror, really.

I just thought it was weird that someone who has a Twin Peaks: The Return avatar (I think I'm right about that) would worry themselves too much over the reality of effects and the pristine clarity of editing.



What 70's horror? It's an extraordinary deep pool. And while there is a lot of knock off **** (which is actually frequently better than a lot of what came out of the 90's) the stylistic diversity between everything that was happening then makes it a really hard decade to dismiss in totality.

Horror movies have never been scary.

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Some of them try hard and they are.

I see no difference. It's not like earlier decades didn't have their fair share of "screamer ****" and I was under the impression that modern horror still offered films that tried for less immediate forms of terror (Aster, Eggers, etc.)

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Aster and Eggers definitely have pulled a page from 70's horror (well, late 60's to early 80's horror). Back when it was understood one of the great ways to make an effective movie in this drama, was to approach your film as if it were a drama. To take it seriously.

Ha, I don’t know if it’s a dig, but I love Twin Peaks to bits and slightly prefer The Return. I think Lynch’s editing is largely great, and where it may appear ‘messy’ it’s certainly intentional. And my point only applies to horror - many of my favourite films are from the ‘70s.

Could stem from the fact I really dislike all things psychedelic and the ‘70s horror is big on that. To me the fascinating part in horror is the well-grounded reality which is then shattered by the supernatural or by the sheer tragedy of something. But yes, you’re right that I wouldn’t dream of actually dismissing the entirety of the decade.

However, going back to the Hereditary discussion where I believe you and Yoda (I could be wrong so sorry in advance) noted its extremity was detrimental to its effectiveness, think I like modern extremity coupled with sleek editing. Hereditary was pretty much the perfect horror for me. I am well aware of its faults, don’t get me wrong, but I guess that’s the brand that I willingly buy.

I wish I could put a finger on the difference as it definitely isn’t just the editing, or maybe it’s not that at all. But even if Hereditary is despair porn, which I could concede, it’s the sleekness that keeps me invested.

Whereas Don’t Look Now, which I find reasonably disturbing, just doesn’t go that deep into the emotional side and the ‘despair’. There’s the legendary shot of Sutherland screaming, but it doesn’t linger, and so I don’t find that as effective as the Hereditary screaming. Even though I know that scene is among the ones people find excessive and manipulative in the latter. Perhaps it boils down to the world itself being more extreme, or at least more visually extreme, generalised as this is, hence people like me often finding the ‘70s horror ‘lame’ for that reason.

A bizarre thought in itself that some genres, like horror, just progress in extremity, from Martyrs to Human Centipede. And in that respect I do think the big budgets and the effortless access to the ‘sleekness’ does do something to make the film better. If it has to be extreme, spending money on the way it looks can help. Nothing more pitiful than an undercooked extreme film in my book. Hard to say why, maybe it’s the sheer immersion of it. Perhaps people are just becoming more ****ed up.

No,no. Not a dig. The Return is pretty much, unhyperbolically, the greatest thing that has happened to the world in 250 years. At least according to my standards. I was just pointing to how deliberately bad so many of his effects are, how decayed much of his sound design, untraditonal his editing. He uses these things to his advantage, even though not necessarily used in order to generate realism, or seamless editing. Just like how we can use these arguments against films of the 70's. It's best to erase these superficial biases in appreciating movies. I have my own too. I really hate a lot of CGI, to the point I can throw away a movie because of it. I have disowned Kitano's "Zatoichi" exclusively because it uses computer generated blood. Which, in many ways is totally understandable, but mostly dumb. Especially if things I might appreciate behind the CGI spray.


I'm a pro Hereditary person, so I'll probably agree with you on most of those points.


As for Don't Look Now, I have too much to say about the greatness of that movie, to even start here. And 90 percent of it is due to that editing. That's where you find the horror of the movie.


Also, the iconic moment of Donald Sutherland screaming, I think, is more likely in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Don't Look Now has it's own iconic moments, and it ain't his face.

It's been a long time since I was "scared" by a movie, but I can still be occasionally disturbed by one. And it's been my experience that the 1970s are where I'm most likely to find those films that make me think "this filmmaker might legitimately be a psychopath". Once the editing and camerawork gets too accomplished, that feeling fades and I feel safe that I'm just watching a "film" and not some murderer's home movies. So no matter how "extreme" Eli Roth or Rob Zombie get, their films look too good for me to ever be truly disturbed by them.

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This is a rather brilliant observation. We tend to go to the extremes of either "super-slick production" or "found footage" faux-reality. I love the idea of the madman in a bloody editing bay. You're on to something. WTF is MKS?

Modern horror is awful and many are just gore filled to compensate for not being scary. I think atmosphere in a horror film is more important than scares. Many Hammer films looking back are relatively tame but they all boast great atmosphere to suck you in.