What's wrong with the horror genre?

How come no one can make a decent horror movie anymore? The rancid waste passing as "brilliant" horror these days (brilliant being a term used by certain critics to describe some of the more recent offerings) is nothing more than cheap and easy crap.

Poor writing has always been a trademark of lower quality films (especially horror it seems), but the recent glut of fright films is only frightful in terms of their utter lack of coherence. These movies feebly attempt to mask poor writing and sometimes special effects with scenes of over-the-top "terror" and psychological horror. It's as if the cheap slasher flicks of the 80's and 90's that bathed themselves in gore have given way to the cheap visceral flicks of the 00's that envelope themselves in unimaginitive menace and confrontation.

The result is something I call the "ugly" movie. These movies are not scary, nor are they creatively disturbing. They are just ugly and gratuitous, elevating the "grind-house" flick to mainstream status. And they are usually quite silly.

High Tension (Haute Tension) Implausible plot.

The Devil's Rejects Started off surprisingly entertaining but got mired in its own ugliness.

Saw II Ridiculous.

Wolf Creek Had promise and could have been done better.

Hostel The worst of the bunch. Pure crap. Even unintentionally funny at times. Eli Roth sucks (including his terribly overrated Cabin Fever) and Quentin Tarantino has never been an endorsement for quality.

In addition to the sub-genre of flicks above, we have also become bombarded with remakes of horror movies that sucked in the first place: The Fog, The Hills Have Eyes, When A Stranger Calls.

And then we have just plain awful and boring offerings that many critics endorse as entertaining such as Boogeyman, and the unwatchable indie Undead.

It really makes you appreciate the very, very few and far between high quality horror movies of recent years. 28 Days Later is not only a great horror movie but a great film in general.

Nothing else I can think of recently I would call truly special.

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Well, I didn't think 28 Days Later was all that spectacular. But I understand what you're talking about. I'm rather upset with the horror genre of the 2000's, although it's been entertaining watching it go by. I've seen a sucky remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but then I also saw Freddy Vs. Jason finally hit reality and it was fantastic. Chucky had a crossdressing killer son, Paris Hilton starred in a remake of House of Wax, a maniac called Jigsaw made people kill themselves and had a little creepy doll that laughs ride around on a tricycle, Jason went to outer space but the film sucked by having zero terror, George A. Romero brought back his zombies, some guys got trapped in the midst of murder while visiting a foreign country, and then there's a bunch of stuff I haven't seen yet and forgot about...

What I want to see in the genre is NEW stuff, not the same old tired killers and zombies, but new things that are memorable. I can't tell you what those things are, but I really enjoy creativity in my horror, but if it's not that creative, then I'm willing to go with something really moody and dark. I am not for just lots and lots of blood and gore (which isnt bad, though) or spooky, annoying kids or remakes that retell the original movie with a bad storyline and feature hot young actors.

I'm liking the Saw series now. I like the idea of this cancer patient putting people into traps that will kill them if they don't do something extreme to get out of the trap alive. I like that he has a weird doll that rides around on a tricycle, too. This isn't the best thing that's come out of the horror genre, but it's making sequels (I like sequels!) and 2 was entertaining.

More later...

What exactly is your idea of a "brilliant" horror film?

The majority of horror that comes out these days is forgetable trash that dates itself within a year, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything enjoyable, if not pretty damned good, still being made.

Hell, 2006 alone has seen The Hills Have Eyes and Slither. I think they'll be the best we get all year, but still, they're fantastic films. Especially The Hills, which you've already given the cold shoulder just because it's a remake. And, for the record, the original Fog is a great horror flick.

Horror is a genre that is always burdened with countless, horrible films. It doesn't matter what time period you're looking at, good horror is always the minority. You're just remembering the greats and forgetting the junk of the past - which is exactly what will happen in 8 years when someone somewhere makes a post exactly like this.

Horror's Not Dead. You're just looking in the wrong places.

Also, what's more implausible, a psychotic serial killer with an infatuation with the unatainable who selectively envisions the world around them or that a genetically create strain of "rage" that can only be contracted through the blood would spread across the UK, turning everyone into blood thirsty monsters and reducing the population of millions to mere hundreds in only 28 days?

I'm not defending the logic of Haute Tension, it certainly has little, but I don't see how you can call it implausible and then praise any other fantasical horror flick.

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Yes, I'd ask when this supposed Golden Age of the horror movie took place? I mean, you can point to a few classics starting with Rosemary's Baby and Night of the Living Dead and through the '70s entries like The Exorcist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween when the modern genre was being essentially created, but even during that period the great ones were sparsed by mostly disposable crap. By the time the 1980s rolled around and there was a whole industry devoted almost specifically to the genre, you still had mostly crap.

How can you be a horror movie fan and be terribly critical of the genre? You either suspend your disbelief and go with it, even though you've likely seen the exact same thing done a dozen times already, or you don't. But I don't see how the general crop of horror movies "these days" is any better or worse than the last two or three decades.

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I think he's looking for something that really stands out to him. I'm guessing 28 Days Later is the only gold he's found.

Horror Films aren't designed to be fantastic films anymore .. producers just aid in there creation in order to pull in some money .. horros are always going to be watched regardless of how good they are .. it appeals the the largest target audiances too the teenages who see it for cheap thrills and if accompanied by there girlfreind some contact .. producers and directors realise this and jsut churn out the ****... its all about money in the horror industry now .. i don;t see it changing any time soon .

if your going to be a fan of horror movies then you can't act like a movie critic. Don't get me wrong there are many great horror ovies wich are also great films like Holden Said Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist and also The Shining. However most of my favorite horror movies are crappy films but that doesn't mean that they are very entertaining. For example I recently bought the Nightmare on Elm Street Box Set. Part 1 and New Nightmare are the only movies in the set i consider to be really good horror movies but the other 5 movies are great to sit back and watch some quality slashing. So part of being a big fan of the genre is not being overly critical and just enjoying the movie for what it is. So today when movies like High Tension, Slither or FInal Destination 3 come out I just go to see them for what they are and don't think about them too much

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"A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theater admission and the babysitter were worth it."
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Here here.

I always cringe when a critic gives a sequel to a horror film a bad rep, although sometimes I do agree with them. But I can see where you're coming from with the rest of your Nightmare on Elm Street Box Set. One of my favorite horror films of all time is Halloween, and although many feel the sequels minus 2 suck, I think they're fine. Same goes with Friday the 13th.

You're right. A horror fan can't act like a regular Roger Ebert.

I don't know if this is going off-topic, but the same point goes with the Alien series. I personally enjoy all of the films, as well as Aliens vs. Predator. Any cross-over to me is cool, despite bad reviews or if it does suck. One thing though that I just realized was that you really didn't see a whole lot more Alien in Aliens (at least to me you didn't) but I'm sure the reason why was to budgetary and whatnot, or they just plain chose not to show them. Not a big thing, though. The film is still great.

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The point is there are two different realities. In one reality, the existing premise (psychotic killer) is based on real life possibilities. In the other premise (hyper-evolved virus killing machine), the expectations of real-life are somehwat suspended-- although technically possible perhaps. But both premises must adhere to common sense and the laws of physics/statistics/etc.

For example, if there is a movie about brain-eating eels from the planet Phagina attacking the earth, I don't expect there to be flying cows with rocket launchers bolted to their craniums, with the cows turning out to be the ultimate guardians of humans. Flying cows are not consistent with our laws of physics, regardless of any strange premise necessary for the plot.

So if really unlikely or borderline impossible stuff is happening in a slasher flick, I consider that a lot more implausible than a super-human virus story with credible narrative.

At least you could point to probably 2 or 3 decent genre flicks in each year. I don't think you can do that any longer. Like I said, I haven't seen a really decent horror movie in the last 10 yrs except maybe 28 Days Later. I liked the remake of DOTD, but that was a remake. Everthing else has been pretty lame.

I think the ratio keeps shrinking, Holden.

What's more, there are certain trends taking over the genre, which I pointed out in my first post. Those trends really seem to be bringing down the entire genre, and I don't think that has ever happened before.

Why can't I act like a critic? There can be good horror.

So where are this era's Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist and The Shining? And why did it take a $35,000 indie film from this era (The Blair Witch Project) to compare favorably with the uber-Hollywood films, mentioned above, from the past era?

The last 10 years:

1995 - Se7en, In The Mouth of Madness, The Prophecy
1996 - Scream, The Frighteners, From Dusk Til Dawn
1997 - Event Horizon, The Devil's Advocate
1998 - Cube, Blade, Ringu
1999 - The Blair Witch Project, The Sixth Sense, Stir of Echoes, Idle Hands
2000 - American Psycho, Audition, The Cell, Final Destination
2001 - Ginger Snaps, Session 9, The Devil's Backbone
2002 - Frailty, Dog Soldiers, The Ring, One Hour Photo, The Eye
2003 - 28 Days Later, Dead End, May, Cabin Fever, House of 1000 Corpses, Bubba Ho-Tep
2004 - Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, The Ordeal, Shutter, Dumplings, Saw
2005 - The Devil's Rejects, Land of the Dead, Saw 2, The Descent, The Exorcism of Emily Rose
2006 - The Hills Have Eyes, Slither, Hard Candy, Hostel, Silent Hill (for the visuals)

You can pick and choose as you like, but no matter how you cut it the last 10 years have already borne a pretty impressive catalog of more than decent horror flicks that will certainly be close to the heart of this and future generations. And if you're saying you can't find a "decent" horror movie out of that entire list, you're just lying. Hell, I can pick out close to a dozen which are better than 28 Days Later, which you claim is the only decent horror of the past decade.

Some of those are actually pretty seminal horror films as well, such as Se7en, Scream, The Sixth Sense, Ringu, Audition, and 28 Days Later. I'd even argue that what the Shining did for camera work, Se7en did for production design. Scream gets falsely remembered as a spoof, but when it came out it was a straight shot of slasher rejuvination. The Sixth Sense redefined the ghost film permanently, for better or worse. Ringu played a huge role in re-introducing the Asian market to American audiences, and not just for the horror genre.

If anything, I would say they have gotten a little smarter; ironic excess is now the standard, whereas it used to be the exception. That's the only noticable general change. My feeling is that there are three basic tiers of horror movie.

There's also the type of horror movie that is a good idea, just wrapped in bad acting and some pandering. These are super rare now, but I don't think any more so than the 80s. I would list the first Nightmare on Elm Street plus New Nightmare, maybe even that one about kids trying to cheat death/fate. Then there are the super, super rare ones that are also well put together movies, with good (or at least clever and imaginative) production values, competent direction etc. Rosemary's Baby (though I also liked The Ninth Gate), Carnival of Souls, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the first), maybe being the classics. I would put Blaire Witch up there as well. Below are the unwashed masses: Friday the 13th pt. V, Chopping Mall, Halloween 3-thru-newest, Zombie 2, Hell Night, Elves, Ghoolies, Critters, Silent Night Deadly Night, I Spit on Your Grave (how is this any better than Hostel?), Driller Killer.

The avg. horror fan is addicted to bad movies and either: a) is too dumb to notice how bad they are, b) notices, but still gets a thrill, or c) revels in his addiction for the meager reward of some campy laughs. I must admit that it is generally less fun to make fun of newer bad horror movies, but that's not because the movies have gotten worse at being bad movies, but that they've gotten better at making fun at themselves (the Scream series, esp. the one with Parker Posey).

Look at some particular genres that bridge the last 3-4 decades. My reaction to Freddy vs. Jason was 'well, it's certainly not the worst "Nightmare" movie, and it actually may be the best "Friday" movie'. And even Jason in Space was better than Jason Gets Resurrected by Lightning.

The Later Alien movies aren't as good as the first two, but I don't discount the franchise spinning off some good ones again, since no two of them have been alike so far. 4 was good, maybe overall not as good as 1 and 2, but hard to compare any of the three to each other anyway. 1 is as different from 2 as 4 is from either.

If you're looking for new images, 13 Ghosts. Not a great movie by any stretch, but the house is somewhat original. The one about death: I thought the idea was promising and even conveyed effectively at points (showing the minute and improbable mechanical failures that the characters never see, only vaguely sense). For me those are about as successful as those mid-level "idea" horror movies from any decade. I like them as much as Nightmare 1, perhaps even as much as They Live.

I guess the point is, just based on the stuff I've seen (obviously), I can't find any trend quality wise.

Your list.

I can't find a great or even decent horror flick in this list ('cept BWP and The Eye), not necessarily one that is just decent. I deleted the ones I haven't seen. 28 Days Later just blows all of these away. I actually feel uncomfortable calling 28 Days Later a great horror flick because I think I might be doing it injustice somehow. It is a great movie, period.

1995 - Se7en
1996 - Scream, From Dusk Til Dawn
1998 - Blade
1999 - The Blair Witch Project, The Sixth Sense
2000 - Final Destination
2001 - Session 9,
2002 - Frailty, Dog Soldiers, One Hour Photo, The Eye
2003 - 28 Days Later, Cabin Fever, House of 1000 Corpses, Bubba Ho-Tep
2004 - Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Saw
2005 - The Devil's Rejects, Land of the Dead, Saw 2,
2006 - Hostel

Seven is overrated psychological quasi-cool Quentin Tarantinoish pap.

Scream is afraid to take itself seriously.

From Dusk Til Dawn is definitely entertaining, but not horror. It is a comic book.

Blade is also a comic book movie. Not horror.

The Blair Witch Project is admittedly excellent, and one which should be included as great horror in the last 10 yrs. My mistake.

The Sixth Sense is also a very influential and somewhat groundbreaking film. Mostly psychological suspense than horror, however.

The Final Destination series is admittedly entertaining. But only because you know the deaths are going to be ridiculously theatrical and gory. Yet they are no more scary than two turtles having sex, and therefore, not horror.

Session 9 I thought would be better. I kept waiting for something compelling to happen, but it never did. It was, collectively, an admirable attempt at psychological horror, but it failed.

Frailty was not as good as the critics made it out to be. I found it mediocre.

Dog Soldiers was an awesome indie flick, but it was not horror. The emphasis was on action.

One Hour Photo was one of the coolest and underrated movies I have seen in awhile. It got crappy reviews, and didn't deserve them. But it is NOT horror, just suspense.

The Eye was actually pretty creepy. I would say that is a decent modern horror flick. Another one I missed. (That makes two if you are counting.)

28 Days Later is an all around great film. But it is not that scary. It would definitely categorize itself as horror, moreso than anything else. Therefore, by default, it is an excellent horror flick.

Cabin Fever was just plain awful. The ending was intentionally funny, so I can give it at least one full point.

House Of A Thousand Corpses, although entertaining, was more of a midnight cult flick, a cheap grindhouse psychedelic nod to the Italian giallo films of the 70s. Not horror.

Bubba-Ho-Tep was not horror, but spoof. The fact that Bruce Campbell was the leading actor is proof enough of that. This movie was basically unwatchable. (Horror? You got to be kidding me.)

Dawn Of The Dead was a great remake of a great film. I excluded it because of its status.

Shaun Of The Dead was a spoof. Come on. You are clutching at straws. (It was an enjoyable flick, however.)

Saw was ok. But nothing great.

The Devil's Rejects started out okay, but devolved into what I am complaining about as the topic of this thread.

The Land Of The Dead was decent enough. But this sub-genre has been getting stale, and this newest Romero flick offered nothing fresh, unlike the remake of DOTD.

Saw 2 was just ugly and gratuitous.

Hostel was awful and silly.

For the record, H.P. Lovecraft's Dagon was also a pretty good horror flick, if anyone is interested.

Now you're just being a curmudgeon.

I'm not going to address every film individually (though I'll hit on some at the bottom) since it's pretty obvious you're not going to let any arguement persuade you, but as a whole I think your main problem is that you have a very, very narrow definition of the word horror. What makes you the law as to what is and isn't horror?

If a film's main intent is to evoke a horrorific response in the viewer, irregardless of the means, it can be considered horror. There isn't a requisite of gore, scares or thrills before something is called horror. On top of that, there's no law anywhere that says genres have to be mutually exclusive; it is possible for a movie to be a drama, comedy, science fiction and horror all at the same time.

You can try and hide behind these modern terms like "psychological suspense" (what kind of bull**** is that?), but they're all just marketing words created to substitute for horror simply because horror is a tainted word. Filmmakers, and more importantly studio marketing departments, know that horror is a dirty word when it comes to trying to sell a movie to a more serious crowd. You're not classifying things into genres, you're classifying them by buzzwords. Not to mention it's pretentious as hell.

Se7en - In less than a dozen words you were able to deftly defy what the movie truly is, and to that I give you props. Psychological? What is psychological about Se7en? It has to do with the human psyche, but there's little psychological to the filmmaking or narrative. It is a sociological examination of how society constructs social problems. I see zero resemblance between what Fincher did with Se7en and anything Tarantino has EVER done.

Scream - Just because the movie examines the mechanics of the slasher film while itself being a slasher movie doesn't make it any less serious. It gets remembered as a joke of a movie that was just riffing on the genre, which is bull****. Scream is possibly the biggest breath of fresh air the genre got during the '90s. It's a pity people forget how shocking and original it was when it came out, thanks wholly to the myriad of films which have impersonated it since.

From Dusk Til Dawn, Blade - You've got to be kidding me with the things you're calling 'not horror'. A movie based on a horror comic book isn't a horror movie? That's just stupid.

The Sixth Sense - Again with the psychological suspense buzzword bull****. 'Psychological' isn't a genre.

One Hour Photo - Just because it's tame as far as the genre's shock standards go doesn't make it any less horrorific. Plus, you've just broken out that suspense buzzword once again. Suspense isn't a genre.

House of 1000 Corpses - Not horror? What movie were you watching? Midnight cult flick's can't be horror?

Bubba Ho-Tep - This is the only thing on the list which is argueably not horror, because it really isn't horrorific at all. However, given it's roots in the monster mythos that made up decades worth of early horror films, it certainly deserves to walk in the genre. "The fact that Bruce Campbell was the leading actor is proof enough of that." What the ****? I'm sure you're just going to tout that same chorus, but the Evil Dead films are horror. In fact, they're some of the slickest and most energetic horror films ever made.

Dawn of the Dead 2004 - A remake that bares nothing but setting and title to its source material. However, even if it was a frame for frame remake, that doesn't make it any less great, any less entertaining, or any less of a horror movie.

Shaun of the Dead - May be comedic, but that doesn't mean it is any less shocking or horrorific. At the least it's a shining example of how horror has evolved since Scream first introduced the idea of smart horror movies that examine themselves on screen. Hell, the make up effects and Dawn inspired gut ripping sequence are more gore-tastic than anything in 28 Days Later. A movie isn't disqualified from the genre simply because it has laughs.

There's nothing wrong with the horror genre. It's the same it's been for decades. Lots and lots of mediocre stuff and even more crap interspersed with some gems. The only thing wrong is your definition of what is horror.

i agree with most of what the topic starter said about modern horror films, the genre itself is dying a painful death. here are some horror films i recommend that you may or may not have seen:

the descent - heart attack worthy,amazing
the changeling- a 1979 psychological horror that was sadly ignored. excellent stuff
jacobs ladder- technically not a horror but its got its really disturbing moments in it
mothman prophecies- amazing psychological horror,it isnt cheesy either
the eye- a bit like mothman, but its japanese and its much more 'in your face' horror

It's actually Korean, but they all look the same, right?

Oh my god, how can you give anything a chance? Listen, I understood what you said about horror being a little more lackluster these days, but I was a big fan of the Scream movies, particularly 1 & 2. 3 wasn't so great, I was expecting something darker.

It's like every decade some people totally bash horror. When I was 13 and got AOL, I used to post in the horror movie boards, and this was around the time Scream came out. A lot of people loved it, including myself, but there were a few of these boobahs who were like, "Oh, this sucks! Oh, just watch Suspiria! Oh, bring back real horror!" It got so bad that I used to fight with them and one ***hole thought he could get rid of me so he reported me to AOL when I wrote "****" in a post and my account got deactivated! These people were totally nuts and utterly pretentious. I remember the biotch who reported me was named Obsidian something. I think he was gay too because his AOL profile said he was interested in "queer theory". I giggle at that now... my queer theory is that he sucked!

See, these people make me so mad and I have a razor sharp memory and I won't forget one of you!

oh...sorry about that, i only saw it once and i couldnt remember where it was located,my bad

No problem, I'm just a dick who points things like that out.

well, May makes three. in my top ten list, but that's just me. although it would perfectly fit in your "psychological genre"...

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some of the worst horrors ive ever seen are in order of which ones i hated most)

THE CAVE - terrible terrible unconvincing acting, stupid plot, UTTERLY stupid cave beasts(i dont care how much these things are supposed to have evolved from human beings,beasts should NEVER have tattoos)over the top special effects and completely emotionless

dreamcatcher- i cant stress it enough,never ever ever watch this film,im telling you.disgusting stephen king film.

deathwatch- god,give me a break! there wasn't ONE moment through that whole movie that even made me flinch with fear.terrible terrible plot

ghost ship- cant remember much about it but i remembered i was bored to death and it wasnt scary

cabin fever - has already been mentioned in this thread. it had some jumpy moments at least,but still pathetic.

urban legend - was quite scary at times but it just wasnt a good film,total scream rip off

cant think of any more right now