Why do Current horror movies suck

In the time before CGI (computer generated imaging), horror films relied on the atmosphere of the film to scare you. There were ghosts, and murderers, and not tons of blood and gore and sex and girls in their underwear in then. Now, in the 21st century world, horror movies rely FAR too much on pop-ups, and visual effects to "scare" you, such as blood and gore and pop-up scares. There have been a few horror movies in the 21st century that have been genuinely terrifying films -- to name a few off the top of my head, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Paranormal Activity, from 2007, and Session 9, from 2001. Unfortunately, horror movies do not rely on psychological thrills, and they don't toy with people's fears, and just rely on pop-ups, blood, gore, and CGI to scare, and they usually fall short in doing so.
do you agree with me or think otherwise.

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Watch [rec]
It is a very good horror film I thought, from Spain.
The Descent is quite scary too I thought, gave a few good scares
but yes, you make a very good point. I've given up on looking for scary movies, just for entertainment amongst the gore and sex

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I completely disagree.

This decade makes the 90's look like the dross decade it was.

I may as well copy and paste this (with some new additions)....Cheating I know, but hey, I'm getting old now, time is of the essence.


So far this new Millennium has been as close to the Exploitation/Horror Heaven of the years between 1968 (or so) and 1983 (or so) we could have hoped for.

Even the rather more popcorn munching, multi-plex friendly American Horror film (the re-birth of the Slasher film for example back to its no messing, here for the fun, hack 'n' dice roots), has given us some surprisingly gory, devilishly sick and violent efforts that have been generally very well made and funded. Like;
"Wrong Turn 2", "See no Evil", "Laid to Rest", "All the Boys Love Many Lane", "Boogeyman 2", "The Babysitter")

The recent splurge of extreme Horror and Exploitation movies from America ("Hostel 1 & 2", "Devil's Rejects", "Shuttle", "House 1000 Corpses", "Saw") has been a mixed bag but has also been a generally effective and very welcome shot in the arm of a genre pretty much on it's tired knees in the previous decade.

As for 'scares'. Well, let us all be honest here. We're grown up and world weary now!
We are not the same beings that got delightfully scared when kids and teens.
Even going back numerous decades I can only think of a handful of films that EVER really creeped me out or scared me.
If I was the same 12 year old, 16 year old, even 18 year old I was back then...I'm sure some films made now would scare me.
But to be fair, we can't turn back the clock or re-wire our brains. The fact is it is very very hard indeed to actually scare adults. In any era.
It's made harder now as well, due to the fact that what was once rather new and unsettling to a society at the time (like say "Psycho") is no longer a surprise and as such loses it's power.

If Hitchcock had made "Psycho" now, after all these years of other psycho flicks and endless Slasher films...would it have the same effect?

Stuff like "The Haunting", "The Changeling", TV's "The Woman in Black" still manage to creep me out and get those goosebumps going at certain times, but I have a built in reaction to them as well, seeing as they are old favourites.
I'm sure if I really bothered with 'spooky', 'ghostly' films made now I could find the odd shiver. But I'm just not drawn to them.
"Session 9", like you mentioned was a good creepy film (it didn't scare me though), and the Director's Cut (note..ONLY the 'Director's Cut) of the remake of "The Grudge" nicely chilled me in certain scenes. More than the original in fact.

Brutal, unsettling, often bold and risk taking Horror, with a sometimes arthouse sensibility, has been at its most uncompromising in some of the chilling and powerfully grotesque movies from Europe in general ("Cannibal" from Germany, "Cold Prey", "Manhunt" from Norway for example) and France in particular ("Martyrs", "Inside", "Frontiers").
Even Australia did the brutal Horror business ("Wolf Creek", "Storm Warning", "Dying Breed") as did a regenerated (though often multinationally funded) British Horror film industry ("Mum and Dad", "The Children", "Severance", "Creep", "Dog Soldiers", "The Descent", "Shaun of the Dead", "28 Days Later", "Doghouse").

All in all, at least in film, the 21st century has been very kind to Horror fans I think, with only the, still going strong, need to re-make many wonderful 70's/80's films (not even all Horror) for no good or welcome reason being the only fly in the ointment.

Completely agree. Nice to see I'm no longer the only one that has to defend horror flicks around here anymore.

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Suspect's Reviews

The reason I think Horror movies suck anymore and a lot other types of movies don’t have what it takes anymore are. Most new directors attend the same schools and in essence they are mimicking what those schools taught them, so they projecting that style on to the screen, not their own style. Years ago before most film makers attended movie schools, there where young raw talented movie makers with creative styles of their own. Now days most but not all movie makers copy off each other and that’s why you see so many movies that look alike, there’s no self made creative styles anymore rather a repetitive movie making style instead. That’s why I love independent movies the best, because those types of movie makers are on a low budget platform, so they improvise create and explore new ideas, so you get the real deal. That’s just my opinion.

Right..

Bur even this had some great material in it:





As for modern horror, I've found the non formulaic ones don't seem to garner much press but there are gems out there to be found.

As of late I've found:

1). Deadgirl:
Completely twisted study of human behavior. It was raunchy, disgusting, but at the same time poignant and frankly quite brave in the way it dealt with its content. Without spoilers all I'll say is that you haven't seen this story before presented in quite this way.

2). Population 436:
Kind of cheesy but really fun. It has a Twilight Zone sort of feel to it and it's really not a bad way to spend a few hours if you happen to be a genre fan. Truly, though I think even non-genre fans would be pleasantly surprised bu this one. Hell of a twist ending too.

I have a list of recent gems, I'll post it up at some point.

You never were the only one

Just part of a smallish minority.

I'm a fan of the original Prom Night.

Have you seen the remake though?

And I use the term remake loosely.

Gore - disgusts
Thillers - thrill
Sci Fi - amazes
Horror - horrifies

If one is not horrified after watching a film , then that move was not horror.

Yeah but in reality, if vampires, zombies or whatever is in a film, even if there is nothing scary it is still deemed a horror film. Although I see your point, it just doesnt go that way. Horror films are dominated by elements of horror and goulish beings, devils and whatever are elements of horror

This is true, I just meant for me, I am selfcentered that way.

Yeah mate, you make a very valid point. It is hard to call unscary films horrors

I know I was "horrified" when Jar Jar appeared on the screen - brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Were horror movies ever great? There are great horror movies, but typically due to the nature of the genre they aren't that good.

Enjoy them for what they are I guess.

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There has to be serious suspense to have a good horror movie. For example the original Halloween or Jaws had that because the audience was on edge while hoping the characters would survive. But in most horror movies over the past decade, the characters are such losers, the audience is thrilled to see them meet their untimely end.

Most of the directors are missing the boat. For example I was extremely disappointed watching Wrong Turn because the bad guys were so over the top. I've been to places like Logan County and let me tell you some of those guys in the backwoods could have been members of the cast without any need for make-up. Lol. Instead the director made those 'mountain folk' so off the walls they were not the least bit believable. Movie goers are not going to be spooked if they feel the characters and action is not somewhat realistic.

Well, nowadays some horror movie do seem to have more gore than actual horror, so ultimately they're just anatomy lessons. Like the absolute shame that was TTCM: The Beginning. But there are also some movies which manage to mix gore and suspense (atmosphere).

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I can think of several recent films that have been quite good:

Let the Right One In (Alfredson, 2008)



The Descent (Marshall, 2006)



Behind the Mask : The Rise of Leslie Vernon (Glosserman, 2006)



Cloverfield (Reeves, 2008)



Quarantine (Dowdle, 2008)



I liked all of the above quite a bit. You do have a point that most alleged horror these days are just splatter flicks, but there is still good horror being made, for sure.

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Unfortunately, yes.

I was suckered in by that fantastic poster. The poster for this remake as well as the one for Black Christmas were extremely well done. The movies, of course, were sad attempts in both cases.

Horror doesn't get much better IMHO than the original Black Christmas.