Is the horror genre dead?

[Harbinger]

In a world post 9/11 (and other now infamous acts of terrorism), after a century that seemed to spawn a growing number of serial killers, many of whom seemed to outdo each other from one to the next and are now noted in historical documents and databases world wide, with so many horror stories about acts of violence, rape, murder....is it any wonder the horror movie genre has reverted to remaking every damn thing?

nothing is scarey anymore because if you give it enough time, REAL LIFE prooves to be just as outrageous as any horror film.

I grew up in the generation that saw the "golden age" of horror movie films reach its peak. After the Scream Trilogy, it just went down and now we see the trend of remaking everything and the only way to "make it relevant to today" is to up the gore factor. GORE does not make for a truly scarey film.

As someone who saw the ORIGINAL Nightmare on Elmstreet during its original release, not to mention being alive and present for the original run of Friday the 13th and Halloween...those movies (at the time) were truly scarey but now the things that made them successfull have seemingly been lost in a "formula", plus, as i mentioned before...REAL LIFE has proven to be just as terrifying if not worse....just ask anyone who has been victimized by a serial rapist, or a child who escaped the clutches of a child murderer etc.

Today's "youth" are so sardonic and cynical, they think they know everything. they rest on their technologically induced laurels with no real appreciation for history and i laugh at the kids today who consider the original Nightmare on Elmstreet a COMEDY movie.....how STUPID can they be?

is it a generational thing? or is the horror movie genre literally on life support now with this trend of remaking everything.

what do you think?

[Caroline Forbes]

Well I think people are so desensitized that it's hard to be actually scared by a movie nowadays. I get more scared walking home alone from the theater after seeing a horror film than during it lol

About kids today though...I don't think it's just the horror genre. I mean, I think I've said before that in my screenwriting classes we watched films like Witness where the 18 year olds in there are laughing hteir asses off and can't appreciate it because it doesn't look like Tomb Raider lol... Everything is appearance (like you said, the gore in horror films) and the subtleties and stories are lost on the audience.

[Jill Monroe]

your statement about being more scared of walking home from the theatre than the film in the theatre is very telling.

i think its gotten to the point where real life is scarier than anything a movie could come up with even though movies are based on some aspect of reality. even Nightmare on Elmstreet was based on very real issues such as children dying from nightmares, the personfication of a child molestor/murderer....the creature "Freddy" was inspired in part a bully from Wes Craven's childhood and a homeless man that scared the hell out of him and the ORIGINAL film released to a test audience was so frightfull and terrifying (craven wanted freddy to be far more vile, vulgar and repugnant....hence the child molestor aspect that was later introduced to the character years later) that it was almost not released until a few rewrites took place. even the version that i saw as a child is still haunting to me as an adult....not necessarily because of Freddy, but because of the themes, the subtle aspects of the film, the music (for example). the way you couldnt immediately tell when reality stopped and the nightmare began...

horror movies today almost ALWAYS seem "self aware" and are way too pretentious to be taken seriously.

but it still annoys me because this is one of my favorite genre's of film and these kids today think shit like "The ring" and "the grudge" is scarey....or even "HOSTEL"...which wasnt anything more than "torture porn" :rolleyes:

REMAKES dont help either.

[Foxfire]

Ever since I was a frail child I had an obsession with horror films. I grew up with the Howling Series, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, and of course Friday the 13th. When I compare horror movies today to films from the late '70's and 80's its a joke.

Its like one of the Attorney's and I were discussing music from the 80's to now and how music has drastically changed. So has horror films not only with the gore factor but the explicit sex scenes, torture scenes aka "torture porn" as well as the acting. I'm continually seeing a pattern of 'dumb, blonde, sluts' in almost every movie! As a rule of thumb normally any promiscuous male or female in a horror film are killed lol. Which is a reason why Friday the 13th promoted or attempted to promote abstinence in a way. Did you notice any and all victims having sex were killed? I'm getting off topic but look at Alien, that film rocked! It didn't rely on huge name stars, the director wanted raw talent.

Horror movies today definitely cater to a younger-more juvenal audience (no offense to anyone lol). But there's hardly any acting, plot, or let's face it talent without some sort of special guest star or appearance. Most movies utilize green screen's, CG, special gadgets. That's all good and well but it tends to take away from the acting. There should be a healthy dose of both special affects and acting. I personally felt that Underworld and Underworld: Evolution were two great examples. It told a story, there was some gore but it wasn't perverse or ridiculously over the top, plus it adapted its own rules for vampires and lycan's i.e. blue eyes with permanent fangs.

I'm really getting tired of seeing the 'slasher flick' genre. How many times must we see some group of teenagers / college kids go into some run-down building which has some psycho whose hacking friendly. Not even the blood or the gore looks real to me either. Corn syrup? Honestly lol.

Remake's are continually being released, why? So they can profit off of someone else's work? Only a select few can really conjure up the same magic, the same suspense. The fog was a waste of time I thought. Halloween? I was really disgusted with that film and that's RARE for me to even admit that. I have my doubts about the old 1930's Werewolf movie they're remaking.

I also subscribe to Netflix so I browse various genre's not just horror films. But specifically with horror films I keep seeing the same plot! Either its the hacking psycho / deformed monster thing rampaging through woods / city / space and killing kids / teenagers / adults. Or its some horrific monster or a person whose a cannibal blood thirsty and having an insatiable for flesh. Or its the tourists who go to a foreign country get drunk, sleep around, and getting eaten, chopped up, or tortured. Seriously, I could create a unique storyline.

Look at the Exorcist, that was realistic and terrifying, it still creeps me out. Even Resident Evil was enough to get my skin crawl with its virus, it could happen. Scream? It could also happen as well.

[Osiris]

I don't want to say it's dead as my fingers are crossed that somehow the genre revives itself. Spell was dead on with the ring, et.al because I don't think they stand a chance up against Nightmare 1, Pet Cemetery, etc.

I happen to be a Zombie movie guy, and I'm about ready to kill Romero, but will still go see "Diary" with my fingers crossed. :)

[The Doctor]

I think the problem with the Horror Movies of today is that...creativity has sort of gone down the drain and has been replaced by the need for cash. Thus the quality of the movies has begun to dumb down to...and I use this term lightly...real life situations. But honestly...do you even see Organ Harvesters in the North American or Eurasian Contenents anymore? I mean occasionally at any place at any time there might be a group or an individual like that but it's a sporadic once every fifty or so years thing and they usually don't get very far until the authorities catch them.

And what about Murderers who use insanely devious devices and traps to kill people? There are smart people in this world, but the ones that go insane are usually put in the Loony Bin before they would ever have the chance to do something like that and then there are the repeating formula movies (i.e., Kids go to Cabo San Luca, are attacked by a mysterious hooded man who actually turns out to be the parents of the kids who take turns using the identity of the hooded man with the plastic dagger but before that there must a heavily detailed sex scene) which just go over and over so much that they pretty much kill the fear and thrill factors of movies like this, however people keep going to see them so more are made.

As for the so called "imaginative" horror flicks; there might not be hope. Let's take an overview of the most common "Imaginative Horror Themes" shall we?

Zombies are old and formulatic creatures who have evolved into two variations: The really slow, dumb moaning but like to huddle together in mosh pits to surround their victims zombie and the super fast, super smart screeching zombies who usually pan out as loners but can sometimes come together in small groups at least until they learn how to use a 12 Gauge then all hell breaks loose and they decide to go Terminator on your @$$.

Vampires are boring and formulatic as well. They are known for usually being "beautiful men and women" who are dead and have no blood in their bodies, thus they feed on others to temporarily restore their circulatory system so that they don't turn to dust. They can also turn into bats..."Oh wow! Look at me! I am a rat with wings that can fly straight into your Windex-cleaned window and break my skull open thus ending the whole movie!" Though some Vampire movies (of the previous generations) are classics the ones of today are serously lacking that classic feel (Though I have yet to see the newest incarnation of "I Am Legend." I am actually hoping that one will be good.)

Monsters...well...what can you say? There are about a billion different types of Monsters in the Horror Genre. Some are aliens who want to impregnate Human Females (or Males, sometimes depending on the initial gender and species genetic base of the creature in question) to propegate their races (albeit in an explosively disgusting manner of birth), others are ancient Demons, Liches or "Demi-Gods" who wish to rule the world, some are just reinterpertations of real life creatures or legends and some are just things that go bump in the night. But really Monsters can't do much, they make great Video Game antagonists but in the realm of Horror Genre Movies they can't do much. So...the movies they appear in usually have sucked anyways.

Finally Robots, yes we know they want to take over our world but first they have to travel back in time to kill the Savior of the Human Race who dies later on in their future anyways...or they just want to be like us so they start killing us and then make disguises to look like us.

From my examples above you can plainly see that in addition to reviewing every recent Horror Movie about these or similar subjects that the repeation process is not going to stop. One day Horror Films might regain their footing but for now I believe that the genre is crumbling apart. The day Horror comes back to it's original state will be when it has been in a state of terminal decay for at least a century (or half-a-century, maybe.) So...I am not going to say it's dead yet...as the tables of fate are still balancing. But it's obvious that the genre is breaking apart.

But you know what they say...before something good can happen...something terrible must precede it. So do not despair fans of Horror, one day it might just rebuild itself and the feelings you felt when you first saw Freddy, Jason, Michael, Chucky and so many others will be with you once more.

[anthead]

wow you guys about covered it. good horror finally croaked out its last sometime in the late 80's. of course the nature of horror has always been a bit campy because it's a low budget scene, but the old ones were made by people who actually cared. now it feels like they are made by soul-less director bots who study focus groups and follow a "tried and true formula"

exceptions:
28 days later
silent hill
saw 3 [just kidding]
dawn of the dead remake
dead birds
house of a 1,000 corpses

i was even stunned and appalled by new offerings from such masters as: dario argento, tobe hooper, george romero and of course wes craven

will we ever again be scared?

[clemxens]

I think the last GREAT horror film was "Scream." =/

[JoeDotPadilla]

The Ophan was a pretty good movie. It shouldn't have been categorized as horror, I mean this was seemingly a tiny little girl. It was very intense and suspenseful. Best horror movie I've seen in a long time.

[Fake Shemp]

If you look for it, good horror is out there. We think the old days were best.. because we forgot all the bad horrors that have dissapeared into the ether now.


Agreed, The Oprhan was good, though i called it.

me at the start of it when you first see her... "I smell Gary Coleman on her"

[LizzieRainbow]

Horror movies never scare me when im watching them, it's normally after the movie when I am about to go to bed that the movie plays on my mind and scares me.
Although movies that are part of the horror genre are not really scary, i get more scared of disaster movies that show events that could actually happen. For example, 'The day after tomorrow' scared me more than any horror movie ever has.

[Jacob Black]

I think it comes with a loss of innocence as we grow up. I truly feel that my generation.. or my "peers" Ages 22 and up were the last generation of kids who truly still had a childhood. Not everyone had the internet, barely any of us had cellphones in school and we were still.. KIDS.

Horror movies used to TERRIFY me. I remember being three years old and for some reason Nightmare on Elm Street was on and for days I had nightmares about Freddy Krueger. I remember my sister Heather being so SCARED of Chucky as a child that my friend Meghann and I had to create a "potion" that we told her if Chucky drank he would DIE. So we dumped it while she was sleeping and she FINALLY got over it.

But my most terrifying one was Candyman. I always tried to hang out with the older girls in my family circle of friends.. They were 13 and I must have been like 9 and they watched all these scary movies and I was going to be brave and I tried to stay up and watch Candyman. I made it to the bees in the opening credits before I freaked myself out and ran screaming out of the room!

Movies just don't scare me anymore. However, I do really enjoy the SAW movies, I think they are so scary and for some reason they still seem.. "real" or "probable".

I think we are desensitized and kids today just seem SO grown up compared to me when I was their age. It scares me when I reference Dawson's Creek to someone 18 or under and they have no clue what that is... it makes me feel OLD haha. We are raising the "unscarable" generation, and I don't really have hope that a movie will come along that will terrify those damn kids haha.

[mike.shine]

I don't think Horror cannot be Killed :D, but the problem is that movies like Evil Dead (One of my favorite horror movie, all time) aren't hitting the screens. Most of the movies are just based on either Zombies or Torture :(