Horror, horror, horror - a snoozefest instead

There is a big difference between generic cheap scares/frights and real genuine fear. I mean REAL GENUINE fear, like the first time you step into the dentists office as a little boy/girl, now aware of the true meaning of pain, afraid you have to experience it again. The fear you feel when you wake up late into the night as a young child, only hours after you have watched your first scary movie. What is it about this fear that makes some of us want to relive it and experience it for another time? Is it not strange that you want to experience fear for an adrenaline rush of sorts, yet you "fear" placing yourself in a fearful situation?

This is where horror movies come in. A controlled situation that let's you experience fear at the comfort of your own home, without any danger whatsoever. A form of entertainment designed with the intention of making you afraid in a fictional and safe situation. But what I'm getting at is that when I see and pay money to watch a movie and place myself in such a fearful situation, I expect it to deliver. I did pay good money after all. A horror movie has to live up to its genre and deliver the horror as is expected. I am writing this rant due to the fact that I am simply bored of the so called "horror" movies of today's day and age. With the technology they have to craft a truly decent fright fest, directors still fail miserably. In the past ten years or so, I can only truly remember two movies that have really freaked me out, mostly due to the fact that I created the atmosphere myself to ensure I genuinely felt scared. The first of these is a film called The Amytiville Horror. Watching it late one evening with lights off, alone at home, and with the sound system on a high blast, I truly managed to set trepidation and fear into my mind. It was a good experience. The second was a similar situation, save for the fact that the movie was titled The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Another freaky movie in some parts. The other hundreds of horror films I have seen failed miserably. I am tired of forking out cash for a film which I expect to make me afraid yet it achieves nothing more than putting me to sleep. How many times do I have to be put through:
1) Five (sometimes six or more) young adults, stranded in a forest/cave/house/mountains, hunted by a monster/serial killer
2) Family moves in new house, house is haunted, cheap scares of ghosts jumping out unexpectedly, lame ending

Instead of cheap frights, why do film producers not focus more on the actual story of the film because in reality that is what will bring the fear. I remember the good old days when I was younger, films like It, Nightmare on Elm Street etc would make me pretty scared (I was a young boy), but I enjoyed it and hence my love for horror films was born. Yet these days every movie of this genre is boring. Until I watched The Ruins that is. It seems the new trend in horror movies is not to provide fear, but entertainment. The Ruins was a good film, it really was. But it was entertaining, with a good psychological twist, but it was not scary at all. I like this new direction of horror films, at least they aren't boring. But what they are missing is the true and real genuine fear which we as horror fans so desperately crave. Please satisfy us.

 

Dude,have you seen the Candyman movies?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candyman_(film)
Tell me what you think about those.
I watched them at night, and to be honest,It was a long time ago, but, I just think about
them and It sends chills up my spine.

 

I have yes. They also freaked me out at the time. That is what I mean. Old classics are great, they were bad in terms of special effects but for the time they were scary. These days they just fail to scare any of us. Candyman was freaky though. And Childs Play, I hated dolls after that film.

 

There are these films that they release every year since 2007, I guess. After Dark films.
They call them 8 Films to Die For. I have only seen one''An American Haunting''.I know that you've probably
seen them, being the horror movie fan that you are, but tell me, how many of them did you actually
think would be worth watching for a noob just starting to get into the horror movie genre?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Dark_Films

 

Yes I have seen a lot of them there like Nightmare Man, Skinwalkers, The Gravedancers. To be hinest they all sucked. Skinwalkers wasn't even a horror. It was more of an action movie. If you really want a scare, try find some J-Horror movies. They usually ok but tough to find subtitled copies. Some horror movies are enjoyable even though they aren't scary but most movies these days are lame. I can recommend The Ruins, Catacombs, Halloween (the remake from Rob Zombie), but as I said, they are mostly entertaining and not scary. A movie that shows promise is The Strangers. It looks good.

 

The Strangers, Huh? That's one of those movies that make you say,
''I hope that doesn't happen to me''

 

I watched The Strangers about 2 weeks ago, it's a pile of shit. And the new Halloween, GOD, awful. I hated the completely unnecessary rape scene. Not to mention Rob Zombie took away the mystique of Michael Myers when he decided to show his life as a kid. That was one of the things that made Michael scary as hell, he was just born evil. No one knew why he did what he did, the only explanation was evil. That made him creepy. Zombie's version was just another abused kid that went that got fed up and killed everyone. Nothing scary about that.....well.....unless you're the abused kid. I just think Zombie cheapened the story. But I do like his other movies. House of 1000 Corpses to be exact. Much love for Capt. Spaulding.

 

I like Zombie'z version. I understand you points, and to an extent you are right. But I enjoyed seeing a version that explains Michael's insanity. He wasn't just a troubled kid from a broken home, he was also insane to begin with. I just liked the way it was made. It was refreshing. Really looking forward to some of the remakes they have announced like Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Childs Play.

 

The Strangers is not that good of a horror movie, but it does give a small scare or two.

Contradiction there.

 

The new Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street are two movies on my must see list. I'm taking for granted that you've seen the new trailer fro Friday the 13th? I think it looks awesome.

I liked the original Child's Play, I didn't care for it's numerous unnecessary sequels.

The Hellraiser movies are nice. But I'm a fan of Clive Barker. The book that Hellraiser came from (The Hell Bound Heart) will scare the hell out of you. An excellent read. Along with Clive's Books of Blood vol. 1 & 2. A must read for any horror fan.

 

If you look at the end of my rant, I said that the last few horror films I saw take a new direction leaning towards entertainment rather than a scare fest and in the first sentence I was referring to horror movies in general up until this point. I am sorry if it was not clear immediately. I just wrote this after I saw The Ruins and realised how great oldies were and how the new generation sucks and how recently i see films taking a new direction. English is not my first language. I sometimes struggle to explain things clearly. I am sorry.

Yeah, Friday the 13th looks great. I think Child's Play remake, if done right could be really cool. I will look into CLive Barker. I enjoy reading and need a new author now. Thanks for the heads up apophos. By the way have you seen Hatchet? It's a horror movie with an all-star horror cast including the guy that plays Jason Voorhees.

 

The latest horror movies make me laugh (Like The Strangers and Teeth), what would really scare me is a horror about STI's

 

You're welcome. Another one of Barker's books that I like really well is The Great and Secret Show. It's about a man that uncovers the secrets of the world, and learns to manipulate reality at his whim. It's not horror, but it's fucking awesome. Look it up. There's also a sequel to it.

Do you like to read Stephen King? He's my personal fav.

No I haven't seen Hatchet, but if it has Kane Hodder in it, it might be worth it. I just looked it up on imdb and I see that Tony Todd is in it (Candyman), and also Robert Englund as well. Sounds interesting. Thank you grim.

 

Have your read Stephen King's 'The Stand', I think there is a movie on that (i'm not talking about 'The Last Stand' BTW)

 

I love Stephen King. I read The Shinning and the movie of course was classic. Read a lot by him. Will totally look into Barker. Didn't he write that show Jericho? Or was it based on a book of his? By the way CJ, I really found The Stand boring. He wrote this one book, Hearts in Atlantis. It was a Drama but it was pretty interesting I must say.

Apophos, yous aid you enjoyed House of 1000 Corpses. Have you seen the sequel? Think it was called The Devil's Rejects.

 

The movie looked boring but I really enjoyed the book, i've noticed a pattern though, his main evil characters are all similar

 

Hearts In Atlantis was a really good book. It ties in to another collection of King's novels, The Dark Tower. Those are my favorite books written by King. They also tie into The Stand, It, Eyes of the Dragon, Salem's Lot, and several others. Again, it's not horror, but still an excellent read.

Jericho is not from Clive Barker, the series originated as a feature film idea of co-creators Jonathan Steinberg and Josh Schaer.

I have seen the sequel, and I can honestly say that I didn't like it as much as the first one. The Devil's Rejects was not intended to be a direct sequel, but it did involve some of the same characters. It was a little too vulgar for me. Lots of profanity. I use a lot of profanity, but in that movie it seemed like every other word was either fuck or shit. A little too much for me.

 

Most of the movies mentioned in this thread are crap...

With the exception of the shining...

 

Thanks for the insight.

The Shining is an excellent movie, the original with Jack Nicholson, not the remake with Steven Webber. Nothing scarier than the prospect of losing ones own mind.

 

If you're interested in good horror,
the best of the genre comes from Japan...
(not the hollywood remakes of Jap horror though...)

You can brush up on your language skills while being terrified