horror films arent scary

[moviegroupie]

example, hostel. this movie was not scary. gore does not equal horrifying. it just equals disgusting material , and no more. what has happened?

[AWP82]

We're too jaded.

[TheDeadWalk]

I don't think it's that films aren't scary anymore, it's that we're growing up.

Oh, and I thought Hostel was more of a fucking joke than a horror film.

[Kevin Lockard]

No, I believe films have the power to still scare. This may seem off-topic, but has anyone ever been to www.jkcinema.com? Go there and look for Urban Legend videos you can download and watch. There are 7 of them. The UFO one isn't scary but trust me, the rest are. Really creepy. Now, those things made me not be able to sleep right for a couple months. I believe if that can have an effect on me, someone out there can put forth the talent to still drive that kind of fear back into horror movies.

[Raoul Duke]

Well, if by horror we're talking about Halloween, Jason, Freddy, Chucky, etc. then yeah...They're not scary anymore. A lot of them are just enjoyable to watch for the scares and gruesome deaths.

But I still think more psychological and subtle horror/thriller types of movies can get to people. And not necessarily scare, but more like disturb or just make you feel really uneasy. Stuff that gets in your head.

[ilovemovies]

Very few movies I consider to scary, because very few movies really get to me enough to be considered scary. Scary means that a movie effects you to the core where you truly terrified. I'm not sure ANY movie actually fits that criteria.

Most good to great horror movies aren't scary. They are suspenseful or exciting. Sometimes disturbing and taut. That's different from scary.

That's my opinion at least.

[bigred760]

I've never been a big fan of horror flicks, or those type of suspense movies. It wasn't that they weren't that scary, but I just found the stories and plots to be weak. There are exceptions of course (The Exorcist, Scream [the first], and the Saw movies), but I gotta agree nowadays more than before that horror movies don't have that much horror in them. Basically because studios are trying to attract that PG-13 crowd so they have to keep the blood and gore to a minimum.

[Joshmo]

Scream has a strong plot? :confused:

[TheDeadWalk]

Originally posted by bigred760
I've never been a big fan of horror flicks, or those type of suspense movies. It wasn't that they weren't that scary, but I just found the stories and plots to be weak. There are exceptions of course (The Exorcist, Scream [the first], and the Saw movies), but I gotta agree nowadays more than before that horror movies don't have that much horror in them. Basically because studios are trying to attract that PG-13 crowd so they have to keep the blood and gore to a minimum.

Ehhh I think the PG-13 horror films are starting to mellow out now, I'm seeing more R rated horror in the mainstream now. The hard part of it though, is now that we get an R rating, I'm seeing films with lots of ideas, which results in just quick glimpses of kills and gore, so that way they don't falter into the NC-17 category. It's like we finally got our cake, someone just licked off some of the icing.

It's a real greedy way of looking at things, I know... but I for one would just like to see directors sit down and make a film however they want it without having to worry about it not making it to the mainstream if it's too gritty.

[Cronos]

Originally posted by TheDeadWalk
Oh, and I thought Hostel was more of a fucking joke than a horror film.

agreed.....hollywood doesnt know how to do horror so they're never even remotely creepy. the only horror films that manage to unsettle me are the psychological horror flicks....mainly foreign ones

[someguy]

Hostel is a piece of shit, hardcore horror my ass. I agree that gore does not equal horror. Gore is usually there to add on to the horror (see The Descent) but lately more movie directors are relying on the gore to be the horrific part. It reminds me of a site I went to where they listed 'creepy sites' but it was all stuff you would see on rotten or ogrish. For some reason others think that gross = scary and it's not true.

[CletusHorniblow]

The most recent horror film that actually "scared" me was May. I'd recommend that to anyone who wants to see an actually scary modern horror flick (just wait for the broken glass scene). I mostly go into horror films for the sheer entertainment nowadays, not for the scares.

[Shockwave]

The older one gets the more jaded torwards the horror genre they seem to get.

Every now and then a horror movie will rock my socks off. 28 Days Later, Silent Hill, The Descent, ect, ect.

I can name a shit load of 80s horror that couldnt scare a two year old. Horror has alwasy had alot of shit because its so easy to make a horror movie, but hard as hell to make a good one.

PG-13 or R rated, its not a matter of how much gore or blood is shown to me, its DO WE CARE ABOUT WHO IS BEING CHASED?

If a movie has this factor in it then itll work. We gotta be scared FOR the person the bad guy is after. Thats what makes it scary. (to me at least)

Body count be damned!:D

[ilovemovies]

Recent horror movies that I've liked a lot:

Pulse (yep, I really liked it I found it to be genuinly unsettling)
The Hills Have Eyes (a brutal movie but VERY suspenseful and exciting)
Wolf Creek
Silent Hill


On the otherhand, I don't get the praise that The Descent has been recieving. I found the movie to be extremely average at best. Definately nothing special.

Wasn't THAT fond of Snakes on a Plane either. Some fun parts (mostly early on) but I found the movie to be dull repetative and not as much as fun as it seems to think it is.


As far as older horror flicks, Jaws will probably always remain my favorite in the genre. Such a classic. What a great movie. One of Spielberg's many masterpieces.

The Exorcist is also a great one. It gradually builds in tension and suspense and the ending is INTENSE!

[The Postmaster General]

Some horror films are scary, but I don't think "scary" is necessarily a criteria for horror, nor has anyone claimed it's supposed to be.

[stickmangrit]

know that i understand the blasphemy of the following words all too well, but...

The Grudge fucked my head up reeaaaal bad the first time i saw it. it diminished rapidly in effect upon repeat viewings, becoming a total joke by the third time i watched it, but that damn movie hit on every base irrational fear i have. being watched from the darkness, eyes staring silently, the fucking staircase scene. the poster alone creeped the ever loving hell out of me(as well as the poster for the Japanese origional). i had dificulty sleeping for about a month. subtle horor works really good too. Audition comes screaming to mind.

PS: though, the scariest film scene in recent memory comes, not from a horror film, but from the sci-fi/western Serenity. the scene capitalized on having half a season of a TV show's worth of character development to create the most tense sequence i've seen in a while. for those of you that don't know, one of the characters, Wash, is brutally and suddenly killed right before the climactic intercut final confromntation/zombie fight. Wash is the pilot of the spaceship, and throughout the series, he was almost never in any real harm. on top of this, he was the ever-likeable comic relief of the crew. the audience had no reason to believe he was in any sort of danger, and by having him offed so unexpectedly, suddenly all bets were off, and one had to wonder if this was "going to turn into a Wild Bunch, as Joss Wheedon puts it in the commentary. this enabled the big zombie fight to be a truly grueling experience, as pretty much everyone in the theater was convinced that none of these characters, all of whom were extremely relateable and cared for by the fandom, would live to see the end credits.

[the_sneaker]

I could not agree more with you. There have been very few movies in my life time that has actually scared me, and I'm not talking about the quick shot that makes the audience jump.

Horror to me is psycological. I once heard a filmmaker say in a "How We Made This Film" part of a DVD: "The most horrifying things in life aren't what you can see, but what you can't see." Nowadays it's all about the gore...and that isn't scary.

[sAtAn666]

yeah, i'm a massive horror fan, it's probably my favourite genre, yet i dislike horrors that rely on nothing but gore to scare you. people are saying things like Eli Roth and so on haved "saved" the genre, but they're just releasing crap as well. i never liked those 80s slasher films either. brutal gore isn't scary, just sickening (and sometimes funny).

[Shockwave]

I think its all about a likable character.

Throw in one single life that the viewer gives a damn about, and u dont need the rest. Not the gore, not the blood, not the body count.

..u are HORRIFIED for the person being chased/attacked. Thats true horror to me.

[ThirdOuting]

Crab sticks actually have no crab in them. Funny, ey?

[blk_flower]

gore doesn't scare anybody it's only there to disgust and feel intense, that's not horror, like the hills have eyes is only horror because of some cannible zombie mutants.

I find the easiest way of being scared were by images or people on the screen, take myers from halloween 1. That was it, it was his face (and the perfect music) that white ghostly face, it just sticks.

It just boggles my mind how easy it really is to scare people in a dark auidorotium theater.

[Crazy Dud]

Originally posted by Shockwave
The older one gets the more jaded torwards the horror genre they seem to get.

Every now and then a horror movie will rock my socks off. 28 Days Later, Silent Hill, The Descent, ect, ect.

I can name a shit load of 80s horror that couldnt scare a two year old. Horror has alwasy had alot of shit because its so easy to make a horror movie, but hard as hell to make a good one.

PG-13 or R rated, its not a matter of how much gore or blood is shown to me, its DO WE CARE ABOUT WHO IS BEING CHASED?

If a movie has this factor in it then itll work. We gotta be scared FOR the person the bad guy is after. Thats what makes it scary. (to me at least)

Body count be damned!:D

Completely agreed! It's funny how Hollywood is always going to great lengths to "up the ante" on horror films when the primary thing that makes them succeed is the same thing that makes movies in just about any genre succeed. You have to connect with the characters. You're not the one in the situation in the movie, so a horror movie really can't scare YOU, per se. We are scared FOR the characters because we care about them. From Poltergeist, to Carrie, to The Shining . . . these are films with memorable characters that make an impression on us, therefore their terror becomes our terror.

[chinton]

Horror in general is in trouble and partly blame audiences. First everybody bitched about how PG-13 horror films aren't scary suspenseful. They obviously didn't see The Others. Now studios have done a 180 and made extreme gore films and guess what people they still aren't scary. Good horror films are rare and it has nothing to do with ratings.

[Crazy Dud]

Originally posted by chinton
Horror in general is in trouble and partly blame audiences. First everybody bitched about how PG-13 horror films aren't scary suspenseful. They obviously didn't see The Others. Now studios have done a 180 and made extreme gore films and guess what people they still aren't scary. Good horror films are rare and it has nothing to do with ratings.

Amen to that!

[ilovemovies]

I think this hasn't been a bad year for horror flicks. I can name some pretty good horror flicks from the past year or so. Wolf Creek was really good. So was The Hills Have Eyes remake. And I don't get the hate for Pulse. I really thought that was a genuinly creepy and unnerving movie. The kind that really gets under your skin.

[Crazy Dud]

Originally posted by ilovemovies
I think this hasn't been a bad year for horror flicks. I can name some pretty good horror flicks from the past year or so. Wolf Creek was really good. So was The Hills Have Eyes remake. And I don't get the hate for Pulse. I really thought that was a genuinly creepy and unnerving movie. The kind that really gets under your skin.

The characters were one dimensional and boring, and the actors who portrayed them were pretty much atrocious. The dialogue was bad . . . obvious and cliched. The pacing was uneven at best. The scares were absent. Many scenes came close to being scary, but botched it at the end due to poor timing (these type of horrors are as relient on timing as a good comedy). And don't even get me started on the ultra-ubrupt, rushed, silly, and forced ending.

And BTW, Wolf Creek came out LAST YEAR, although just barely (it was released right around Christmas).

*SPOILER ALERT FOR THE DESCENT*

The Descent started out stellar, but in the last 20 minutes gradually degenerated into a pointless and uninteresting gore-fest that lacked any sense of fear. They also botched the ending with the twist at the end that made no sense within the context of the character and turned her into a villain. When the only person who survives turns into someone you would have rather seen get killed, the movie's over. And the final shot made NO SENSE. I know people have tried to rationalize and explain it away, but it was simply out of place in this movie. This was NOT a psychological thriller! And what was up with those birthday cake shots?

[ilovemovies]

I didn't think the acting was bad. Nobody in the movie is gonna be nominated for an oscar, but I found the acting to be decent. And I like Kristen Bell. I thought she was very good in the movie. It's not the boo scenes that made me like it a lot too. I found the movie to be geniunly eerie and unsettling. Much like The Ring, it's very atmospheric and it really gets under your skin.


And I know Wolf Creek came out last year. That's why I said good horror movies that came out within a year, not good movies that came this year. It's all in the wording. Wolf Creek did come out within a year from know.

And as for The Descent, I found that movie to be ridiculously overrated. I liked the first 30 to 40 minutes when it was just them climbing through the cave and trying to get out and survive. There are some INCREDIBLY INTENSE and INCREDIBLY CLAUSTROPHOBIC scenes that really put you on the edge of your seat. But when the creatures start attacking them, the movie lost me. It became less suspenseful and less terrifying and was a COMPLETELY average genre movie. Nothing remotely special about it.

[JawShoeWah]

I think the last horror film to actually scare me, and maybe the only one to do so, is Requiem for a Dream. That movie damn near traumatized me.

[Lady Stardust]

there is still scary films the shining (97) scared the hell out of me and i'm done with baths for a while call me a coward but i can't watch the rest of it that old dead woman gosh so fucking scary

[SykkBoy]

I'll preface this by saying I enjoy gory flicks and also love a goos scary, non-gory ghost story
the reason movies don't seem as scary is because we've things so much explicitly spelled out for us, it takes away from where we find fear the most - our own minds. Think of some of the classic chillers from the 30's and 40's (some of which still pack a punch). They could show gorew, so relied on things in shadows and we'd have to see end results in our own minds. I remember, as a kid, one of the most terrifying movies scenes was in the movie Halloween when Michael enters the bedroom wearing the sheet like a ghost. We know what just happened to Bob and here's this gal who was no clue what's going on. There was also the scene where we think Jamie Lee Curtis has knocked out Michael can rest easy..then in the background we see Michael sit straight up.

What has also ruined the horror experience, IMHO is people in theaters trying to crack wise on a movie instead of watching it and getting involved in the plots and characters. You can be sitting there really into a flick and getting into the suspnse and someon'e cell phone goes off or someone has to show their friends how "cool" they are by thinking they are at a screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show and adding their own "comedic" talkback.

I think horror movies are also watched differently these days. When I was younger (late 70's - early 80's), we used to turn off the lights and all watch the movie and would often scare ourselves more than the movie usually did. These days it's all about a bunch of buddies getting drunk and cracking wise on a movie.

We also have killers in movies who talk too damn much and crack too many jokes instead of just becoming mindless killing machines. For me, it always seemed scarier when the killer had no dialog and you didn't know what the fuck was going on inside his head (Michael Myers, Leatherface as examples). When FreddyKreuger first hit movies, he was a scary motherfucker because he was hiddne in shadows and didn't talk much. Then he became this gameshow host of death who just stopped being scary and became a deadly standup comic.

Sorry to write a novel here...I just enjoy horror movies and love to delve into them and I still turn out the lights, pop popcorn and sit under a blanket watching movies hoping they'll scare me a bit or at the very least make me uneasy....

[ERIN_LoJ]

One is we're too jaded, but also older horror films relied more on pychology, where now of days it's more about shock effect.

[Sigur509]

I'm just of sick of seeing that every new horror movie is "THE SCARIEST FILM EVER!!!!!!"

[AngelDust06]

I know the deamons in Ghost used to freak me out and yes The original Omen, Friday the 13th and Night of the Living dead remake were good horror films that had scare effect. Now....what happened. I look for horror movie to get me thinking (could this really happen like this?) Signs freaked me out a couple times, White noise had a part or two, The Ring had its moments but other than that it has been lackluster at best

[Duke Nukem]

When you reach a certain age and witness a certain amount of horror movies, the scare factor goes numb. It happens to all of us. Once in a blue moon though, something fresh comes along that does awake that scare factor again. I think the last movie that came close to doing that for me was "Saw." Hopefully, "Saw III" will do the same.

[freakandgeek]

i love horror movies, and i get so disappointed when i see a "horror" movie preview, and then the movie is rated pg-13. it probably won't be that good if its rated pg-13 and its a horror. all my favorite horror movies are rated r! RRRRR. it seems as though the "horror" movies are being made for lame ass teenagers who just want to see blood, guts and boobies. its annoying.

[Lost in Space]

this is a steriotype so try to refrain from tearing me to peices, but the vast majority of PG-13 horror movies, lick balls.

[HerbertWestPwns]

I want to start off and say I'm a big horror fan. I don't always go into a horror movies looking for a scare though. In fact most people these days dare I say aren't looking for a scare. Horror films are one of the fun genre's, at least from what I've seen. Sometimes you just wanna sit there during a gorefest and question how far they're gonna go. Are they really gonna gouge that guys eyeball out with an ice cream scoop? Are they honestly gonna drive a stake through some guys dong and show it? But if you really want a scary movie does anybody really go to the gorefest's? Somehow I doubt it. For me the creepiest stuff out there is of course when they don't show it. Session 9, The Changeling, and The Exorcist III still give me the willies. Not only that the one constant factor is that none of these really have copius amounts of gore. Now I also agree with the watered down PG-13 stuff. But the one problem I find with these are the lack of swears. I mean in all honesty if some ghost just came flying at you from down a hall screaming wildly would you really say "Oh My Gosh". I think the PG-13 movies take the realisim away. At least that's my opinion

[Shockwave]

I think the PG-13 movies take the realisim away. At least that's my opinion

While i love R rated movies, alot of them are shit as well as the PG-13 ones.

The only bad thing about an Rrating is that it sometimes leads to tons of gore, BUT very little else of what makes a horror movie work, like good characters and plot.

Stuff like THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake, SILENT HILL, and THE DESCENT do the rating proud, but stuff like SIGNS, THE SIXTH SENSE, and THE RING remake show that PG-13 horror can work as well.

In the end to me, u have to be afraid for the characters. To do that, u have to like them. If u do that, the rating wont matter.

I was more afraid for the characters in MONSTER HOUSE then for anyone in SAW 3.:p

[headchecker55]

Horror flicks are just about shock value and grossing out the light hearted viewers in the audience (SAW & Hostel). I've only known 1 or 2 flicks that actually scared me by using real suspence and fear.

[AaronisMe]

Someone should make a movie about crabs. Getting crabs is quite scary.

[Scorpio24]

Originally posted by AaronisMe
Someone should make a movie about crabs. Getting crabs is quite scary.


I believe it was called One Night In Paris.


The last film that genuinley scared me was The Ring. And before that The Blair Witch Project. I was so scared by the BW I couldn't sleep for the whole night. I even woke my missus up to come down stairs with me so I could get a drink at 3am. Not a word of a lie. Apart from those two movies I can't remember being scared by a movie for the longest time.

Obviously the things that scare me in movies are the things left unseen where your imagination does the work for you. I just don't see that much anymore. It's the same old tired shit they churn out. I hate horror films. HATE them. Not because I dislike horror but because 99% of thenm are pure shit. I miss a few good horrors for that reason which is annoying.

I thought Hostel was going to be the bollocks. But no same old tired shit. I have recntley read good things about session 9 so i'm hoping that can spark me up a bit.

Like Headchecker sai it's all just cheap thrills and shock value these days. Lazy bastards.

[Crazy Dud]

Originally posted by AaronisMe
Someone should make a movie about crabs. Getting crabs is quite scary.

NO! THE HORROR! THE HORROR!!!

:D :D :D

[mutesaint]

There are two things in this world which terrify the utter living shit out of me. I mean scare me to the core. Spiders and clowns, and both come from movies which in retrospect arent necessarily that scary. The spiders comes from this b-movie called Arachnaphobia. It was basically tremors but with spiders. I don't know why, but the jokes aside, it is one of the most terrifying movies that I have ever seen.
The only other movie to really scare me was Stephen King's IT. I know it was supposed to be a made for tv movie but damn it affected me. Something about Tim Curry's preformance as Pennywise starteld me to the core. There were no jumps or overly gorey sequences. Just Tim Curry hamming it up all evil like. This is the movie that made me afraid of the dark as a kid. This movie fucked me up so much that I can't watch a Tim Curry movie. I loved Home Alone, but its sequel messes with me because I spend the whole time seeing Pennywise the clown as the consierge.
Basically what this long post is intending to do is say that I dont think it matters whether a movie is PG-13, or PG, or R(come on, how good a horror be G). What matters is that we care for the characters, like what shockwave said, and also the mood of us at the time. The only things that these movies had in common was that I was about 5-6 years old, it was late as shit, and I was alone.(I had snuck to the tv room to watch them while my parents slept) We as an audiance have to be ready to be scared as well. When I saw the Pulse I expected it to suck, and because of that its flaws appeared exponentially larger than they really were.(granted I didnt like the movie on a second viewing either.) Anyways. Thats my book on the matter.
End Post

[denial_twist]

eraserhead scares the crap out of me. apocalypse now makes me incredibly uneasy. requiem for a dream just depresses me to no end.

i think, for me, the definition of a horror movie isn't that it has to scare me, but that it should make me feel uncomfortable.

[Crazy Dud]

Originally posted by denial_twist
eraserhead scares the crap out of me. apocalypse now makes me incredibly uneasy. requiem for a dream just depresses me to no end.

i think, for me, the definition of a horror movie isn't that it has to scare me, but that it should make me feel uncomfortable.

I feel there are two types of horror films, the types that scare and the types that move an audience out of its comfort zone, usually through either shock or disturbing imagery and sounds. Some aim to do both, and those, I've found, are the ones that stay with you the most.

[Corpse Candle]

Gore has never been scary just explicit and stomach churning not frightening however.
Tension,imagery and unnerving atmosphere is the key to a good scare that's why 90% of slasher sequels are fun but not frightening.

If you can get hold of them B.B.C ghost story for Christmass is a great example of what horror really can do and you can get them all on D.V.D.
My pick would be Whistle and I will come to you my Lad.

[sAtAn666]

Some are syaing that these recent horror films aren't scary because we're too jaded, but I disagree. Last year, I saw Les Diaboliques, The Tenant and Session 9 for the first time and I found that they all had very disturbing moments. It's not that we're now too jaded (or at least I'm not), it's just that most of these new horror films just suck.

[AWP82]

Originally posted by sAtAn666
It's not that we're now too jaded (or at least I'm not), it's just that most of these new horror films just suck.

For me, it's not most of them. It's about half and half. But I'm easily entertained, and my standards are arguably lower than most other people's, so maybe I'm biased. I don't always mind the ones that "suck" (even to me) because I'll usually find something to like about them anyway. It all depends on what I'm in the mood for.

The reason I said people are jaded is because it takes a lot more to shock/scare/outsmart/impress audiences now than it did back in the old days. What used to be "edgy" isn't so edgy anymore because we've seen it all and gotten used to it, so the filmmakers have to step up their game. What sucks now probably wouldn't have sucked as much 30 years ago, and some of the movies from back then don't hold up so well anymore. It was a general statement. I know it doesn't apply to everyone.

[Seansea]

Originally posted by God of Cinema
No, I believe films have the power to still scare. This may seem off-topic, but has anyone ever been to www.jkcinema.com? Go there and look for Urban Legend videos you can download and watch. There are 7 of them. The UFO one isn't scary but trust me, the rest are. Really creepy. Now, those things made me not be able to sleep right for a couple months. I believe if that can have an effect on me, someone out there can put forth the talent to still drive that kind of fear back into horror movies.

I have to agree, some of the urban legend series made me jump. It's ironic how "everyday" people can make screamers that scare the shit out of you and filmmakers can't do that for a film. They need to get off remake wagon and do some original shit.

[ScottCarmichael]

What up ya'll! Scott here from AITH, JoBlo's sister site. I agree with most of you that horror films about the fact that most horror films have become jokes with more gore than scare. However there are still great horror films out there that can deliver a scare.

I'd like to suggest The Devil's Backbone by Del Toro. It's very creepy, as is Ju-On, the original Japanese horror that The Grudge was remade from.

Also try to create an atmosphere where the film can be most effective. A dark basement or room, late at night, with all the lights out and the phone unplugged.

Anyone else have creepy thrillers that they would like to suggest?