The 'Horror Business' goes in 'cycles' just like EVERYTHING else...

[DoubleDown11]

Our economy, History, etc. Everything goes in a cycle and phases. Horror movies are no different.

The 60's - The Universal "Monster" pictures era.

The 70's - The era of innovation. Halloween, Texas Chainsaw, Evil Dead, Last House on the Left, etc. All about inovative ideas and cinematography.

The 80's - Sex, Drugs, and GORE. All about mindless killing and non-stop gore.

The early 90's - ??? (Somebody help me on this please)

The late 90's - The teen slasher flicks come into play. (Scream, IKWYDLS, Urban Legend, etc.)

2000- 2003 - The "Supernatural" scary thing is VERY in right now. (Signs, The 6th Sense, The Others, The Ring, etc.)

What do you predict is next for the genre known as 'Horror'?
I'd like to hear some of my fellow horror schmoes opinons....

[DoubleDown11]

*BUMP
Someone reply!

[ERIN_LoJ]

Remakes? LOL J/K http://216.40.249.192/s/contrib/geno/rofl.gif

[Andrew Tom]

The 60's - The Universal "Monster" pictures era.



The Universal Monster movies came out long before the 60's...
Dracula:1931
Frankenstein: 1931
The Mummy: 1932
The Wolf Man: 1941
Creature From The Black Lagoon: 1954(well, not so long before the 60's then)

The 60's was more the time of Psycho, Peeping Tom and the start of slasher genre. Also ghosts were a big thing in the 60's: The Haunting, The Innocents. Not to mention more psychological horror: Rosemary's Baby, Repulsion.

And of course: in 1968, Night Of The Living Dead came out and started the whole zombie thing...

[pyscho dude]

I hope the future will contain more zombie films. I mean there are still zombie films but they are mostly independent direct to video ones. I wish there were more big budget(but not too big) theatrical zombie films. Also there should be more demon related films.

[psycho path]

I wish someone would make a medium budget horror film about a cemetery haunted by demons instead of ghosts and zombies. I love ghost stories and all,but like the teen slasher era,its getting kinda old. Those ones are better for the fall season where audiences are looking for a more mature,intelligent horror flick(THE RING,RINGU,THE OTHERS)

[Fulci_Fan]

The Early 90's were more about thrillers more then horror films, they were still being made but weren't the "in thing" at the time, it was all about the thriller's in the early 90's.

[ERIN_LoJ]

I love demon films; well made demonic type movies have usually managed to either make money, bring a rise out of people, or have a chance to be terribly gruesome.

I have never seen a big surge in them, would love for the supernatural to come back in a big way. This seems to be what scares people the most overall.

[Johnny582]

so were like in the 60s now , itsl ike were going backwards so next would be like creature films

[ERIN_LoJ]

THE SIXTIES


In the 60's erotism and psychology was introduced more into horror, people became more daring.

The MPAA system was developed, which of course influences horror.

Perhaps due to the televised war, apocolyptic type movies became popular.

Important stars were Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price.

The 60's was also big on televised horror such as outer limits, shock theater and The twilight zone.

Some of the more influential movies of the sixties was Rosemary's baby, The Birds in '63, and Night of the Living Dead, which was Romero's debut.

THE 70'S


The 70's were very important. They continued to test the limits. Sex and violence began to grow, and then come into mainstream movies as they hadn't before.

Blaxpoitation was very popular ( Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde, Blacula, Blakenstein, Voodoo Black Exorcist, Bone and hell up in harlem are only some that were created).

Nature movies became popular. Killer bees, earthquakes, animals, airplane.

Martial arts became a big trend exciting viewers everywhere.

Cannibal movies really took off, some successful and some not.
There were the Dont films: Don't look in the basement, Don't look now, Don't open the window, Don't go in the house and Don't answer the phone (the last 2 in 1980)

Roger Corman stopped his involvement with AIP and founded New World Pictures.He helped the careers of Matin Scorses, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante and Paul Bartel take off.

Lesbian vampire films began popping up.

Italian Dario Argento had many movies for the decade, including suspiria, deep red, the cat o' nine tails and several others.

Craven and Cunningham tested the waters with Last House on the left. Craven continued on with The Hills have eyes.

The public waved goodbye to the beloved Hitchcock and Herschell Gordon Lewis with their films the Gore Gore girls and Frenzy.

The decade was rocked by the exorcist. This movie opened many doors not available before. Many exocist ripoffs followed. This movie set new standards for Special F-x.

People were again shocked by the intensity of the new Tobe Hooper's TCM, also testing the limits.

John Carpenter's halloween introduced a new horror icon for people to revel in.

Perhaps due to The success of rosemarys baby in the 60s and now the exorcist in the 70's , three omen movies were created.

1979 also gave us Ridley Scott's Alien, The Amityville Horror, Phantasm, and When a stranger calls.


THE 80'S


At the beginning sequels wore then and didn't do well, except the early Fridays. Later sequels became a big surge, especially due to the introduction of the video cassette. Movies not before considered were created, such as the howlings, sleepaway camps, etc.

Horror began losing some of the respect it had in the 80s and critics began saying it was used as an excuse to rip apart young women.

Special effects really started taking off.[/B] Rick Baker in An American werewolf in london, Tom Savinia with dawn of the dead and friday the 13th, Rob Bottin for john Carpenter's the thing remake, Stan Winston in pumpkinhead, and Chris Walas for the fly 2.

The success of dawn of the dead's unrated release prompted the use of "No one under 17 admitted".

Clive Barker brings us Hellraiser.
Sam Raimi brings us the evil dead.
Stuart Gordon brings us Re-animator.
Comedy was a trend in 80's horror.

Studios began putting more cash into the movies of this type of film, such as Poltergeist, Gremlins, Arachnophobia, and more.

John Carpenter continued making many movies such as thing thing, big trouble in little china, gremlins 2, and others.

Tom Holland gave us Fright Night and Childs play.

A minitrend going on during the 80's was to rush anything written by Stephen King to the movies.Such as Cronenburg's the dead zone, Mark Lester's firestarter, Maximum overdrive, children of the corn, silver bullet, graveyard shift, pet semetary, and misery.


3-D began and was then killed in Jaws 3-D and Friday 3-D.

Charles Band created Empire Pictures but after a series of bad films he then returned with Full moon videos.

And of course, A Nightmare on Elm Street was introduced, which changed much of horror and horror audiences as well.

[Jason13thh]

I don't know but what I know is that nowadays Spain and Japan and Korea,too deliver some very very good flicks, examples ? okay !

Spain :
Abre Los Ojos ( Open Your Eyes ) The Nameless, Fausto, The Others, Tesis, ...
Korea :
Tell Me Something, Musa ( not a horror movie but very brutal and violent however visually the film is beautiful )
Japan :
Ring, Bullet Ballet, Tokio Fist, Shiri ( not seen yet ) Battle Royale ( very very good, extremely entertaining !!! )

[p1phillips]

The next trend in horror? Werewolves. Werewolf movies are popping up all over the place. Some of them are even getting big stars. Before you know it, Teen Wolf 3 with Joshua Jackson will be in pre-production. Could there be anything scarier?

[Wicked]

I really like this cycle idea!!
nice shit, DoubleDown11

In your post, as well as in Erin_LoJ's you write about development of horror genre and looking at the timeline, it seems this cycle theory adds up. Horror started as early as most of other genres did and it developed along with the rest of the movie industry at the beginning (technological improvements, setting standards in acting, directing etc...). 60's saw a rise in quality and diversity of the movies, 70's and 80's seem to be a golden era of Horror with most influential titles being made. However, I think you're right about sex, drugs and gore trend, which makes sense, because if you look through the prism of "cycle theory", after the golden age, the only possible next step is decadence.

Early 90's? - decadence, or better yet, the end of decadence, colapse of a culture.

Late 90's and present have nothing much to offer in my mind. Horror movies are technically more advanced than they ever were, the projects are much bigger and more serious, much more attention is payed to marketing aspects like soundtracks, merchandise, Internet promos, multimedia dvds... etc; all in all, everything is technically much better, but I think horror movies lost their essence. Their soul. Through earlier horrors, the makers would speak about various controversial topics that were relevant in society of that time, they would shock us by the audacity and morbid creativity of their own minds, they created cult followings, their movies were powerful, bold and most important - SCARY.

You know whats wrong with horrors today? They are simply not scary. And, as I see it, the point of Horror is to scare me, or make me feel uneasy, the same as Comedy is suppose to make me laugh.

Future?
Either a big qualitative revival of the genre, or disappearence and fusion with other genres. Actually, I think both of these started happening in the 90's and continue today. Some quality horrors are being made out of mainstream (independant, foreign...), while the mainstream horrors look more like horror-action or horror-thriller movies (Ghosts of Mars, dare I say it... End of Days, 6th Sense, Signs, Urban Legends.... I don'd think these movies are 100% horror)

Maybe this is a beginning of a great new cycle in our favorite genre, or maybe we're just worshipping an already rancid carcass of a beautiful and exciting culture

One thing is for sure - Censurship is suffocating our art, making us numb. We gotta fight it!


_hope to hear some other opinions about this

[Scully1888]

I can see zombie films being the next big theme being brought back to life (pardon the pun).

I mean, we've got Dawn Of The Dead, House Of The Dead and this 3d film Thrilla (as well as 28 Days Later, if you want to count that as a zombie film). God knows what else is coming zombie-wise.

[ERIN_LoJ]

Before I comment on anything else -- Yes, censorship SUCKS! Why censor what is supposed to be an adult film? There is horror for the kiddies but leave some for us damnit!
Censorship in anything majorly pisses me off.

As for the 90's , no, I havent cared for much of the horror. Then again, not much of the comedy either. I enjoyed the 80's comedy more also. Right now they just stick with what sells and that seems to be about it, instead of exploring new options.

And I agree - werewolves are becoming pretty hot right now. These can be really creepy creatures if done right (Howling, Howling 5, American werewolf in london) but whoever does this right? *sigh* I like some comedy light werewolf horror too, such as American werewolf in paris and silver bullet, but would really appreciate some frightening werewolf horror. Such as the setting in a forest, I think they are the creepiest in their "natural" settings. If they mainstream the werewolf genre too much, it will ruin them like everything else.

[ofmknockoff]

I honestly don't know where horror is going right now. I have really enjoyed some of the more recent genre entries (House of 1000 Corpses, Identity, The Ring, Signs) and I have disliked some (They, Darkness Falls). I hope the qualility films continue and horror starts making more money so that we can have more of it.

For once it almost seems like the mainstream studios are making better movies than the independant market (with exceptions of course).