Horror Movies

Anything starring Seth Rogen counts as a horror movie.

Pennywise. That is all.

You obviously haven't seen the scene in Crocodile Dundee where the croc nearly gets the girl.

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

The worst thing is, they give you some pathetic excuse for a main character who you know is going to survive no matter what and a group of one dimensional twats who all die. Every single time.

That, and the crap actors. I think a lot of times, a horror movie could have potential to be better if they had decent actors in the roles that actually had the talent to make the character any good.

I agree with OutlawPete about Drag me To Hell...that was the last horror movie I watched that I enjoyed, and it wasn't even a great movie - it was only entertaining and enjoyable. But the last really scary movie I watched would have to be the original Japanese version of The Grudge, and I watched that quite awhile ago (hell, any original version is better/scarier...Ring...Dark Water...One Missed Call...).

Oh, and I watched Candyman recently...I laughed my way through it; I can't believe I was ever scared of that.

The Wrong Turn movies are, IMO, exactly what was described above - made to keep MTV fans happy, and not even very good ones only saw the first and part of the second when it was on TV). Same goes for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake - in fact, my ex only watched it so he could see Jessica Biel. And I personally didn't find any of them scary either.

If you want scary, Da Shins Kelly said it: look to the Asians for horror. Not been disappointed by one yet.

Though, I agree that Wolf Creek and Hostel freaked me out...especially Wolf Creek.

The average horror film now is pretty crap indeed.
One of the main problems is that they avoid being too scary to get a bigger audience, but thus removing the point of a horror film.
One thing I find really annoying because it's so stupid is the fake-out, it's-just-the-cat-jumping fake scare. So cheap. And while it has been around since Cat People in the 40s, directors are overly-reliant on it now, and never back it up with any actual jeopardy. A more recent and inexplicable trend is having what looks like a p-o-v shot looking at the main character from behind, and then they turn around and...nothing's there!! It's cheap, cynical and doesn't make any sense.
Similar to these issues is the way the soundtrack hammers home a jump scare with a big bang on the soundtrack, even before it happens or when nothing happens at all. Basically, directors are trying to scare viewers, but not too much, and without putting any skill, thought or craft into doing so.
Another problem I've thought about recently is the over-reliance on making slasher films (because they're incedibly cheap) with unlikeable characters (because of the old cliché that slasher film victims have to be "punished"). It's hard to get scared if you don't care about the victim, so films like this just become about the spectacle of the kills, and not about being scary. Just look at something like Halloween for flawed but still human and sympathetic victims.
Having said all that, there are a few good horror films out there, even from America, like Insidious, Drag Me to Hell and The House of the Devil, but they're far outnumbered by the generic crap.

I don't think I've been genuinely scared by a horro movie since the Ring or 28 Days Later (if you count that as horror)

Surpriesed no mention of Let the Right One in/ Let me in- probably the most interesting horror movies of the last few years.

The Asian stories are good but seem to rely too much on the deadly white faced woman under the bed/table for shocks. I found the tale of two sisters slightly overrated, I was more confused by the story than frightened.

Most of the films that are mentioned here were not scary, or even good for that matter.

I liked The Sixth Sense when it came out alright.
Same goes for Ring (Jap), Blair Witch Project, The Others etc...
But I was a teenager when I saw them.

The Asian ones are the closest you'll get to a decent horror movie, but even still..........
Most of them are just messed up. Visitor Q for instance - Bloody weird!

Besides that, I guess things like Se7en, Donnie Darko, Source Code, Old Boy, The Butterfly Effect, Moon, Identity etc..
None of which are even horrors, they just leave you with an eerie messed up feeling.

Many modern horrors actually have the potential there.
Paranormal Activity for instance.
I loved the subtle eeriness throughout, the unknown. And I liked the cinematography.
But the acting, script, and general storyline was awful.
Never mind that god awful ending!

Da Shins Kelly wrote: »

Yes, Asian movies to seem to have a lot of the ghost women, but apparently that's all rooted in Asian mythology, which is what is so interesting about Asian horror. So many of the stories come from genuine paranormal beliefs in Asia, or old spook stories and folklore. And with a lot of Asian horrors, it often turns out in the end that all this ghostly stuff is not really what it seemed. That's what makes them scarier. It's all psychological.


The weirdness is was makes them so good! The plots from Asia would never be found in America. Hollywood just take stories from Asian horrors, and tweak them slightly to make them more accessible to American audiences - i.e the protagonist is changed to a sex-crazed teenager, cheap scares in place of lingering eerie shots, over acting in place of subtly, a serious lack of any real creepy atmosphere. This is what makes Asian horror good. The atmosphere, the paranoia, the feeling of being unsettled right from the beginning. And I think they're made better by the fact that it's all set in a different culture, one that's completely alien to most Westerners. There's a sense of unfamiliarity about them, which adds to the weirdness.

As for Paranormal Activity, the only way anyone could be scared by that is if they genuinely think ghosts are real.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that the quirky Asian movies weren't good.
I love weird movies!

I think I must have also not made my point regarding Paranormal Activity very clear.

I meant that I liked the way the film was done.
No blood and gore, no 'jumpy' parts queued by music and so on.

The reason that I think I don't find any horrors actually scary is the reason you just gave - I don't believe there are demons, zombies, weird random creatures etc...

But any of the horror movies I have seen may actually have been at least somewhat decent if they didn't tell the audience how to feel, if they didn't put gore in just for the sake of it, and if they didn't try to show the big scary creature that is just a man in bad make up.
If they used more subtle methods than the same unoriginal system that I can only describe as porn with blood.

Someone who posted already hit the nail on the head I think, when they said that Hollywood don't seem to take horror seriously.
They just don't seem to even try at all.

The older movies, the independent movies, and foreign language movies at least try to create something to be proud of, instead of being just in it for the money.

i honestly thought paranormal activity would be in here