Horror Films: PG & PG-13

[fernando97echeverria]

Woohoo, this is starting to get interesting.

Look, I have absolutely no problem with modern filmmaking. In fact, steadily, the last decade has already produced an incredible amount of great films. More so than any other, in fact. But the horror genre is almost like the porn genre: It had its time of brilliance (although admittedly and quite obviously horror's was longer), and it passed. Scary movies, like nude flicks, had a period of being artistic and creative (around the seventies and then the early eighties). But then they became cheap entertainment (more so than they already were) and were mass produced for cheap fare, making its category a cinematic joke. The only difference is that there is still the occasional good horror film.

All I'm saying is the horror genre had its time of being and it is for the most part now terrible. Excellent dramas will always exist, great comedies will always exist, good documentaries will always be made and great action films are made every year. The horror film is just no longer a regular canvas for good filmmaking. Because all the tricks of scaring people out of their minds have been made and used and now the directors of the genre are lazy, re-using the same things over and over for, what, a brief jump or maybe, just maybe a sleepless night? What happened to horror scenes that were so unique that you remember it forever?

May I remind you, the last horror film (not counting The Sixth Sense, a thriller) nominated for Best Picture was Silence of the Lambs. In 1991. And the last one before that was The Exorcist... in 1973.

What does that tell you about the quality of this genre?

[Cracker Funk]

So, the Oscars are your measure for how good the horror genre is? That's dumb.

Besides, your distinction between Silence of the Lambs (which you apparently accept as "horror") and Sixth Sense (which you call "thriller") is equally dumb.

Instead of speaking in vague generalities, can you list some specific movies that you think are examples of how horror used to be "artistic"?

In addition to simply making a list of movies that you approve of, can you list specific qualities, maybe cite specific scenes, that you think make older horror more "artistic"? And how is it any different from what people are doing today? Again, I would ask for specifics, not vague generalities.

[fernando97echeverria]

I don't use the Oscars to measure anything. But the fact that the genre hasn't been honored for that long or that often ever says something.

The Silence of the Lamb was scary as hell, revolved around psychopathic cannibals, mass murderers and had graphic scenes involving deaths as gruesome as possible. The Sixth Sense had a creepy atmosphere but for the most part was a tense drama about a broken psychiatrist and a confused boy. While it involved ghosts and some disturbing visions, it didn't match all the requirements for it to be a "horror" film.

Hitchcock, one of the best directors of all time, as early as the forties created scary, tense trademarks that are now staples in horror films (creating a tense situation unknown to the characters, hiding the killer for the whole film, cutting to sudden horrific images to cause jumps). He made one of, if not the most memorable murder in screen history, which is the shower scene from Psycho.

Polanski's horror films (Repulsion, Tenant, Exorcist) had amazing cinematography, Oscar-nominated performances and great stories, all of which were used to scare the hell out of the viewer. The films today rely almost solely on cheap jump moments.

Alien remains the best monster film of all time, and had an atmosphere NEVER before seen or created. No horror films these days have original atmospheres.

Blair Witch used the amazingly inventive found-footage technique for the first time in horror history, and once was enough. But it has been emulated endlessly but never matched. Paranormal Activity came close but ultimately it's lame and forgettable.

DePalma's classic horror Carrie is the ultimate revenge film and its main actress is scarily good, whose performance scares the living daylights out of viewers. Good performances in a horror film are rare nowadays.

The Shining was beautifully shot and thought out, and incredibly deep once you think about it. All this unnerving psychosis made the film twice as scary.

As for citing scenes:
-The chest-bursting scene from Alien
-The shower scene and dead mother discovery from Psycho
-The babysitter chase in Halloween
-The opening swim from Jaws
-The the creature-mutation in The Thing
-Regan's twisting head, cross mutilation in The Exorcist
-The Satanic rape scene in Rosemary's Baby
-The ending hand-burst in Carrie
-Drew Barrymore's torment and death in Scream
-The TV scene from the Poltergeist

Those are the best examples of horrific scenes that stay with you for a long, long time, because of their uniqueness and the way they were shot, acted or put together, which is elegantly.

[Cracker Funk]

I asked for examples of how horror allegedly used to be "artistic". Is that all you've got? Not sure how any of your examples differentiate classic horror from modern horror.

I'm about to smash your argument into pieces. Won't be difficult.

[mad_hatter]

Awww…. Late to the party….

Fernando, you’re very opinionated (which is fine), but you don’t speak for the majority of genre fans. Your opinions certainly don’t match mine. The scenes you’ve listed are all great, but I could name a hundred more, all from films released in the last decade. And although I loved ‘Blair Witch’, most people weren’t as enthusiastic. And... are you aware that Polanski didn’t make ‘The Exorcist’?

Also, got to say, ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ is a thriller (like Se7en, for example) and ‘The Sixth Sense’ is a horror, and does, without question, feature all the elements required to make it a horror. It was marketed as a “supernatural thriller”, I assume because the studio was scared of using the word HORROR.

The horror genre is alive and well, great horrors are always being made. And genre fans like myself… we’ll watch any old crap anyway.

Cracker, did you watch ‘The House of the Devil’? What did you think? I loved it, probably my favourite horror in a long time.

Can I also recommend ‘Kill List’ to any horror fans. Very strange, but definitely worth a watch.

[harpsichoid]

There's so much crap horror because it's quite easy to make a film that fits into this genre and market it like the rest.

I watched 'The Woman in Black' with my girlfriend the other day, absolute rubbish!

But, we both had our faces half-hidden behind cushions all the way through- not because it was disturbing or scary on any psychological level, just because the music keeps going BANG and you see a lady's face behind Daniel Radcliffe's sideburns, or a door slams and a sillhouette runs across to the lavatory.

For many people, that constitutes a horror film. It scares you, makes you jump, gets your adrenaline flowing. But it's not good for anything else..

I would say that there are plenty of good horror films from the last decade! It can be a bit more difficult to find them now, as Hollywood concentrates mainly on its crap-for-money projects and takes less risks. But you would say the same about any genre, like romantic comedies.

Plus, plenty of amazing horror films outside of America. That's why they all end up getting re-made in Hollywood!

Pan's Labyrinth, Rec and Rec2- probably the three scariest films I've ever seen, all in Spanish.

Ju-on and Ringu from Japan.

Shaun of the Dead, as has already been mentioned.

And my favourite film of all time, Silent Hill!

[rayw]

Originally Posted by harpsichoid

There's so much crap horror because it's quite easy to make a film that fits into this genre and market it like the rest.

I watched 'The Woman in Black' with my girlfriend the other day, absolute rubbish!

Ah! F#ck me!
I just watched TWIB the other day! It was so forgettable that I... forgot about it!

Lame sauce on a lame duck floating down a lame stream through Lameville in the lame country of Lame-istan.

Watch 'The Others' for ten times the effect with a tenth of the effort.

[harpsichoid]

Originally Posted by rayw

Ah! F#ck me!
I just watched TWIB the other day! It was so forgettable that I... forgot about it!

Lame sauce on a lame duck floating down a lame stream through Lameville in the lame country of Lame-istan.

Watch 'The Others' for ten times the effect with a tenth of the effort.

I was going to ask if you've seen the old version, but it was made for TV so you might not have heard of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wg4jKt3NIw

Far far better than the new one. Plus the woman in black is Miss Lemon from Poirot! Awesome.

[fernando97echeverria]

Look, this isn't ain't hard Cracker. So to speak. This last decade, none of maybe the decade's hundred best films were a horror film. But in the eighties, Carrie and The Shining would have made it because they were monumental for ALL of film. In the seventies, Alien, Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby among others would have been listed as well, because they were more than good horror films, they were just good movies in general. And then the year before, with Psycho and The Tenant and Repulsion. And so you get where I'm going here.

Horror movies nowadays are just confined to being genre movies, and if they're good, they're just horror films. But the days of them being innovative and groundbreaking for all of film are over. Which you seem to fervently deny.

And harpsichoid, if Pan's Labyrinth were really a horror (it's a fantasy thriller), I'd drop this argument. That film is a masterpiece.

[harpsichoid]

Originally Posted by fernando97echeverria

Look, this isn't ain't hard Cracker. So to speak. This last decade, none of maybe the decade's hundred best films were a horror film. But in the eighties, Carrie and The Shining would have made it because they were monumental for ALL of film. In the seventies, Alien, Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby among others would have been listed as well, because they were more than good horror films, they were just good movies in general. And then the year before, with Psycho and The Tenant and Repulsion. And so you get where I'm going here.

Horror movies nowadays are just confined to being genre movies, and if they're good, they're just horror films. But the days of them being innovative and groundbreaking for all of film are over. Which you seem to fervently deny.

I would say it isn't that there aren't groundbreaking horror movies any more, it's just that they aren't mainstream and fashionable like they were in the 80s.

Plus, because many big horror fans have their own kind of alternative culture, they look towards other countries for films- some of the best recent horror films come from Asia, which means they're much less likely to make their way onto these kinds of lists.

Originally Posted by fernando97echeverria

And harpsichoid, if Pan's Labyrinth were really a horror (it's a fantasy thriller), I'd drop this argument. That film is a masterpiece.

Who defines the genres? I would personally say that Pan's Labyrinth has many of the aspects of a horror film. Maybe the fact that it doesn't completely correlate with what is becoming the contemporary definition of a horror film is the reason it is left out of the equation..

Even if it isn't called a horror film as such, it is still held in high regard by many horror fans and is reviewed on most of the websites for horror films.

[NickClapper]

I'm confused as to what this thread has to do with PG and PG-13..?

I think that Fernando is fighting his corner admirably, even though he is clearly wrong! The requirements for horror need to be adjusted from other genres. If I go see a drama I want to feel something on an emotional level, if I see a comedy then I want to laugh and if I go see a horror movie I want to be scared. And 'being scared' is just not as easily artistically quantifiable as other reactions.

The Silence of the Lambs is a fantastic movie, one of my all time favourites, but it's not really scary. It's all about creepy charisma but there's only really one scene that's actively scary. And, perhaps, that's the secret of its awards success.

[rayw]

Originally Posted by NickClapper

I'm confused as to what this thread has to do with PG and PG-13..?

The gauntlet was thrown:

Originally Posted by fernando97echeverria

Horror films are like the Rap/Hip-Hop Songs of film genres. There's too many of them, they're usually ridiculously explicit, only one out of seventy-four are decent and the only good ones were from decades ago.

The challenge accepted:

Originally Posted by Cracker Funk

The horror genre is just as strong as it's ever been, which is to say that most horror movies suck, but every now and then we get a gem... There aren't any good horror movies being made?! Nonsense.

Game on:

Basically "Not a d@mn thing."

[Cracker Funk]

Fernando, I'm glad you've decided to abondon the "horror films used to be artistic" argument, because it was absolutely baseless and completely indefensible.

Unfortunately, your new argument is essentially "the movies I like are better than the movies other people like." And of course, that argument is barely even worth discussing.

It's fine and dandy for you to have your opinions, but when you start to act like your opinions are the authoritative truth, well, nobody is listening to that garbage. Again, it's okay for you to feel the way you do about modern horror, but you should know that you are in the minority.

Cabin in the Woods
Tucker & Dale
Insidious
Paranormal Activity
Let the Right One In
Zombieland
Planet Terror
Saw
Dawn of the Dead (yes, the remake)
28 Days Later

Every single one of these movies is very well-liked, and every single one of them is incredibly innovative. These are not cheap scares but great achievements in artistic creativity. You may not like 'em but a lot of people do, and they are all the proof needed to show that the horror genre is doing just fine.

[fernando97echeverria]

Zombieland is a black comedy, and none of the films you listed are good, original, highly praised or remotely groundbreaking.

A lot of people like the Scary Movie series, does that make them "artistically creative"?

[rayw]

Originally Posted by Cracker Funk

Every single one of these movies is very well-liked, and every single one of them is incredibly innovative. These are not cheap scares but great achievements in artistic creativity. You may not like 'em but a lot of people do, and they are all the proof needed to show that the horror genre is doing just fine.

Of these films I've seen, I agree.

Originally Posted by fernando97echeverria

Zombieland is a black comedy, and none of the films you listed are good, original, praised or remotely groundbreaking.

Not so fast.


Cabin in the Woods - Haven't seen

Tucker & Dale - Haven't seen

Insidious - For a $1.5m budget this was a pretty good spook movie, innovative because not only was the child haunted but the spook his dad escaped in his own childhood... well... saving your child can come at a cost.
IMDB: Ratings: 6.8/10 from 63,782 users
RT: 64 liked it, Average Rating: 3.5/5, User Ratings: 59,161


Paranormal Activity - Budget: $15,000 & Box office: $193,355,800. People vote with their $$. It has spawned a profitable franchise. Innovative not for the urban ghost story but for the grateful avoidance of shaky-cam with an inexpensive production setup - unlike the found footage of 'Blair Witch.'
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/search/...mal%20Activity
IMDB: Ratings: 6.5/10 from 102,137 users
RT: 56 liked it, Average Rating: 3.3/5, User Ratings: 228,552


Let the Right One In - Wonderful re-imagining of the vampire tale not as the seductively powerful Gothic force but as a bitter-sweet melange of a near-immortal + disgusting predation + emotional development of children.
IMDB: Ratings: 8.0/10 from 105,847 users
RT: 89 liked it, Average Rating: 4.2/5, User Ratings: 48,445 <-- And you know how Americans detest anything where they're forced to read subtitles, thus... it was somehow worthy of an Americanized remake.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/let_me_in/
RT: 74 liked it, Average Rating: 3.7/5, User Ratings: 58,392


Zombieland - Taxonomically speaking, IMDB lists its genres as "Action | Comedy | Horror". The protagonists aren't running away from hordes of zombies, terrorized. For the first time in a film they're p!ssed and just dealing with them as they work to achieve some sense of family. George Romero et al weren't doing that.
IMDB: Ratings: 7.8/10 from 176,835 users
RT: 87 liked it, Average Rating: 3.1/5, User Ratings: 512,974


Planet Terror - I didn't care for it. It's just a silly modern interpretation revival of our '70s recollection of B- horror camp, and audiences appreciated it. There was a nice mini-movement going on there along with 'Death Proof', 'Machete', and 'Hobo with a Shotgun.'
IMDB: Ratings: 7.4/10 from 96,512 users
RT: 78 liked it, Average Rating: 3.7/5, User Ratings: 158,277

Saw - Budget. Franchise. 'Nuff said. It's a monster, and a well loved one at that.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/search/?q=saw
Moral dilemmas compelling guilty people to make a sickening choice between two evils. Clever.
IMDB: Ratings: 7.7/10 from 167,306 users
RT: 86 liked it, Average Rating: 3.7/5, User Ratings: 766,585

Dawn of the Dead (yes, the remake) - Haven't seen


28 Days Later - Effing running zombies! No more schlepping around! It's as innovative as the automobile and liberating as the cell phone.
IMDB: Ratings: 7.6/10 from 163,223 users
RT: 82 liked it, Average Rating: 3.6/5, User Ratings: 436,034


Those are largely good scores combined with healthy interest.
They can't legitimately be argued as not "good, original, praised or remotely groundbreaking".


That said, I also agree that MOST horror films are stupid dreck. HA!