Horror Films, What has become of them.

[Dies Irae]

Realizing that many may not like horror or love it, I still feel like writing about the stupidity and bad writing that the majority of horror movies in recent years has been bringing to the film world.

The first issue i thought of came to me when i was watching Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead, which was the annoying and reoccurring theme of the Immortal Villain, in this case, Three fingers, the hillbilly that just won't die. Now in this movie, he was cut repeatedly over the course which might cause impaired movement at the most but then he was speared through the chest, stabbed through the skull and thrown on top of a crashed car which proceeded to explode moments later. At the conclusion, he came back to kill someone just before the credits rolled.

My problem is, he got stabbed with a hook, through the jaw and brain, considering the possibility it was even survivable then he would have lost most of his motor control, that is of course if he could survive being burned alive afterwards.

The next has been driving me insane every time the old campers lost in the woods and similar stories come around, why is it that the girls always get kidnapped, its old and boring, hell the one of the party gets kidnapped but not killed like everyone else the killer has come across annoys me. Its a plot point yeah i get it, gotta have a reason to make the hero go to the killers lair.

Then the hero gets there, somehow forgets he has a weapon and almost dies but gets saved by the girl he was rescuing, now personally, if this situation ever happened to me in real life, least id have the knowledge that these evil people just can't die, so ill behead him before i leave, but not in the movies, he looks dead but don't worry lets just go, which leads to them having to kill him for the third time in the movie. Have they not seen Zombieland? Double Tap, don't forget to Double Tap.

All of this is present in every horror movie that encompasses the camper or small group of friends doing whatever stupid thing in a isolated and cut off from civilization environment, but hell even in towns and cities they still have the same cliches.

Then theirs the decision making, something tells me that the brains of horror writers don't understand that a normal human who has witnessed the death of their closest friends would not decide to enter a house in the area that the killings to place, nor would they go into a dark room or check out a mysterious noise, if it was me, i'd just find a weapon and run like hell, but that doesn't work either due to the next point.

Which is of course, the fine print of the horror villain application sheet, All villains must have an engineering degree for the use of building traps, Be an expert marksman for gun and bow use, be an Olympic athlete to outrun speeding cars and of course be able to see in the dark. It makes no sense, the villains seem to be able to do everything without fail, take out a guy running in a forest with a single arrow or shot, outrun a car that is doing top speed, even better they just have the ability to teleport themselves but no one knows it. 

Bad acting plays a role to, but given horror isn't going to appeal to the masses like say Avatar or PotC, so unknown actors get chosen a lot, but even then someone off the street could convey emotion better than half the idiots that star in these movies.

Guess that wraps up the rant of this particular topic, but what do you think, do you agree or disagree with the points i made, or what would you do to salvage the genre? I know that there's not a lot of fresh plots you could do with horror, but i think that would be fixed if the writers figured out that blood and guts isn't what makes a horror, neither does sex, but for some reason nearly every horror has a sex scene. Won't say anything about the Token black guy, can't get around that, its like a horror movie tradition.

My last annoyed by thought, why does nobody carry a cellphone when they go camping or on a roadtrip, i mean isn't that the one thing you make sure not to forget.

[Softlier]

I'm not much a fan of Horror films, probably in large part because of some of the deficiencies that you mention.  I think a lot of the weaknesses are the direct result of the fact that these tend to be very plot driven Genre fiction.  For the most part, the makers do not have a message (beyond don't walk in the woods alone at night) and for the few that do, it may "spoil" the movie for the key audience.  The makers are by in large crafting work for sale, a real difference vs artists trying to create some vision or understanding.  Making it for sale does not motivate the makers to the airy heights of perfection when a 70% job will sell 95% as well, and be much easier and cheaper to make.  Grizzly images and "somewhat" imaginative methods of decapitation, defenestration, and disembowelment suffice in place of unique plot and character development.  Not needed, so not given much thought.

To be successful, at best a horror genre film needs only draw you in enough to create a willful participation in the suspension of disbelief, and if these are your diet, then you are perhaps willing to suspend disbelief on a pretty thin gruel of premise and logical sounding narrative explication.  Anything else requires skill, and writers, and both cost money...

Even 10 years ago, cell phones were less ubiquitous.  20 years ago, almost unheard of.  There were lots of pay phones...  I recently re-watched one of the Tom Clancy / Jack Ryan movies, clear and present danger, I think.  At one point the IRA cuts the wires to the house, cutting off phones, trapping his family inside.  This is about a 10 year old movie.  Inside the house are a pack of Washington politicos, and I'm thinking not a singe ONE has a cell phone?  C'mon.  More than half the people I know carry 2 - one for work, one personal, usually different carriers.  Except in period pieces, it will be the last time anyone "cuts the wires" to cut off phone communication in a major motion picture.

I find myself more tolerant of poor quality in Genre's that I like.  I am much more willing to accept bad acting, poor script, and massive leaps of faith in science fiction and fantasy movies than in horror.  Much more willing to overlook the weaknesses and "enjoy the story."  Firefly/Serenity, Jericho, Walking dead are all genre fiction with flaws that sometimes outweigh the charms.  But I LIKE the genre, so I am more willing to ignore the man behind the curtain.  Old Science fiction ages little better than old horror, but I would still pick Hitchcock's Birds, or Romero's Dead over most modern horror.  But Star Wars and Silent Running feel pretty dated now.  Suppose I will have to go back to the original Andromeda Strain, and Heston's Omega Man and Soylent Green to see if they have held up to the test of time, or are equally thin these days.

[OtakuDee]

I agree with you Dies, being a big horror and B/Cult movie junkie myself.

Unfortunately what dictates the cliches, overserialization and all out "corruption" of a particular movie or franchise is box office sales and fan perspectives.

here's a classic example:

In 1978, Halloween was intended as a one-off horror movie. The mood was established in a certain way, with tons of the now over-done slasher cliches, despite many of them being invented or used differently here. It also had much suspense, mystery, and an open ended conclusion. It also had 2 sympathetic characters, The leading lady, Laurie Strode, an innocent babysitter, and Dr. Loomis, Michael Myers' old Doctor who wants to put an end to him after realizing his escaped patient was unsympathetically evil and beyond any from of help.

While director John Carpenter was reluctant, he decided to end Michael Myers night of terror with Halloween II in 1980, which took place minutes after the first one. The movie was much more graphically violent, which missed the point of the off camera, and "imagined" kills of the first movie, but it was slightly excuseable, as Michael was to be killed off in the end.  He BLEW UP in the hospital. That's a conclusion no amount of retconning can fix.

Carpenter decided to make Halloween an anthology series, with a new story revolving around Halloween every year, so Halloween III: Season of the Witch was made in 1982. This time the story revolved around a mystery of toymaker's obsession of bringing back the darker, sacrificial roots  of Halloween, by killing children with toy masks. It was weird, but awesome and slightly more original than the other movies coming out at the time.

Unfortunately like many out there, Critics and Fans missed the point of Halloween III, as it was panned and considered the retarded stepchild of the franchise, only because Michael Myers was nowhere to be seen in the movie. Why? BECAUSE HE"S EFFING DEAD!!!

So they dropped that really cool concept, and brought him back in Halloween 4 to Ressurection (the 8th movie) each loading the movie with stock killing fodder, horror cliches, and making Michael near immortal. Then there was the Reboots by Rob Zombie that gave Michael a back story and a "sympathetic" explanation, which sucked the mystery and suspense out of the character.

I often equate the Horror genre as being the "Heavy Metal" of movies, because both these genre's have fans and producers that innovate from it, or miss the point entirely, and try to one-up each other.

Heavy Metal music often is locked in a contest of who is the fastest, heaviest, or in recent times (with the rise of Death Metal) the most brutal and hardcore.

This goes the same for horror movies. Many are obsessed with capturing what  is popular, and mooching off the success of the more original movies.

Horror to me, is not just about scares and gore, but the over all horrors of the world, like just going to a freak show is horror to me.

I binged on alot of horror last month so if anyone needs a reccomendation of some good movies, I can help cater to your tastes. Whether you want a cheap laugh with The Toxic Avenger, or your're looking into the depths of absolute depravity with Japan's extremely unsettling "Guinea Pig" series (which kick's Hostel and Saw's ass in the graphic violence department) gimme a ring ^.^

[BlisteredBlood]

I guess when you put it like this, I suppose the question must be asked. What has become of our beloved genre of movies these days? If I can channel Egoraptor here for a moment, I suppose the average movie goer these days has uttered this particular phrase so many numbers of times throughout the years that films involving monsters, a zombie apocalypse, an ancient evil, or what-have-you has been around. You know what that phrase is, ladies and gents?

I'll bet you dollars to donuts that whenever you're in a movie theater or whenever you're at home watching a DVD, you're guaranteed to hear that phrase uttered at least three to five times.

As an addition, you can also chalk this up to sequels, prequels, prequels within prequels and any variation of the aforementioned terms. This sort of thing seems to happen quite a lot with video games as well.