I just gotta know something...

[5-90]

What is the fixation with horror movies? It's almost as bad as sports - they're getting to be year-round, instead of just around Hallowe'en.

Honestly, are people just that into trying to be scared for no good reason? Not that the movies are even scary anymore - Hollyweird doesn't know how to do a good psychodrama to save their lives, and the movies are just too damned formulaic in the first place.

Really, the last movie that actually scared me was "Alien" - that was good. Most so-called "horror" movies put me to sleep, they're just that predictable!

Leaving aside the odd fixation on wanting to be scared (wha?) it's just that most so-called "horror" films are about as scary as watching an elderly accountant adding up expenses...

 

[GrimmJeeper]

the last horror movie i saw was the last elections, haven't seen much that spooked me since :dunno:

 

[Mesh]

It all went wrong when someone thought it was ok to have a PG-13 horror movie. It’s completely impossible to have this genre and rating mixed together.

 

[5-90]

It all went wrong when someone thought it was ok to have a PG-13 horror movie. It’s completely impossible to have this genre and rating mixed together.

Izzat so? I agree with your conclusion (although for me, gore isn't scary. True horror is found solely in the mind,) but I guess that's what people respond to. Don't know why.

But you're right - how can you have a horror movie (given the typical of the genre) when you've got to be sensitive to minors?

Doesn't negate the problem of horror movies being overrated, all too common, and sucking mightily.

 

[H8PVMT]

I've always been a HUGE horror movie fan, but also haven't seen a good one for years, but I've always leaned towards the old "B" horror movies that are more amusing, can't remember the title but there was an old famous black and white about a female ghost going after her ex and another lady in a mansion, more of a pscyhological thriller but barely any talking and you never heard or saw the ghost but was pretty freaky

 

[5-90]

I've always been a HUGE horror movie fan, but also haven't seen a good one for years, but I've always leaned towards the old "B" horror movies that are more amusing, can't remember the title but there was an old famous black and white about a female ghost going after her ex and another lady in a mansion, more of a pscyhological thriller but barely any talking and you never heard or saw the ghost but was pretty freaky

Ever listen to "Cheepnis" by Frank Zappa? Right up your alley, methinks - it's about "It Conquered the World", and B-movie horror in general.

 

[H8PVMT]

I have all his albums.....he taught me the importance of not going where the huskies go.

 

[nick86]

The 1st Saw movie was pretty good, but the sequels have gone downhill .

 

[H8PVMT]

The 1st Saw movie was pretty good, but the sequels have gone downhill .

still waiting for them to go to space

 

[beakie]

I've never been a fan of horror movies, not because I don't like the idea, but I just don't seem to be "horrified" by any of them.
my worst example would be paranormal activity, only saw the first one, but I couldn't believe how bad it was. slow, boring, uneventful, predictable...

maybe this thread could mention some of the better psycho thrillers/horror films people have seen.
I have nothing to submit sadly.

 

[FlexdXJ]

still waiting for them to go to space

Saw Vs. Predator? I'd like to see the predator rip that stupid clowns head off!

 

[tbburg]

'Not sure what the fixation with Horror movies in general is. Probably as 5-90 mentioned, people wanting to be scared(but in a safe way). Similar to roller-coasters I suppose. Give you a thrill/adrenalin rush without actually suffering through anything that could hurt you. 'Get that feel-good endorphin rush.

I quit watching horror movies when I realized they were more comedy the horror(at least to me) When you find yourself chuckling at the cute chick getting killed/dismembered/whatever, because you were looking forward to the event, well it's time to find something else to do for entertainment(admittedly most of the "victims" usually aren't sympathetic characters and you can't wait for them to start dying.)

Horror movies seem to fall into two categories. They're some kind of supernatural thing that the victims are powerless to do anything about, or(more often) the victims have some kind of willful helplessness that doesn't allow them to escape. Both styles require a much larger then normal suspension of disbelief then Hollywood fare normally requires.

(The "scary movie" franchise summed this up pretty well in the prologue to the first movie: Carmine Electra runs down a hall past a side table. There's a gun, a couple of knives, a hand grenade,... and a banana on the table. She grabs the banana and keeps running.)

 

[Johnnie Walker]

I appreciate a decent amount of horror movies. I really do wish they were "scary" as they were intended to be.
What I don't understand is most movies in the past decade or so. Lack of ideas, sequels to bad movies, etc. Now, its all about the money, they don't care how good the movie is. But because people are sheep they continually go see aweful movies.

Evil Dead FTW!

 

[old_man]

Nor really horror, but I liked Sphere. You didn't know where it was going.

 

[5-90]

Nor really horror, but I liked Sphere. You didn't know where it was going.

Yeah - Crichton does a good job with twists every now and again.

You know what I'd like to see made into a short? Stephen King's "Survivor Type." Straight psychodrama - problem is, Hollyweird would find a way to screw it up, just like they did with The Running Man. Or The Relic (they cut out the possibility of the sequel, and eliminated the single most interesting character in the novel!)

Bruce Campbell does a good job with the "comedy horror" think - the entire "Evil Dead" series is an excellent example of that (particularly "Army of Darkness"!) But most so-called "horror" movies these days you couldn't pay me enough to watch, they're just that boring to me. I might catch one because I enjoy a particular actor (I sat and watched R. Lee Ermey in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, for instance,) but even then I wouldn't be inclined to pay for watching those movies in most cases - the overall movie itself is just too damned boring.

Sorry, but when you can plot out the whole movie in your head in the first five minutes, and maybe actually be surprised once in two hours, the movie needs work!

 

[Crawler]

We need more Alfred Hitchcock!

They're out there...

Some of Clive Barker's films aren't too bad. I liked the first couple of "Hell Raiser" installments.

Some sci-fi qualifies for me, as well. Original version of "War of the Worlds", modern version of "The Thing" to name a couple.

 

[Jeepman401]

my ex GF loved horror movies, and I didn't have to go. A couple of times of saying when a character was going to die, and being correct most of the time got me out of it.
Of course I also got kicked out of a haunted house for greeting the actors before they could jump out and scare people.

 

[5-90]

We need more Alfred Hitchcock!

They're out there...

Some of Clive Barker's films aren't too bad. I liked the first couple of "Hell Raiser" installments.

Some sci-fi qualifies for me, as well. Original version of "War of the Worlds", modern version of "The Thing" to name a couple.

They're doing another iteration of "The Thing" - it's supposed to have happened just before John Carpenter's version of things. May be interesting. Ever read the original "Who Goes There?" by John Campbell? Good story.

I used to have the original broadcast of WotW on vinyl - may still have it in storage somewhere (it was a radio station copy.)

The only Clive Barker I really enjoyed reading was The Great and Secret Show - long read, but pretty good.

I've got mixed feeling about going to see "The Mist" - Stephen King is routinely butchered in moviemaking. In my high school psych class, I did a paper on "The Mechanics of Madness: Insanity in the Fiction of Stephen King" using "Survivor Type", Rage, The Long Walk, and Roadwork as source material (probably a couple of others, but those were the primary four.) I should have sent Mr. King a copy - the paper was well-received! Got an A...

I'd like to see Rage done into a movie, but there are two primary reasons it won't happen:

1) Hollyweird won't touch it, given recent events (since Columbine)
2) King himself wants to see the story going out of print, even though the FBI didn't have a problem with the book (I view it as akin to laying all of the blame for the killing of John Lennon at the feet of J. D. Salinger.)

Pity - it's probably my favourite King story - period. Then again, I do enjoy his works under the Bachman pseudonym...

 

[bchulett]

We need more Alfred Hitchcock!

They're out there...

Some of Clive Barker's films aren't too bad. I liked the first couple of "Hell Raiser" installments.

Some sci-fi qualifies for me, as well. Original version of "War of the Worlds", modern version of "The Thing" to name a couple.

+1 ... a few of my favorites.

I love a good sci-fi flick or horror movie, remember the Night Gallery series and Trilogy of Terror with Karen Black? Also some good ones were Hitchiker horror movies and Duel with Dennis Weaver.

good stuff...

.

 

[bigalpha]

Jaws.