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I Hate (Modern) Horror Films |
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Friday, 13 October 2006 |
By D. W. O'Dell
 A friend of mine pointed something out to me the other day that took me by surprise. I said I wasn’t interested in seeing Halloween on DVD despite the fact it was on someone’s “101 films you have to see before you die” list. He said, “Yeah, but you hate horror films.”
To see if he was correct, I looked up the 50 highest rated horror films at Internet Movie Database. Of the top 50, I had seen only fourteen (although I think I should get credit for having seen Evil Dead 2, as I have seen Evil Dead and Army of Darkness (Evil Dead 3). And of those fourteen films only one, 2001’s The Others, post-dated 1976.
Some of the other fourteen are among my favourite films ever. Jaws is a masterpiece. Psycho is a cudgel from a director usually associated with scalpels. The original King Kong remains one of the most effective action films of all time (and is still superior to all remakes). Freaks is chilling, as is the original Night of the Living Dead.
But modern horror? I hate to dismiss an entire genre with a broad brush, but it seems to me the technology of movie making has given film makers too many tools to deliver shock and gore without the chills. It seems like almost every week a new horror film opens up without being available for review by critics. They’re all just slice and dice efforts without any real attempt at psychological horror.
Recent horror films like Hostel and Saw make no pretence at realism. The film is merely a device for the director to put to celluloid whatever shocking imagery his brain can concoct. After watching The Cell, which was significantly better than most efforts in the genre, I decided to abjure from all films featuring psychopaths with seemingly infinite resources who only exist to torture women and create intricate puzzles for the authorities.
Of course films like Hostel and Saw weren’t on IMDB‘s top 50 horror films list. I said that I had seen one film on the list made after 1976 - within the past twenty years; I should add that out of 50 films only fourteen qualified. Of those fourteen, nearly half were produced overseas (I’m including English language films like The Others and Shaun of the Dead with foreign language films such as Batoru Rowaniani).
Among the rest of the fourteen there are four sequels or re-makes (Aliens, The Thing (1982), Evil Dead 2, Dawn of the Dead). That leaves only four original American-made horror films in the last twenty years in the top 50. Two of those are based on Stephen King novels, The Shining and Misery. So...in the past twenty years the only top 50 original American horror films not based on the works of Stephen King boil down to Alien and Halloween.
Maybe there aren’t that many good horror films that I’m missing.
My favorite horror film of all time? The Wicker Man. Nothing supernatural happens, no gore, no special effects (unless you count Britt Ekland dancing naked). Just Christopher Lee being reasonable. As Count Floyd would say, “Oooh, scary boys and girls.” |
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