Im annoyed with all this watering down of the horror

[digitaldeath]

When I write I try to keep on the edge of reality. Never having met, or ever expect to meet a vampire or werewolf I redefined man's conception. They are invisible in mirrors, victims are white. However fear drains all the blood from the skin, they reclaim souls, tearing them out of a human shell through the eyes as a party trick. Guilt, not fear of death but fear of punishment make people susceptible to attack. Normally they are invisible until fear sensitises eyesight but they have access to minds during sleep, nightmares that kill. So victims may not have two holes in the neck by they are driven mad, maybe commit suicide or die of fright. Until someone proves that ghosts do not exist they are more believable than vampires. Especially as governments suppress information about thing they want kept secret.
The release of information contrary to public order.
Don't be afraid to shoot me down in flames, I'm probably already burning anyway.

[fnord33]

I am a big fan of horror comedies, well done creepies like Barker and Lovecraft, and extreme horror. I have literally seen thousands of horror movies since I was a kid. I'll give anything a chance, but these days I'm watching almost every horror film I get in fast forward. It started after the first few hundred when I would see a low budget crapfest with no plot and I'd want to skip to the death scenes and then progressed to watching 15-20 movies in an hour. I basically just watch long enough to get a feel for the quality of the writing and violence then decide whether to take it out and try another or fast forward to the eye candy. If it's worth watching I save it for later and give it the respect it deserves, but most horror that's coming out these days (especially in the U.S.) is just the same old boobs and blood with no plot. Most people don't even try anymore. The lack of originality makes me especially sad because I've written at least five original screenplays which will never be made that are at least fifty times better than 95% of the crap I get on DVD. I'm not saying that out of arrogance either. I just mean that a lot of crap is made and released just because they know that the hardcore fans will buy and watch anything just in case it's good. I really can't tell anymore what's going to be decent and what's crap without at least seeing a trailer and about the only way that you see a trailer for indi horror is to buy/rent the DVD. You can't even trust reviews anymore because there are so many schools of thought amongst the super jaded horror community that you can't find a steady reviewer who you'll agree with more than half of the time. It sucks, but I don't really see a solution to the problem. There are enough people out there writing and making horror films out of pure love of the genre to keep me from giving up on it, but I don't think that good horror will ever make a resurgence in the mainstream if for no other reason than the general populous can't handle extreme horror. There's no money in it. I think that the best we can hope for is another William Castle, but if he is out there nobody will let him make a movie because nobody will take a chance on ingenuity anymore. Mass marketing has all but killed the horror genre and if you think about it you can see it doing the same thing in every other aspect of our modern culture. It reminds me of the newspeak from 1984 the way that everything is being refined and reduced to the lowest common denominator.

Forgive me. I'll stop ranting now. I had a root canal today and I'm kind of out of my head 


Let me make it up to you by recommending a few films that I've seen recently that I thought were decent and a few favorites:

Funny:
Dead Snow
Feast 1-2-3
Hanger (a lot of people hated this, but it reminded me of old troma)
Murder Party
Blood Car

Serious:
Pontypool
Naked Blood
Al Night Long series
Calvaire
Dead Girl
Dead Doll / love object
In the Mouth of Madness
The Signal
Grace
Thirst (Park)
August underground
Inside
Frontier(s)
Denti
Antichrist (Lars von trier)

[Rev. Austin]

It annoys me too that utter crap gets churned out purely because there's a demand for it, and there's only a demand for it because it's all that gets churned out 

I watched Pontypool recently - it's amazing!  And In The Mouth of Madness is one of my favourite films.  Clearly, fnord, you have impeccable taste 

[fnord33]

Thanks.   

[sadistboy6vi6]

you people should read the vampire chronicles by anne rice....they're not as soft as the twilight stuff, but yeah, the first book came out in 1976, so vampire went soft a long time ago...

[delph_ambi]

I suspect 'we people' read Ann Rice long ago and moved on. I find her a bore. All her novels read like synopses that she might get to fill out one day. 'Interview' made a good film, mind. No complaints there.

[delboy]

All her novels read like synopses that she might get to fill out one day.

I agree... but imagine "Interview" filled out... Now there would be a book to make you run away screaming...

[sadistboy6vi6]

ok, anne rice was a bad example, the saw movies, or paranormal activity, whats scary about those?? I find them very entertaining

[fnord33]

I like the saw movies. They aren't my favorite thing in the world, but it's definitely the best mainstream horror franchise going at the moment. I hated paranormal activity though. IMO, it was a direct rip off of Momento Mori with all the good bits taken out. Unfortunately, MM hasn't made it to DVD yet, so when it does everybody's going to think it's ripping off Paranormal Activity.