I am from a generation that appreciates a good scare, and I do tend to scare my wits out. However, with the same story and the same phantom pacing around the darkened house, my horror movie enthusiasm has waned.
The majority of horror films are based on two primary principles:
1. They must elicit the viewer’s fear/horror response.
2. They must suspend a person’s disbelief, at least temporarily, in order to work outside of humanity’s domain of knowledge. For example, even if we know there are no such things as werewolves, vampires, or demons, in reality, the makeup artists will use their magic, or CGI these days, to send shivers down our spines.
So, why is the Horror genre suffering from drought? Although I must point out that the Insidious and Conjuring franchises have attempted to break free from the shell.
- Directions and filmmakers are not trying to do something new: Instead of using solid old fashioned special effects, they rely too heavily on CGI effects. They simply make the baddies look so terrible that you have nightmares about them.
- Remakes are made consistently: With films like Scream, Ring, Grudge, Nightmare on Elm Street, and others, they rehash the same ideas over and over in order to generate money.
- 9 out of 10 times the story is almost identical: For example, A family of 4–5 family members move only to a new house and are faced with paranormal incidents. Or, buy a certain thing which is possessed.
- Running scenes always end up with the Protagonists falling: I’ll run faster than Usain Bolt or even faster than light if a person is chasing me. But, more often than not, we see them falling and being captured by the Antagonists.
- Too Predictable – Either a Happy Ending or Sequel Sneak-peek: When you watch Grudge, for example, you know that no matter how many investigations they do to learn about the ghost, these people will perish in some way. In addition, the mirror, lake, beneath the bed, and closet scenes are all over the place.
- When they see a creepy kid, they try to befriend them: Why? You don’t treat your family well, and now you’re attempting to make friends with a lonely and strange kid. What the hell is going on here? You don’t play with such kids.
- Ghosts now are Technology Savvy: As a result, if you’re around them, network problems are bound to arise. They’ll even record you and send you videos to make you cringe. Ugh!
- Haunted Dolls are not scary anymore, they are unnecessary: Why are you attempting to sabotage a child’s most beloved toy? Allow them to be oblivious. Chucky, for example, was not frightening; rather, he was revolting and vicious. Annabelle, on the other hand, wasn’t really frightening because she merely sat in a rocking chair and rocked.
- The worst sort of Horror Movies are about Satanists and Cults: Pentagrams, candles, chanting and human or animal sacrifices isn’t scary, it’s irrelevant and silly.
- Zombies movies have become more about Nuclear Weapons and Apocalypse: They’re not frightening; instead, they’re all about the carnage, brains, and amazing weapons. For example, Army of the Dead was about a group of intelligent zombies living in Las Vegas who were going to be blown to bits by nuclear missiles. The film was a complete letdown with a foregone conclusion.
- Jump Scares are not scary, they are surprising: When you’re watching a movie and a demon appears behind the heroine, she glances around and sees no one, but when she’s caught off guard, the demon appears in front of her. It’s time to ditch the phoney jump scares in favour of some genuine dread.
- You just outgrew the “Getting scared” phase: Despite the fact that horror is my favourite genre, I have never been scared by a film. It’s all a work of fiction and yes, it can bother or unnerve me, but I haven’t been afraid of a movie since I was a child. I have rewatched several movies that used to terrify me as a youngster but now bore me.
I’ve always fantasized that if I ever appeared in a horror film, I’d be doing the same fumbling things or not. And I’ve concluded that if someone is in my house, I’ll go check it out because I’m not afraid of my own home.