When you think of your favorite horror movie or one you’d consider a classic, odds are they didn’t come out in the past ten years or so. Most will bring up “The Exorcist” (1973), “Psycho” (1960), “Friday the 13th” (1980), and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974). While those are all older movies, you’ll hear some recent ones as well, such as “Scream” (1996) and “The Sixth Sense” (1999).
Now the whole point of this is what happened to good scary horror movies? I honestly think Hollywood has lost its originality due to the fact that I have a hard time (and I know many others have too) showing any sign of fear at modern horror flicks. I think the last film that actually creeped me out was “The Ring” (2002). While I enjoyed “The Ring,” it was a remake, so it really wasn’t anything new. The genre has always had its ups and downs, but it seems that lately it’s been going south. I happen to think there are three specific reasons that there has been such a downfall.
1) Remakes. Horror films have always been remade here and there, but nowhere near to the extent of the past ten years. It all started in the early 2000’s with the wave of Asian remakes. Hollywood had a hit remaking “The Ring” in 2002, pulling in 129 million domestically.
Following its success, “The Grudge” was remade making 110 million domestically. While I have no problem with remakes, Hollywood continued the wave of Asian horror remakes all the way up to this past year.
Looking at the top fifteen horror movies of 2008, five of the fifteen were Asian remakes. The highest grossing one was “The Eye,” making only $31 million. Studios don’t understand that these films aren’t making the money they were six years ago. While I’m sure they’ll eventually make a profit, one day with DVD rentals, it’s surprising that they keep putting these films out while they’re not making a somewhat instant profit. The original movies that these films were based on were all hits, showing that there’s definitely a cultural difference. Movies shouldn’t be remade just based on the fact that they were hits somewhere else. If you want to see the movie, go with the original.
2) Reboots. I’ll start of by saying that there’s a huge difference between a remake and a reboot. Gus Van Sant’s 1998 “Psycho” was a remake. The 2009 version of “Friday the 13th” was a reboot. A reboot is taking a series that has been long since retired and bringing the premise and characters back to life in a new story.
I’m not going to lie though; I enjoyed the reboot of “Friday the 13th.” It had gore, laughs, cardboard characters and a few jumps.everything the original series had. But that’s the sad thing. I should be getting excited to see something fresh and original and not something that has been “rebooted” from a series that has been dead for fifteen years.
“Halloween” has been rebooted as well and was a complete let down critically and box office wise. In early June they’ll start production on a reboot of “The Nightmare on Elm Street” series because they’re hoping to recreate the success of the new “Friday the 13th” movie and because they’re completely out of ideas.
3) Computer Generated Imagery (CGI). This term shouldn’t even be used when it comes to this genre. In the Universal Studio’s monster movie days, there were plenty of films that called upon the use of makeup artists to create a realistic death or a monster/creature because there were no other ways around it. While not every film uses these poor computer generated graphics, some will, and it completely ruins what could have been a really good flick.
The most recent that comes to mind is the 2007 remake “I Am Legend.” It was a hit not only at the box office, but also with the general audience. It did well and I’m glad it did. It was a well-told entertaining film.
The only thing that ruined it for me was the look of the “creatures.” While the movie was flowing well at numerous times and keeping a nice pace, as soon as one of the infected came on to screen, I couldn’t help but concentrate on how unrealistic they looked.
Now I’m not saying CGI is bad. It works really well in plenty of summer blockbuster films, but when it’s done badly, it’ll ruin the movie. When you can easily tell something isn’t real, it takes the magic and you out of the film and makes you focus on how good the movie could have been. If you’re watching a horror film and can tell something is fake, you won’t be scared and that kind of defeats the purpose.
But overall it’s a shame that horror films are becoming a joke when there have been so many great and entertaining ones in the past. Maybe one day Hollywood will go back to focusing on pleasing the audience as opposed to pleasing their wallets. But I’m not sure if it’ll happen anytime soon.