When I say "they," I really do mean the entirety of the genre.
It blows my mind people pay money to go see a movie they know they're going to regret seeing. When is the last time you had a friend go to a horror movie and gave it a glowing review?
All I ever hear is about how not scary it was, about how bad the acting is, and about how predictable the plot and deaths and gore are. The worst part is whenever there was a genuinely original one, inevitably seven quintillion bajillicuttion sequels get released, each exponentially worse than the last.
This rant was brought on by a friend updating her status on Facebook with how crappy she thought Insidious was. Well no duh. First of all, I hadn't even heard of it and I watch absurd amounts of television. When there's THAT much of a lack of advertising, especially from a movie directed by a guy who directed a film lauded by folks as being the savior of the genre (SAW, for the record), it makes you wonder. Secondly,
IT'S A HORROR FILM.
The entire premise is: Go to movie, see freaky things, get spooked, squeeze your significant other. How is this achieved? Excitement through near sex scene, over-the-top gorey deaths, and atrocious acting. It's formulaic, something quite hilariously ironic in a genre that should be all about finding new and exciting ways of messing with your head.
As a concept, horror films cannot achieve what they want. What horror movie makers ought to do is try and make a movie that on the surface looks like another type of movie. A rom-com, an action thriller, whatever. Then, when the audience gets sucked in, do some really messed up crapola and watch people's stomachs turn over. Remember how you felt at the end of The Departed? I'm talking that level of "Oh god I can't believe that, what a bummer." That's true horror. That's the kind of stuff that's genuinely scary. It's not the type of thing that makes you jump and gets your heart racing: It's the kind of thing that never leaves you and keeps you up at night for a few days.
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