Horror MOVIES

Ask any critic what their least favorite genre is and 70% of them with reply: Horror! The Horror genre is infamous for being bad, cheap and stupid. Well, it’s no surprise. Take a look at some of these titles: Vampire Vixens from Venus, Attack Of The Killer Refrigerator and Bordello Of Blood. For every Jaws there are seven Anacondas, for every The Exorcist there are ten Exorcist 2s. Many people dislike Horror films because they are often gory and depressing. Many people dislike Horror films because they are often silly and tongue-in-cheek. Then again, many people like them for those exact qualities. But a movie has to be more than gory or silly to be good. Take for instance gore-fests like Wishmaster or tongue-in-cheek movies like Bordello Of Blood! Ugh! I shudder at the thought of watching those again. But Gory flicks like Event Horizon or silly movies like Evil Dead 2 are great.

There are different types of horror films. I’ll discuss each.


The Slasher Flick or Dead Teenager Movies:

In 1979 a movie was released named Halloween. It was a very scary movie about, basically, a killer in a mask that murders baby-sitters. The film was dark in tone and bad in acting but it struck a chord with audiences and critics and became the top grossing indie film ever. It turned Jamie Lee Curtis and John Carpenter into acting and directing stars. Then came the backlash. Hollywood has a knack for taking an idea or style and doing it to death. They took the Slasher genre, created by Halloween, and re-did it many, many times. Movies like Friday The 13th and Halloween 2 were shoddy and cheap, yet they became huge hits. As the 80’s went on the movies got worse and worse and their box-office diminished as well. Slasher films were DEAD! Everyone was happy. Until 1996 when scribe Kevin Williamson penned Scream, a great, funny, scary movie that poked fun at how shallow and obvious Slasher films were. The film went on to be a huge sleeper hit. It grossed over 100 million dollars at the Box-Office. It was followed almost a year later by the terrific, I Know What You Did Last Summer, which reminded us about what we liked in the Original Halloween. I Know was a hit, as was Scream 2, a sequel even better than the original. Slasher films are back, but they won’t be for long. Sooner or later Hollywood will release too many of these movies and the entire genre will be flushed down the toilet...again.



Monster Movies:
Take a monster, a creature of any kind, put it in a strange setting and add a bunch of people to act as a buffet for the monster. That’s a traditional monster movie. A type of Horror that was revitalized in the 50’s by movies like The Blob, The Thing and The Fly. A lot of The ... Something movies. Then a resurgence of these movies in the 70's with Alien, Tentacles and of course Jaws, followed in the 80’s by Aliens (an even better sequel), a terrific remake of The Blob, The Fly, and The Thing.

The genre that couldn’t die went on into the 90’s with Alien³, Jurassic Park, and The Relic. The Monster Movie madness has become huge lately. In ‘97 we got the aforementioned Relic, Anaconda, Lost World, Mimic, Wishmaster, American Werewolf in Paris. That’s alot for one year. In ‘98 already we have had 2 movies, Phantoms and Deep Rising. Many more are slated for later this year.


Smart Horror:

Some Horror movies are smart, as opposed to some which are Deep Rising. HA! Smart Horror is usually very dramatic and occasionally slow. They rarely have to do with monsters or murderers, though some like Silence Of The Lambs, Mimic and Psycho, do. Most of these movies deal with the devil, Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, Devil’s Advocate, or Inner Turmoil, The Apartment, Mouth Of Madness, and Event Horizon. Most of the best Horror films are Smart Horror.

If I’m forgetting your favorite type of Horror please E-mail me. My address is at the bottom of the page.



The Dangers Of Horror:

Horror is a genre with many fans , though many of those go to far. Horror films naturally depict grizzly murders and events to provoke fear from the audience, but some people take it seriously. Cults have been created based on Horror movies and many murders have been committed that seem to mimic those from Scream, Warlock, Friday The 13th and Nightmare On Elm Street. Horror films can be dangerous. Horor films can also be dangerous to the viewer. Be very careful on your next visit to the video store and try to avoid movies that you’ve never heard of. Straight to video movies are usually garbage, e.g. Leprechaun 4, Jack-O, Frosty.