A question for horror fans...

[Demonoid Phenomenon]

I've been watching (or, in most cases, trying to watch) a lot of the movies included in the AFTER DARK: MOVIES TO DIE FOR series.
So far out of the 7-10 I've seen - and this defies the law of averages something fierce - they ALL suck.
Seriously.
And I don't mean just normal suck...I'm talking living in Suck House on Suck Street in Suck Village in Suck State in Suck Country on Suck Planet in Suck Universe.
At least ONE of these things has to be good, and while I still have quite a few more to go, I'm not feeling too optimistic.
The best one so far has been DARK RIDE, but that's faint praise. It was a valiant effort, but it just ended up on a flat note for me.
THE ABANDONED had some creepy imagery, but it was dull, dull, dull.
BORDERLAND started out ultra intense and then nothing happened for an hour.
TOOTH & NAIL was just lame.
And so forth and so on.

I'm not hard to please. Really, I'm not. I'm nowhere near a snob when it comes to movies. A good movie is a good movie, no matter if it was made in 1921 or just yesterday.
I love the silents and I love slashers.
I love the subtle chillers like SIXTH SENSE and I love the violent artistry of Dario Argento (SUSPIRIA is a freakin' masterpiece).
I want to love these movies, but I can't because they bite. Hard.

Am I jaded?
Or is horror on a downswing and desperately in need of a shot in the arm?
The market seems to be flooded with new horror product, but 99% of it seems to be grade-a crap.

[Eireann]

It needs a shot in the arm, Demonoid. I, too, love horror, but since it's so popular, the film industry is just cranking out grade-Z flicks to appeal to the lowest common denominator, knowing that some people will watch anything. We need better stories! People who can act them! Directors who can utilize the actors' talent! No more cliches!

Yeah.

[LionMan]

For me, to find movies worth watching, read recommendations and reviews on imdb or netflix (if you use them). You'll find you have to go through a lot of crap but you learn to read reviews to find out which ones you'll like and which ones you won't. For me, I like the 70s-early 80s movies the best. Personally, I'm not impressed by fancy graphics. I've liked movies where you can see the microphones and made on obviously low budgets. OTOH, I've seen enough high budget movies that are complete crap.

[Eireann]

One of the problems I have with modern horror - hell, with many modern MOVIES - is that, rather than being original, they're remakes of older and better films. I hate that. I hate hate hate the way people bandy the word "remake" about as though simply because a film came out this year, it's better than one that came out 20 years ago, or even five.

"Night of the Living Dead" - remade. More than once. Absolute failure.
"Psycho" - remade. Abysmal.

...and the list goes on. I wish Hollyweird would learn that imitation is NOT the sincerest form of flattery.

[Demonoid Phenomenon]

Lionman, I've read lots and lots of feedback, especially on IMDB, and I've found that opinions are all over the place.
Movies I love are ripped apart and movies I hated are praised to the heavens.
So reviews mean nothing to me other than just as something to read when I'm bored.
I'm a huge fan of 70's and 80's movies myself. I consider those decades among the best ever for the cinema.

Eireann, no more cliches...I guess it doesn't hurt to dream.

[AnqeiicDemise]

For the most part, Horror Movies today are simply... gore-fests with no plot and aimed to crank out as much mulah as they can.

Reminds me of the horror b-flicks that were strung out in the late 60s-70s where companies simply re-released cheesy flicks with soft-to-hardcore pornography scenes that made no sense because, well, it sold.

I recomend for you to skip-countries and watch the horror flicks they have to offer. And I mean, watch it in that native language with the subtitles on type-stuff.

Japanese horror flicks are *amazing* in their natural context. I get AZN and a bunch of little independent movies on my 'for free on demand' bundle. I just watched The Eye the other day and I was left breathless. The subtle horror and the direction was amazing.

I saw The Eye anglo-version with Jessica Alba and I couldn't finish it.

The same thing happend with The Ring & One Missed Call. The originals are better because of the ambiance in which it was filmed. The director for The Ring had it right (can't recall his name at this time.) when he said the film lost most of its charm in the anglo-version because of this:

1) American living space is larger. The feeling of 'you have no where to hide' is not present. Its hard to translate that aspect when the heroine can run away seven feet from the television whereas in Japanese apartments she'd be backed up into a wall within seconds. One Missed Call's freak out isn't the same -- in the orignal movie, the girl (can't remember her name either. I'm in the middle of Anne Bronte's Tenant of Wildfell Hall so the brain's stuck in England) sees the 'one missed call' message with her own telephone number on it. She freaks, takes out the battery, it rings again. She screams and chucks it across the room and tries to back up from the ringing/vibrating thing by backing up into the kitchen. When the camera backs up, you can tell she's merely moving a few feet away from her bed and is stuck, has nowhere else to hide without leaving her apartment. She is paralized with fear.

The situation--every day events twisted with a sense of paranoia, make these movies fun. I was SCARED S*ITLESS OF ANSWERING MY OWN CELLPHONE! ... for weeks.

Its why Rosemary's Baby was such a freakin' hit. Was she paranoid? Were her in-laws really this satanic couple who raped her and sacrificed her first-born to satan?

Slash gore is fun, but its hardly horror in my book. Unfortunately, its all Hollywood really wants to produce -- even when they got something going on, there's got to be blood and gore somewhere. Its kind of sad.

/jumps off the soapbox

[Demonoid Phenomenon]

Oh, I'm all about Asian horror!
THE RING whet my appetite big time.
I was totally freaked out the first time I saw JU-ON (The Grudge). I was one big goosebump the whole time.
And I agree about THE EYE. I haven't seen the remake yet, but the original is extremely well-done and is one of my favorites.

The only exception so far of a remake improving on an original (in my opinion) is PULSE. The original PULSE was slow-moving and had long scenes that seemed to drag forever.
The US remake tightened it up and retained all of it's strengths.

[AnqeiicDemise]

Ju-On was freakin' awesome too! The dvd my ex-room mate (the only thing she ever did was sign up for that blookbuster program like net flix) had both versions on it.

I couldn't sit through the whole thing in the remake so I viewed the original on my own. For a while there, I was scared of my own hair (like, shed hair, usually clogging the sink) for a bit.

Spanish horror's pretty good too. A little too much on the whole good vs evil thing (religion's huge in Spain, go figs) and it gets a bit old sometimes. I haven't scouted latin horror for a while, but then again, I'm scared its going to be pretty much like the American market since its so looked up on.

When I get home, D.P I'll dig up the link to this guy's one-man-army of horror. He essentially is watching and reviewing horror flicks to reach the '300 movies in 300 days' goal. He has some really good ones named (and some really cheesy ones too for that matter) that can give you teh heads up on what to look out for.

[Demonoid Phenomenon]

Yes, please share this link!

[gunsage]

With me, well...it'll take a bit of 'splaining. :p When I was young, I wasn't allowed to watch R-rated movies. Of course, that means I missed out on virtually every horror movie out there and only within the past couple of years have I caught up on Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, etc. It seems that, especially lately, horror movies and suspense movies in general have been very hit/miss.

For example, I loved the Saw movies. The Ring was good and so was The Grudge. But the sequels to both The Ring and The Grudge I got bored watching. Then there's movies like Darkness Falls and The Boogeyman. Good concepts, lots of buildup...then ZOMG LET'S HURRY UP AND FINISH THE SCRIPT WHILE DRUNK SO WE HAVE A CRAPPY ENDING! Nice.

Then you also have stuff like Jason X, Freddy vs. Jason, and the Final Destination movies. Jason X was good, but very cheesy. Screw the vs...there were a couple of good kills, but it was a crappy concept all around and very cheesy. The original Final Destination was good. Maybe a little too good. I couldn't watch the second or third. :eek:

Personally, I like scary games more than I like scary movies. Now, if only they could come out with more of those. :p Well, I suppose I shouldn't jump the gun on that...Silent Hill Origins was okay, I suppose. So there's still hope.

[Demonoid Phenomenon]

gunsage, there's a new horror game out that I have yet to purchase, though it sounds pretty good. It's called THE LOST CROWN.
Heard of it? Played it yet?
The trailer I watched online was pretty dang creepy.

[Gawdzillers]

I quite like classic horror.

Someone needs to make a non-crappy movie of The Dunwich Horror, or maybe a Twilight Zone episode of The Music of Erich Zann.

Seriously, Erich Zann scared the crap out of me. I was afraid of windows for 3 days.

[BlaqueKatt]

Japanese horror flicks are *amazing* in their natural context. I get AZN and a bunch of little independent movies on my 'for free on demand' bundle. I just watched The Eye the other day and I was left breathless. The subtle horror and the direction was amazing.

I saw The Eye anglo-version with Jessica Alba and I couldn't finish it

seconded I had the same thing happen with "the grudge" vs "Ju-on" and "dark Water", I have the "one missed call" trilogy from Japan but haven't sat down to watch it yet.....

I have an entire section in my DVD collection for J-horror


and really if you like scary/creepy with no blood and no nudity---
Spiral

really I watched it and the story was good enough that I never realised there was no blood or nudity until it was done-I was like wait if I didn't realise until know what was missing-whoa!

[InsanityInc]

I'm with Gawdzillers on the classic horror. 'Course I like the campy ones too. But, favorite all time horror movie is The Thing, John Carpenter version. Love the subtext in this movie. For movies with a twist though, M. Night Shyamalan's movies are fun. You know, The Village, Sixth Sense......

[Kyree]

Where do you guys go to buy the Japanese horror movies? I've been wanting to watch the originals of some of these crappy horror movies for a while now.

For good horror movies, they just need to keep making them from Stephen King :P I've always liked the movies from his books. The Mist wasn't bad at all. Better then That movie of the guy getting open heart surgery and being awake during it >_>

[Demonoid Phenomenon]

Kyree, I've found most of my Japanese/Asian horror DVDs at Best Buy.
I've been lucky enough to find some of them used at places like Half Price Books. Don't know if you have either one of these stores near you...?

[Andara Bledin]

I don't know about buying it, but Netflix has a section for foreign horror that includes such things as Ju-on.

One of the things I like about Netflix is that it will compare the movies you like with others who like the same to give you suggestions about other movies to try.

^-.-^

[Kyree]

Kyree, I've found most of my Japanese/Asian horror DVDs at Best Buy.
I've been lucky enough to find some of them used at places like Half Price Books. Don't know if you have either one of these stores near you...?

I do have a Bes Buy, but... They have a huge DvD section, but 90% of it is TV sitcoms, anime, and American Horror. I rarely see anything from out of the country there. :( Same with the Sun Coast near me.

I don't know about buying it, but Netflix has a section for foreign horror that includes such things as Ju-on.

One of the things I like about Netflix is that it will compare the movies you like with others who like the same to give you suggestions about other movies to try.

^-.-^

Hm...I'll have to poke at Netflix. That sounds kinda cool