When reviewing movies, keeping the classics of each particular genre is a necessity. The reasons include comparing an imitator to an original, but mostly it's because the classic is often so much better than the modern film.
When it comes to horror movies, think of Jaws. The 1975 summer blockbuster by Steven Spielberg was successful on many levels but especially because of how it told the story. It involved all three major forms of conflict (man vs. man, man vs. nature and man vs. himself), it was compelling and visually stunning despite a threadbare budget and it exemplified how movie magic can make something even more terrifying by not showing it on screen. Sure, we saw the shark kill people, blood and chewed off limbs everywhere, but we didn't even see the beast for the first half of the show. Brilliant. Build up that suspense with psychology and you will win your audience over. By the time Sheriff Brody had his ultimate showdown with the sea monster, the viewers were in a frenzy with adrenalin and anticipation.
That was 35 years ago. Now, if you want thrills in a horror movie, you have to subject yourself to countless gorefests that are so extreme and dedicated to visceral punishment that they fall into the new category of torture porn. People who went to the preview screening of the very first Saw movie only six years ago had to show ID to prove they were old enough to handle the imminent slaughter. Each patron was warned it might induce vomiting, fainting or heart problems.
Saw looks like Citizen Kane in comparison with the latest and last film in that franchise, Saw 3D, which starts off with a gruesome and grisly murder and doesn't let up for 90 minutes — people get shot, stabbed, pulled apart, burned alive and crushed. With the same approach to maverick filmmaking that Spielberg once had, Saw's creators have essentially thrown all of their money at make-up and fake blood for a one-time thrill that won't stand the test of time. The writing didn't matter; the acting didn't matter. All that mattered was brain matter splattered on the wall.
This is why finding a really good horror movie is rare.
The golden age of horror movies
Jaws wasn't the only film in the 1970s that was a testament to artistic vision while capturing the popularity necessary to score at the box office. There was also The Exorcist, a film so frightful that emergency responders were stationed in theatres to tend to the audience members as they dropped to the floor or suffered hysterics. It was so good that it made a mint and was nominated for 10 Academy Awards. Many people still consider it the scariest movie of all time and it's not just because of its special effects. It came out just a few years after Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby and a few years before Richard Donner's The Omen, two great films also about demonic possession.
If your tastes veer from thoughtful horror to thoughtful terror, then Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is probably right up your alley. Often seen as the progenitor of many slasher flicks, it tells a fictional story that many people believed to be true, especially since the deranged Leatherface was based on Ed Gein, a real serial killer from the 1950s who kept body parts of his victims as trophies. Hooper also directed Poltergeist in 1982, one of the most effective ghost stories that has ever been told in cinema.
A few weeks after Poltergeist hit theatres, John Carpenter released The Thing, another brilliant tale of horror and terror, equal parts incredible visual and psychological atrocity. A research crew in the Antarctic stumbles upon an alien creature that devours its prey as it assumes their physical form. The result is a story of isolation, fear, suspicion, paranoia and helplessness that reverberates in any subconscious. The fact neither it nor Poltergeist had particularly happy endings make them both more resonant and honest. 1982 was indeed a very good year for horror films.
Now horror has a new game
Compare these masterpieces with the spate of modern horror movies that take your imagination entirely out of the equation because they show you absolutely every horrible way that a person can be killed. With the advent of advanced digital and makeup effects in the last several years, you can witness all manner of gruesome decapitations, eviscerations and amputations, complete with all of the fleshy chunks and blood splattering out towards the audience in gloriously gory 3D. Thanks Hollywood, you've ruined it all by eliminating the need for imagination to fill in the dark places. You made horror horrible.
Since Saw came out, it seems like every attempt to get a scare out of a theatregoer has to raise the bar just a little higher. It's not enough to watch people being kidnapped, trapped and tortured to death — we have to witness it happening in every conceivable way. Saw paved the way for Eli Roth's Hostel to come out the following year and things haven't been the same since. Now every classic horror movie is being remade or rebooted with more attention paid to gory than story. The question is does anybody remember them? Few actually do, but the originals endure still and very well.
This regurgitation is what audiences seem to want with two exceptions that give the big screen much hope. Back in 1999, The Blair Witch Project won over audiences with a fantastic premise about people lost in the woods where supernatural forces are at work. It led people in with the gimmick that it was a true story with real footage but we saw absolutely nothing gruesome. The terror was wholly in our heads and it haunts many people to this very day. How can you not follow that example?
Well, it only took a decade for Oren Peli to come up with Paranormal Activity, the haunted house equivalent of a group of people being attacked by unseen forces. It came out with a killer Internet campaign to spur interest that worked for all. It was thrilling to watch it until the revelation that the gimmick revolved around string tied to doors to make them close and some guy in a green suit to make him invisible to the camera. Its sequel, just out last week, is moderately more effective with the same techniques and budget (see today's review on page 32).
What the future holds
Expect no shortage of 3D horror remakes, especially if audiences keep flocking to the multiplexes in droves looking for a cheap thrill. If filmmakers, like those behind Saw and Paranormal Activity are initially successful, they only need to repeat themselves and hope the law of diminishing returns doesn't hurt too much. If filmmaking is business then films are all too often the result of cookie cutters and assembly lines. They get stamped and cranked out with as little effort as possible to achieve a bigger bang for their buck.
It's hard not to long for the day to return when we see well-written, character-driven horror movies that don't need to show us every little gory puncture wound in order to give us the chills that we crave. The Thing is being remade next year. It might be as good or even better than the original, but that's difficult to believe. It would be better to just have the old masters make films like they used to.
Frankly, the degradation of quality horror scares is the most frightening part of all.
