The Energon Pub

You know I grew up in the belief that horror movies are supposed to create fear and scare people, and thus I was scared of them I never saw them when I was small and young but just the mention of things like Alien, Jason and Freddy would make me feel uncomfortable and make me switch on the lights, or well more lights.
Especially the god damn Alien, just looking at a small picture of it would make me piss myself, sometimes literally .....
But now that I'm old enough to watch everything I just don't see the point in the whole genre, I feel utterly cheated. I am now obsessed with the Alien and love every movie it's in by default.
I can't bring myself to watch old horror movies as they are very very hard to come-by uncut over here and today's horror movies just well bore me.
So far I have managed to see:
All Alien mvies, hell yea they are awesome and belong to the very few that are uncut
Texas Chainsaw massacre, the original and the remake, the original bored me and I almost fell asleep, the remake was well made but not scary.
SAW, a bit of 1 (I was to busy playing a card game than watch what was going on) V&VI bullshit movies that keep pulling flash backs out of their arse and look more like they tried to give me a boner from all the violence and gore, but hilarious to make fun off.
Paranormal Activities, how the hell does this manage to scare people? If it weren't for the people in the room that kept screaming and telling me I should stop making fun of it as it's not funny I would have fallen asleep in the cinema.
Freddy vs Jason, bloody hilarious and entertaining but not scary.
The remake of Friday 13, awesome I loved it, but it didn't scare me.
Jeapers Creepers, interesting concept, but still a fail movie and not scary.
REC 1, wow that was boring and that's supposed to be the most frightening movie ever made?
The Ring 1 and 2, stupid but hilarious to make fun off.

Are Horror movies actually supposed to be scary of are they just another form of comedy?

They're suppose to be scary.

You've just become anaethised to them.

It's one instance were I prefer Japanese style just because...

J-Horror does a great job of creating dread. It's something that Western horror films rarely do.

The first Alien movie was scary, but the second was action. The other two, I'm not sure.

Anyway, horror movies are the movies that miss the point more often than any other genre... and yet they don't. Horror has gone from being scary to being gruesome fun. I don't think all horror movies are supposed to scare anymore; people now expect them to be bad and funny and they want that. If a horror movie scares, that's a bonus. Sounds lame, but a lot of horror movie fans love bad horror, and if a movie delivers on what a fan loves, then it doesn't fail. It's probably the only genre (maybe aside from sci-fi) that can laugh at itself.

Some movies that you might find scary are the Exorcist and Evil Dead. Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness aren't scary, but are ranked among the best horror movies ever made. Why? Because fans love a bad/good horror movie, some even more than a good horror movie. Bride of Chucky isn't scary in the least, but it's a good laugh, not because it misses the mark, but because it has jokes that actually work for it. Freddy and Jason wasn't supposed to be scary. It was supposed to just be fun, and it did that. If they concentrated on making it scary, they'd botch the whole fight aspect. Bottom line: there are horror movies that try to be scary and fail. And there are horror movies that try to be bad (on purpose), entertain, and be funny and succeed.

If you're looking for scary horror movies, they're out there. Check some web sites for them. But the genre has evolved from just trying to scare to having fun. Horror is hitting its mark more than most people think.

At the end of the day, even if the movie isn't scary but instead was fun, then it was good. Movies are supposed to entertain (or inform). But if you find you're just not enjoying horror with those few exceptions, then maybe horror isn't your thing.

I dont know, but the blood and gore and **** does scare some people. Like I cant stand gore in movies, but in video games and ****, I love it! And in real life, it doesnt bother me that much. Maybe im just sick...

Well, I'm a huge fan of the blood & gore when it comes to Horror. But sadly the horror films these days are nothing more than remakes of good films, However I am a fan of Rob Zombie's stuff greatly

I've seen the "uncut" version of Evil Dead 1 at a friends house, that movie made it clear that he wasn't lying about the classic stuff being only available as cut versions, damn that was so badly cut and such a low quality that it made me sad. Especially since I love Army of Darkness so much.
Oh I like horror movies it's just I keep hearing how scary they are and everything and when I watch them I find them not to be scary at all.
I forgot a few movies I watched:
House of 1000 corpses, wow that movie is horrible the only good thing about it is the music being awesome, the lovingly detailed sets and the clown guy from the beginning. I hope Rob's other movies are better.
Deep Blue See, damn I loved the cook.
Final Destination 4, yea I rather forget that one waist of money buying that ticket.
Drag me to hell, pretty cool.
Poltergeist, the scariest (and coolest) thing about this movie was that the kids room had a movie poster for Alien, WTF?!.
Chucky 2 and the newest one pretty cool, I like them.

Now to see why I'm so disappointed at them not being scary lets take a look at what scared me at a younger age:

Disney's Aladin, the part where Genie tells him that he can't bring people back from the grave, I don't know why but that scared the hell out of me when I was 8.
Disney's Snowwhite, that f**king forest.
Independence day, now I just laugh at it.
Mars Attacks, I hatted this movie for scarring me so very when I was 10 much but now I just love it fro being so hilarious.
Jurassic Park, while I always loved this movie the damn Raptors where the reason why I had to sleep with lights on for weeks.

I remember me being paralysed from fear when instead of Saturday Moring cartoons they showed the making off for Aliens Resurrection, damn was I glad when the first commercial brake started and I was able to move again. Now I want an entire room filled with live sized Alien replicas.....

Yea guess it's me and not the movies being not scary.

Watch Evil Dead 2, its a million times better. its basically a remake of the first, but with the good Bruce Campbell humor

Personally I'm not a fan of "torture-p*rn", i.e, saw, hostle, ect.

I love the old freddy movies. just sayin.

now I love bad b movies. the "take it serious, ignore the strings on the ghost" types.

but alot of "good" horror movies overlap comedy and action a good deal.

The last time I saw a good horror movie, that was Darkness - I remember I slept after the first half of the movie about a dozen times, but I recommend to watch it fully once.

You should look into horror movies that are less about monsters and more of a psychological horror style.

Generally I don't find anything scary. Jacob's Ladder used to give me nightmares years ago. I refuse to watch it now because of that.

I like the horror genre more because I like monsters. Alien, Predator, Dog Soldiers, Zombies etc...Horror is just fun for me.

I've also become jaded with horror movies. It's tough to find recent movies that'll give a good scare. Though I absolutely love The Strangers, absolutely horrifying.

The main problem when questioning horror movies is that, well, most "horror" movies are more about provoking easy reactions(ie disgust, surprise) rather than truly horrifying the viewer through solid storytelling, building suspense, and provoking thought. Yes, provoking thought is a great way to create horror. Scenes of gore are the easy and lazy path of so-called horror stories/movies. It seems like fewer directors and storytellers know how to imply horrific concepts. H.P. Lovecraft's "The Picture in the House" is a great example of how a writer who has a strong command of prose can create suspense and bring a story to a dreadful climax within a short story.

Supreme Convoy wrote:I've also become jaded with horror movies. It's tough to find recent movies that'll give a good scare. Though I absolutely love The Strangers, absolutely horrifying.

Now THAT was scary...

Horror films just aren't what they should be in the states. Relying heavily on shock factor, fake premises (like the new false documentary styles seen in Paranormal & Fourth Kind), or all out gore, American Horror just gets old fast.

Try "Haute Tension," or High Tension in English. It's a French horror film that balances psychological horror with blood and gore.

For Dead Metal: Try romantic comedies or films with Britney Spears in them, I hear they're pretty gruesome. Might be right up your alley if you're looking for something new.

I found the Ring to be scary. Its's not so much gore as pychological horror.

Dead Metal, is the reason so many horror movies are cut there is because of that special law in Germany?

zer0das wrote:Horror films just aren't what they should be in the states. Relying heavily on shock factor, fake premises (like the new false documentary styles seen in Paranormal & Fourth Kind), or all out gore, American Horror just gets old fast.

Yep, just like the Final Destination line: the first one was scary, the second one was good with building up scariness and there was a good little story with cheating death; the third one was lame, but the extended version contained a good little cut where a paper flew before a camera with the headline of the survivors of the second movie were dead, but the fourth was simply gore horror with added stupidity (like the guy who was killed in the pool, the deaths too predictable and the kids simply MIA)

Dead Metal wrote:Are Horror movies actually supposed to be scary of are they just another form of comedy?

That's a great question. Some people love The Exorcist, but I think the "scary" scenes are hilarious. Different strokes.

I noticed you didn't list The Omen. You should give the original a shot. The cemetery scene still scares, no matter how many times I see it.

Horror is always an evolving beast.

The problem is with every evolution the ante is upped and what was once the cutting edge in the genre is now common place.

Old school audiences were TERRIFIED upon seeing Frankenstein for the first time. That era's films Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, etc gave way to a second tier of horror films which were watered down versions of that type of film.

The 50's and 60's gave way to mutated horror. After the Blob everything was some sort of enlarged iradiated creature, big ants, spiders, men, etc. Then that become watered down.
The big exception from that era was Psycho which totally broke a lot of taboo's discusing voyarisum, homosexuality, crossdressing, matricide, and mental illness. And just generally shocked the hell out of audiences that had NEVER seen a film of that style and nature before.

The late 70's early 80's gave us the Slasher genre of Horror, Michael, Jason, Freddy and all that type, which with the exception of the first Halloween which is fairly scary with little blood, those films were driven by the gore of the kill, and in Freddy's case catchphrases as well. Those films again were shocking for their time, but eventuslly we had endless sequels and the eventual step down to films like Leprahcan and such. Watering down the Slasher genre.

The 90's saw a more hip version of Slasher films thanks to Scream...horror films could now poke fun at themselves. But this also lead to a stream of imitators. We also saw a return to a more Hitchcock style of thriller with a twist when M. Knight dropped The Sixth Sense on us.

As of late we have (2000 up) we've seen a few basic styles lately the ubercomplex and gory as hell Saw franchise which has seen a few films borrowing the uber gore style.

J-Horror theft...basically Hollywood remakes a Japanese Horror film an usually mess it up. But I will say this as well.....I've trid watching some of these both US and Japanese versions and just end up turning the films off...clearly I'm not a fan of that style or the US interpretation of that style. I know many are...but not me.

And remakes.
The majority of which have been met with lukewarm response.
-The Omen remake while actually pretty close to the original didn't do well.
-The Amityville remake was terrible.
-Rob Zombie's Halloween films while a new take on the franchise just felt like Rob Zombie Drops the F Bomb Every 10 seconds Halloween.
-The Texas Chainsaw films failed to capture the feel of the original.

The one recent exception I would say was the My Bloody Valentine 3D remake...it paid homage to the orginal but actually had more of a paranoid feel to the film...and some very inventive kills which is hard to come up with new fresh kills these days.

I'm waiting to see how the new Elm St. does, but I honestly feel its not gonna work too well.

Zombie Starscream wrote:I found the Ring to be scary. Its's not so much gore as pychological horror.

Dead Metal, is the reason so many horror movies are cut there is because of that special law in Germany?

I don't know why the old classics are all cut or rather butchered because all the modern gore stuff is only available uncut, or unrated with more gore and blood. I would love to see the Evil Dead series but the German DVDs are utter crap, missing all the exiting parts so you're left with all the boring talking and the picture quality is so bad that it's missing all it's colour at times.

I'd recommend watching the original Night of the Living Dead and The Thing [in the dark, alone]. I agree that most modern horror is crap, replacing suspense and fear with gore and sound effect trickery to make you jump a few times. I did enjoy Trick 'r Treat though.

The Thing was awesome. Definitely one of horror's shining moments. You want a feeling of claustrophobia and panic? That's the movie that sets the bar.

Prince of Darkness was also good, though not scary and less remarkable. Still good for a try, though.

Hey Dead Metal, I guess eBay is out of the question for finding the uncut versions of these movies? Would the versions in your DVD region come with parts edited out? Might be expensive to get everything, but the movies that are really worth it....

Me, Grimlock! wrote:The Thing was awesome. Definitely one of horror's shining moments. You want a feeling of claustrophobia and panic? That's the movie that sets the bar.

Prince of Darkness was also good, though not scary and less remarkable. Still good for a try, though.

Hey Dead Metal, I guess eBay is out of the question for finding the uncut versions of these movies? Would the versions in your DVD region come with parts edited out? Might be expensive to get everything, but the movies that are really worth it....

Well there is the option of finding them in the UK or Austria, Austria is expensive and the UK never seems to have the stuff I want.
But it seems as if things are changing currently, I found Brain Dead uncut at a store just yesterday. And last I heard that movie was banned in Germany so finding that uncut at a German store seems to be good news in finding uncut versions of Friday 13 and such.

And the Thing was interesting, I wish they would have explained a bit more of the alien, I know there's a game that's supposed to do that but still. And that movie got a nice little homage in that Venom storyline, where they cloned the symbiote and shipped it to the north pole. Wouldn't mind seeing that movie again actually. First horror movie I watched after the Alien stuff actually.

I just recently watched the original "The Fly" and must say that the re-make was a whole lot better than that, the only thing I liked about the original was the Fly mask and how he vaporized the cat, bloody hilarious with the faint "Meaw".

It is also the adrenaline rush from the unknown, suspense, etc..

I hate horror movies, there hasn't been a good one since the 60's. They drag for about and hour, then spray blood around for the last 30 minutes and roll the credits. I guess they're trying to build suspense, but it's just boring. As much as I hate horror movies, I love horror video games. I think the genre works best when it's about surviving rather than dying horribly.