In the mid 1990’s horror was king for quite a while. Thanks mainly to Scream (and to a lesser extent its two sequels), slasher films were back in vogue. Kevin Williamson’s sharply funny and ground-breaking script for the original Scream film combined with Wes Craven’s stylish direction made slasher films cool again. Williamson himself scripted the above-average I Know What You Did Last Summer, which became a sleeper hit due to some clever marketing and a popular young cast of Gen X favorites. There were other decent slasher films during that cycle (Urban Legend comes to mind) but after that horror started to decline yet again. Then a tiny, low budget film came out called Saw, and things changed forever.
SAW was made for around a million bucks and grossed over 50 million at the US box office, and countless more thanks to DVD sales. The media soon after dubbed this type of horror “torture porn”. Eventually though, the torture porn films started to wear out their welcome. Eli Roth is one of the worst offenders. Hostel was like an unfunny version of Eurotrip for half its runtime, then it became a torture show that wouldn’t end. Hostel was well-made but ultimately a depressing experience. Torture porn hit its nadir with the god-awful looking Lindsey Lohan film I Know Who Killed Me and the truly sickening Captivity. Captivity is a film for nerds with Mommy issues and worse yet, it makes torture dull and tedious. It plays more like extreme Fear Factor than a good, suspenseful horror film. Captivity even has the bad taste to have a ludicrous last minute twist which makes almost no sense. The once-talented Roland Joffe trying to wink at the audience that he doesn’t really hate women after all. I’ve pinpointed the two major reasons for the decline of American horror films. Torture porn that sucks and remakes (especially remakes of much better Japanese horror films) have caused recent horror films made here to totally tank. Torture porn is just getting boring and every remake of a Japanese horror film (The Ring 1 and The Grudge were fine) is a pale imitation of the original. From One Missed Call to Shutter, all the way back to Dark Water, these films tank at the box office. The only reason they are still being made at all is because they are so cheap to produce (and they look it) that they can turn a tidy profit on DVD. Things have been so dire lately that I’ve turned where all Americans turn when they tire of the waste of American cinema so I started looking to foreign horror films, to find some real talent and style on display.
Right now, France has stolen Japan’s thunder and they are making truly unsettling and masterful films. Haute Tension was a stylish and well-made slasher film from France that started me along my journey. Recently, I’ve seen Ills (aka Them) an absolutely creepy and chilling film about a couple out in the woods who are tormented by menacing hooded villains who seemingly have no motivation for their attacks on the couple. If this sounds familiar at all to you, congratulations, you’ve heard of the recentAmerican horror film called The Strangers. The Strangers looks like a total ripoff of Them, which is even worse than being a remake. Frontier(s) from Xavier Gens is another disturbing French horror flick I highly recommend about a hostel full of Nazis who kidnap and torture some people on the run from the law. The absolute best horror film I’ve seen recently though was called Inside. A totally chilling and EXTREMELY graphic look at a tormented pregnant woman. This is torture porn at its highest level. It achieves something that has eluded the Eli Roth’s of the world. It gets under your skin and stays there. The acting and spare style are reminiscent of Hitchcock…..but with the gore knob turned full blast. Those afraid of gory medical procedures need not apply.
Other countries have produced some good horror films as well. Neil Marshall (who wrote and directed Dog Soldiers and The Descent) from England, is extremely promising. The Descent (about women trapped in a cave fighting monsters) is one of the best horror films of the past few years. Russia has produced the “Watch” films. Night Watch and Day Watch (while not exactly horror films) update vampire lore with Matrix-style action and terrific storytelling. I also can’t forget about the Spanish horror film, The Orphanage. Gorgeous and intelligent, it blows away so many US made horror flicks. It’s the film M Night wishes he could make. Produced (and presented by) Guillermo Del Toro, The Orphanage is better than anything produced in the United States in years. It’s a ghost story that will haunt you long after the credits roll.
The teens who shop at Goth Topic and dress in HIM hoodies talk about Rob Zombie or Eli Roth being beacons of light in a dark time for American horror, but there’s really not much out there to be positive about. We need original films (no more friggin remakes) told by new and fresh young talent. 30 Days of Night is the best American horror film I’ve seen lately, it was well worth a look, but I’m tired of the remakes and cheap torture porn that have flooded the market for far too long now. America needs to produce its own Neil Marshall or Xavier Gens and do it fast, I don’t know if I can take watching a SAW 10. Has anyone out there seen any good American made horror films released in the past few years ? Comment with your thoughts on this once mighty genre that has fallen by the waste-side.
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Cricket
Aug 26, 2008 -
I enjoyed The Others with Nicole Kidman. It had the same vibe as Orphanage and also directed by a Spanish director.
Besides that, most have been crap. Worst one might be The Eye with Jessica Alba. That one was torture.
Ccfmds
Aug 26, 2008 -
I left The Eye out but that was yet another American remake of a J horror film directed by The Pang Brothers (their action film Bangkok Dangerous is about to be ruined by Nick Cage soon in US theatres). I also left out Untraceable with Diane Lane, a slicked up slab of warmed over torture porn. I fell asleep during it at least 3 times and woke up to see a closeted nerd trying to kill her by feeding her through a giant chopper/mower blade…..I wish I was kidding 🙁
John Kaufman
Aug 27, 2008 -
I think everyone is missing the essential point. First of all, most of these films aren’t horror at all but suspense films with added gore. Secondly, horror isn’t a matter of blood and guts or gross-out topping gross-out.
Real, genuine horror is a matter of old fashioned concepts like plot, character and atmosphere. To go massively old school for a moment, take a look at the films of Val Lewton (Curse of the Cat People), James Whale (Bride of Frankenstein), Mario Bava (Black Sunday), Tod Browning (Freaks) or Terrence Fisher (Curse of Frankenstein). There isn’t much overt gore but the films work because they build an atmosphere of dread, develop interesting characters and involve them in a compelling, well structured story.
These days, audiences have little patience with precisely the elements necessary for the creation of effective horror. Instead, they demand instant gratification. They don’t want a good movie, they want a thrill ride.
The result has been a series of depressing, badly done, derivative films minus quality that are far from anything resembling true horror.
BlakNo1
Aug 27, 2008 -
John is 100% right. Films like Scream and Saw are NOT horror movies, they’re slasher flicks with no supernatural element whatsoever.
The last great American horror film was The Blair Witch Project. Since then, almost nothing. Romero’s Diary Of The Dead is a notable exception. Carpenter’s episode of Masters Of Horror “Cigarette Burns” is also quite good.
The best horror films these days are either Asian or Spanish. A great recent example is [REC], which has been Americanized as Quarantine(due out in October).
Ccfmds
Aug 27, 2008 -
I think slasher films are a form of horror though, John Carpenter’s original Halloween film is a masterwork. For better or worse, that film started all the crappy slasher films to follow. In my view, The Blair Witch Project is one of the worst films of all time……it made Rainbow Brite look scary.
NeoBastage
Aug 27, 2008 -
I just heard yesterday that Phil Dur of Limp Bisquick has been slated to direct a horror film. I wonder if his movie will be as big a rip off as his music was…
mongoose
Sep 2, 2008 -
Shutter stank, but its original counterpart was quite good and creepy. I believe it was Thai.
Paladin
Sep 5, 2008 -
As crazy as this might sound, the best horror or suspense films I’ve ever seen have been black and whites with Vincent Price. OK STOP LAUGHING!!! Anyhow… Yeah, you could see the strings on the skeletons, and maybe everything was stiff, but the feeling, the actual reaction was there, built up through acting and story-telling.
Go to IMDB.com and type in Vincent Price, look for 1960’s and earlier and try a few, just be careful, some are drama’s.
Also “Night Gallery” is great, he was in that (like Twilight Zone.)
Egg Head did more than 60’s Batman and he was good at it.
Justin
Oct 18, 2009 -
Actually, my favorite movie of all time, End of the Line, came out just two years ago.
“Carpenter’s episode of Masters Of Horror “Cigarette Burns” is also quite good.”
I’d actually recommend ANY masters of horror episode. While they weren’t really movies, every single one of them was highly original, and almost everyone of them had a cool twist at the end. too bad it only lasted two seasons.