Be afraid. Be... not quite as afraid as you used to be, watching horror movies...

As long as there have been moving pictures, there have been horror movies. Thomas Edison himself filmed a silent version of Frankenstein at his studio. When anyone discusses classic movies, it’s difficult not to mention Dracula and Night of the Living Dead in the same breath as Casablanca or Gone with the Wind. They’ve taken on the mantle of the ghost story, and instead of sitting around the communal fires, we’re sitting in the living room, huddled around the television. But as of late, there have been certain elements that have caused horror films to take a turn for the worse. As far as I can see, these are the real problems that need to be addressed...

10: Meta-Awareness

Scream started a horrible trend. While that film works, not every horror movie needs those people that seem to know that they’re in a horror movie. While it can be argued that there are certain rules that these movies follow – particularly slasher films – we don’t need to be reminded of them. The slasher films of the 80s may not have been the most original, but the characters were fairly close to true life: young adults who were out to lose themselves in recreational chemical and carnal exploration. I know that in this day and age, where kids are more technologically aware then most were when I was young, it’s easy for them to seem a little more intelligent (unless the extent of their computer usage is going on Facebook writing things like “U no I’m hawt”). But not every teenager talks like they spend their spare time reading a thesaurus. Make it more realistic.

9: The Outcasts

This is the horror movie equivalent of “geek chic”. Just like how more characters in mainstream films these days know comic books and Star Wars front to back, all of a sudden, the victims in horror movies are increasingly the outcasts of the school. Nerds, artists and freaks. In essence, not the kids they are marketing the films towards. I’m glad more characters like this are being written, but let’s not kid ourselves, there aren’t that many of us out there. I guess it is better than seeing everyone being members of the popular crowd, with the exception that it’s much more fun to see them being slaughtered by the rampaging psycho.

8: PG-13 Ratings

This has been one that has stuck in my craw for a few years now. Apparently, the target audience for horror films is teenagers, which means that with an R rating, they can’t see it in theatres, thus lost revenue. Now, I’m not saying you necessarily need gore or nudity, but there are times when they add to the story (okay, the gore can). I can’t think of films like Seven or The Silence of the Lambs being cut down to PG-13. You can make a scary film and not have it rated R or worse, but there are times when you just have to have some of the gruesome. And the PG-13 movie usually results in the inevitable…

7: Unrated DVDs

The second part to the moneymaking scheme that studios run. Send the film to theatres for a big release, and then release the film on DVD either as a two-pack with both versions, or worse yet, release them separately so that you can dupe many film fans into buying both. And then there’s the problem that often, the unrated version only includes a few minutes, at most, of added footage, little of which adds anything much to the movie. But since this version wasn’t released with a rating from the MPAA, they label it as “Unrated”, and it keeps the public buying.

6: Studio Control

I know, the studio has the money, without which, there is no movie. But studio heads need to accept that they don’t know everything about making movies (ironic, no?). In a recent interview with Bruce Campbell, the cult actor said that it had been a better experience making the first two Evil Dead movies because there wasn’t a studio telling them how to run the show. Studios want certain things in movies because they feel that audiences will react more positively to them. But in the end, they aren’t filmmakers, just businesspeople. Let the real filmmakers do what they do: Make movies.

5: Uwe Boll

Really, that’s all that needs to be said with that one.

4: Trends

Every form of media follows trends. If a particular band is popular, a dozen more will come out sounding just like them. After the Harry Potter books hit big, other fantasy books for young adults hit shelves. And right now, vampires and zombies are still the big draws in horror. It can be good to strike when the iron is hot, but studios usually go overboard, cramming as many movies of a particular genre down the chute, which burns audiences out before the DVDs even hit the shelves. It’s time to quit jumping on the bandwagon when it comes to genre movies. And then maybe we can avoid great missteps like Zombie Honeymoon.

3: Remakes

I get into more online arguments about this than anything else. The new wave of “fans” rabidly argues that the new movies don’t take away from the originals, and that if we don’t like it, we don’t have to watch them. It’s not that all of the remakes are bad. I did enjoy the Friday the 13th remake. But I ask the same question: Why do they need to be remade? If the original is good, why mess with it? I have been told that while stories are timeless, they can be updated, or done with better effects. So why, then did the remake of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre suck? Because it was an inferior film, even with updated effects. In this time of economic uncertainty, studios are scared to back new, unproven ideas and stick money into films that have a built-in fan base, knowing that in the long run, they are alienating the that same fan base. Take a chance, and give an up and coming filmmaker a break.

2: CGI

Watching the new A Nightmare on Elm Street re-imagining, I was reminded why conventional effects are so much better for horror – they’re believable. The scene when Freddy is coming through the wall to get at Nancy just looked hokey. Wes Craven’s classic utilized mostly in camera effects, and it still holds up. There are times when a little help from CGI is acceptable, like in George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead, when one fellow smashes a jar of acid on a zombie’s head. But if it can be done practically, do so.

1: Backstory

This can kill a movie like a comic book origin story. Sometimes, it works, like in Hannibal Rising (although, if you get the chance, read the book, it was much better). But Rob Zombie should have known that audiences really didn’t care about little Mikey Myers’ white trash upbringing. We just wanted to see some bodies stacking up (and maybe a little nudity). Advancements in medicine and psychotherapy have given legitimate explanations as the how’s and why’s of what makes a killer a killer. That’s fine for a Discovery Channel documentary, but sometimes, folks are just born bad. That’s all you need for a horror movie.

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