Horror/Scary movies

[Redbliss]

I was scrolling through my Netflix Instant queue last night when I came across I Know What You Did Last Summer and I decided to watch it just because I remember liking tha movie when it came out in the 90s. I didnt really pay too much attention to the movie, however, because I couldnt get my mind off of how great I thought scary movies were in the 90s and early 00s.

Movies like Scream, The Sixth Sense, Blair Witch, etc. all had something to them that scary movies today are just missing, whether that is a good story or whatever. It just seems like scary movies these days rely too much on cheap scares to get by or a ton of gore, and that really isnt scary nor does that stuff produce a good scary movie.

There are still some scary movies that remind me of the older movies, but for the most part it feels like the quality of scary movies has declined in the past decade much like hip-hop music has. Perhaps I feel this way simply because scary movies have always been produced for a younger audience and I am no longer a part of that audience.

Does anyone else feel this way? Also, can anyone else think of good scary/horror films they recently saw that they liked?

[twmac]

I don't even want to get into a versus discussion about this. However, if you like films like Blair Witch Project then I recommend the Spanish film '[Rec]'.

Also, you listed a couple of teen slasher films so in that case I would recommend going back and watching the Nightmare on Elm Street 1 and 3, Halloween 1 and 2, and obviously 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'.

For Sci-Fi horror there is 'The Thing', 'Alien' and the 1970's version of 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' with Donald Sutherland.

Still extremely watchable (and creepy rather than out-and-out horror) 'The Night of the Living Dead' and 'Dawn of the Dead' by Romero. Hell, even the remake of Dawn of the Dead is pretty solid.

[Redbliss]

I don't even want to get into a versus discussion about this. However, if you like films like Blair Witch Project then I recommend the Spanish film '[Rec]'.

Also, you listed a couple of teen slasher films so in that case I would recommend going back and watching the Nightmare on Elm Street 1 and 3, Halloween 1 and 2, and obviously 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'.

For Sci-Fi horror there is 'The Thing', 'Alien' and the 1970's version of 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' with Donald Sutherland.

Still extremely watchable (and creepy rather than out-and-out horror) 'The Night of the Living Dead' and 'Dawn of the Dead' by Romero. Hell, even the remake of Dawn of the Dead is pretty solid.

That is fine, but if I am missing some greatness in today's horror films or your opinion is different from mine please feel free to share your opinion.

[Nappi]

I'm not a big fan of horror movies but for some reason I have watched quite a lot of them recently. The only one I really liked was The Orphanage from 2007. Not sure if it even qualifies as a proper horror movie but the atmosphere was great and chilling pretty much throughout the entire movie.

[twmac]

That is fine, but if I am missing some greatness in today's horror films or your opinion is different from mine please feel free to share your opinion.

Well if you want something from the last decade [REC] is definitely a good place to start. To be honest, there are some really good Korean and Japanese films that have been out in the last decade that trump pretty much everything else (can't remember where it is from but the Monster movie 'The Host' is top notch)

For modern horror set in the west that feels distinctly of this decade rather than a throw back to seventies slasher flicks or 80's video nasties:

The Descent

28 Days later

28 Weeks Later

Some others that are definitely worth checking out:

Midnight Meat Train

Dawn of the Dead (remake)

Personally, I thought the 90's was actually one of the worst times for horror films. There were a couple of good mainstream ones but generally they were too caught up in ironic 'post horror' scene. We weren't allowed to just be scared of stuff there was always some need to wink at the audience while it was happening. With the exceptions like Candyman, The Cube and Blair Witch Project (which was very late 90's) there wasn't a lot of psychological horror, just cheap jumps.

I found myself watching stuff like 'Pi' to get my horror kicks, and that is definitely a different type of horror.

[elmuerte]

You should check out the "Masters of Horror" series, it's probably the best modern horror

[miffy495]

I very much agree about The Host. It's Korean, and a fabulous movie. One of my favorite films from that year, actually. I was talking about it this afternoon, as yesterday my theater opened Mother, the latest from Bong Joon-Kim, who also directed The Host. None of my coworkers had seen the earlier film, and I was astounded. Also good if you like Korean horror is Save The Green Planet, which came out in 2006, if memory serves. It's poster is a dude in a tinfoil helmet waving around a flying saucer on a stick, but the actual movie is unbelievably dark. It's about a deluded beekeeper who kidnaps and tortures people thinking he is doing so in order to stop an alien invasion. One of the most fucked up films I've ever seen, and I'll never be able to hear "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" without flinching again.

[MrHoatzin]

I was in middle school when I Know What You Did Last Summer came out. I remember even then thinking it was a dumb film, with my underdeveloped middle school brain. Nothing about this memory makes me want to revisit the movie and see if it is indeed as laughable as I remember it being.

That said, around the same time, I also thought that Multiplicity was a good movie, so I could be horribly mistaken about my IKWYDLS verdict.

[idiotpassenger]

I think everyone should watch AM1200. It's a short indie horror that clocks in at 45 mins. 99% of this film is fucking brilliant. The other 1% is just bad CGI that's only on screen for maybe 20 secs. Go find it right now!!!

[James]

It's not for everyone, but I quite like 30 Days of Night.

Regarding already mentioned films, The Orphanage is excellent, but possibly not really a horror. One of the things I like about it is that it's a little ambiguous about its genre for much of the film. Of course, it could just be that I've been conditioned to expect horror films to be gorefests or jump-scare bonanzas, in which case The Orphanage is an excellent horror film. Other than that, Alien is probably my favourite horror film, although the elements I like the most aren't really the horror elements. There's a lot of great stuff in that film that doesn't directly involve the alien.

[elmuerte]

I think a problem with a lot of modern horror is that they try to hard to scare or gross out people. Horror (with the exception of the splatter genres) should focus on tension. A lot of science fiction movies contain more tension than horror movies. For example the scifi movie Sunshine had more tension than the average horror movie.

[Patters]

It's not for everyone, but I quite like 30 Days of Night.

Regarding already mentioned films, The Orphanage is excellent, but possibly not really a horror. One of the things I like about it is that it's a little ambiguous about its genre for much of the film. Of course, it could just be that I've been conditioned to expect horror films to be gorefests or jump-scare bonanzas, in which case The Orphanage is an excellent horror film. Other than that, Alien is probably my favourite horror film, although the elements I like the most aren't really the horror elements. There's a lot of great stuff in that film that doesn't directly involve the alien.

It had a fucking chainsaw on a tractor, it's fucking awesome!

[Kolzig]

The Japanese movie Noroi is propably the scariest movie I've ever seen.

I remember having nightmares about that even though I saw it only 1-2 years ago.

I know what you did last summer, now that was a typical teen slasher movie from the 90's. That and the million other Scream type teen slasher movies really popped up way too much in that era. I did have that on VHS at some point, because there were selling for 10 Finnish marks shortly after the release of the movie on video. Got rid off it quite fast.