If you have the R4 release of Whisperer, it actually has Cthulhu as an extra - but very low visual quality.
Why is it that modern horror films are less scary?
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If you have the R4 release of Whisperer, it actually has Cthulhu as an extra - but very low visual quality.
Shit, it was a rental. Now I know what I'll be picking up from JBHIFI this weekend.
The Descent was a great movie. Perfect claustrophobia. Are they making a sequel to that?
As Above So Below was another decent attempt at that type of setting. I liked it quite a bit, though it wasn't as good as The Descent.
We watched Spring a little over a month ago, and LOVED it. But yeah, I'm not quite sure it's a horror movie.
It's something you don't see everyday, so credit for that.
It was good, nothing great, but certainly worth a watch.
I loved Sinister, the only weak part was in fact the demon and the ending. But all the dark stuff before that, watching creepy ass home videos in the middle of the night, that was freaking genius.
Anyone see a movie called Pontypool? It was centered around a radio station during some kind of outbreak/emergency, and you kind of got a little bit of War of the Worlds mashed up with modern day loudmouths, mixed in with a bit of "they're covering up the truth". Not great or super scary, but some decent ideas, and I think it would be worth a watch for some of the folks in this thread. I liked it.
If any of you folks live within 3 or 4 hours of Columbus, OH, I'll be driving down there October 17 and 18 for this year's 24 hour horror marathon. People who go always have more fun than they imagined, because its more than just watching 12 movies. The trailers and between-movie audience interactions always make it a fun experience.
You can find yourself becoming desensitized over just a span of 24 hours, though occasionally I'm still a little scared by some films that show in the final 6 or 8 hours of the marathon.
Modern horror is still good, but you generally have to seek out the smaller budget or independent films. The bigger budget ones are usually sequels or remakes that are rated PG-13 so teenagers can see it. They're full of jump scares and played out tropes. There is a few odd gems, but most are forgettable.
I've been recommending It Follows, it's close in tone to 70s and early 80s horror films.
I've been recommending It Follows, it's close in tone to 70s and early 80s horror films.
Just a warning - when I talk about low quality, I mean it is super-compressed, like a really bad youtube video. But it's watchable enough that you can appreciate the movie.
The first half was indeed great, but they really blew it in the second half, with cheesy use of unconvincing evil spirits, and a silly ending. I think they should never have explained the evil exactly, but have the hero end up the subject of his own home movie. Then it might have been a classic.
As I'm sure others have said, the biggest problem comes down to showing too much. With CGI and effects being inexpensive these days and movies competing for who can give the most visual spectacle it's more and more common to see horror or, really, any movie to show more.
Jaws is hardly a "horror movie" but I think it serves as a good example. When Spielberg made that movie he had a very tight budget (which he went over on) and the production was plagued with problems, particularly with the robotic shark they built acting up in the water. So, as a result, he was forced to not show it that often and instead used other cues to ramp up the horror and spectacle of the shark. Namely in the form of POV shots and the iconic theme.
The result? A generation of people afraid of the water and of sharks, a generation of people full of mis-information about sharks to the point the original writer of the book the movie is based on regrets mis-portraying them.
Horror movies fall under the same problems, back in the 70s, 80s, and going back earlier movies didn't get the budgets they do today, the money couldn't go as far, and there was only so much you could do with the tools available. Makeup and stop-motion effects can only do so much and be so convincing. So you use atmosphere, music, mood, character reactions and interactions to create that fear. You get these tropes so you can find someone to identify with to put yourself in that situation and what you were afraid of and your own imagination is going to be better at telling you what something you're afraid of looks like than a CGI artist is.
So you watch these scenes and then there a "scary" music sting and then some CGI thing pops up. You might jump from the music sting, but that's not scary. And then when you see the creature (or whatever) you either see through the effect or it just doesn't look like something you're afraid of.
The first "Blair Witch Project" also did this -fairly- well by building and atmosphere of eeriness but showing us literally *nothing* of the specter that haunted our characters. It was a pretty creepy movie, also built on an -at the time unheard of- viral campaign that built the mythos of the movie being a "true story."
Today, it's CGI and music stings. Neither of which are scary.
In my experience with Jaws, the most effective 'scare' doesn't even involve the shark - it's the sequence where Hooper is underwater and investigating the underside of Ben Gardners damaged boat. Every time I watch that movie with a new viewer, that's the part where they get clingy...or lurch to get up and run away.
I personally thought the best moment in Jaws was when we did see the shark. Him just silently sliding out of the water without any build up or theme tune, and Brody taking a few second to notice and react.
Both are 'jump' and 'special effect' moments, as is Quint's 'made extra gory especially for the movie' death scene. Cliches and devices aren't necassarily bad, but they can be handled badly. 'The Gallows' handled those moments badly and that's why it's not considered to be very good. 'The Descent' handled them well, and it's generally considered to be great.
One thing I noticed about jump-scares - a lot of the well-liked ones tend to end a scene or a 'moment'. I guess that's because once it's happened, the tension in the audience tends to fade. A lot of bad horror movies use them whenever not much as happening, seemingly as a way to try and build tension. Obviously that doesn't work, and just leads to people like me getting annoyed ('Seriously Paranormal Activity 4? You're trying to scare me with a jump cut to an ass cheek in front of the camera?')
I personally thought the best moment in Jaws was when we did see the shark. Him just silently sliding out of the water without any build up or theme tune, and Brody taking a few second to notice and react.
Both are 'jump' and 'special effect' moments, as is Quint's 'made extra gory especially for the movie' death scene. Cliches and devices aren't necassarily bad, but they can be handled badly. 'The Gallows' handled those moments badly and that's why it's not considered to be very good. 'The Descent' handled them well, and it's generally considered to be great.
One thing I noticed about jump-scares - a lot of the well-liked ones tend to end a scene or a 'moment'. I guess that's because once it's happened, the tension in the audience tends to fade. A lot of bad horror movies use them whenever not much as happening, seemingly as a way to try and build tension. Obviously that doesn't work, and just leads to people like me getting annoyed ('Seriously Paranormal Activity 4? You're trying to scare me with a jump cut to an ass cheek in front of the camera?')
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Yeah, the head in the boat is a good jump scare, and not one accompanied by a music sting. That's what my problem is with the jump-scare any more, a lot of the time you're jumping because of a sudden, loud, sharp, sound. Not because something eerie suddenly appeared.
The other thing with Jaws is, again, in how it used the theme to acclimate the audience to recognize it as going with the shark, they "buy" this trust early in the movie, every time the shark is around, there's a POV shot and the theme.
In the middle of the movie some kids put on a fake shark-fin to terrorize some swimmers and we see the fin, and get some POV shots, but there's no theme, it's soon revealed that it was the prankster kids. That solidifies the theme=shark concept. Then the movie pulls the rug out from under-you a couple times in the movie with a "jump appearance" by the shark. First when Brody is chumming the water (when we first see the actual shark) and then later as Hooper is in the shark-cage and Bruce rams him from behind. (Err.... that didn't come out right. )
The later Jaws movies (namely the 3D one and to an extent 4) over-show the shark. There's no suspense and suspense is NOT showing things because, again, your imagination is always going to be scarier than anything the movie can show you.
The Thing (1982) does this a lot too, we don't see the actual creature a whole lot, we see it a few times but the suspense comes from not actually seeing it take-over people and not knowing who's to be trusted or not trusted. And the few scenes we do get of the creature are effects-driven gore sequences (the dog, the chest-mouth, etc.) Compare this to the "prequel" that came out a few years ago (which I actually didn't think was too terrible) and there's a lot more CGI-sequences showing the creature in various forms. Arguably, the movie is less suspenseful because of this.
I also think of the "House on Haunted Hill" remake that came out in '99(?). It wasn't too bad, and I thought most of the suspense and scary scenes early in the movie were good, there was some good, eerie, atmospherically scary and tense scenes in that movie. One where a character is in some-kind of chamber with a spinning projector wall, another with a character in a electric-shock chair, another where a character turns around to run into a specter that spazzes out right in front of them. A lot of good, eerie, mood stuff in it.
Then it blows it's wad and by the end/last act of the movie by having the surviving characters trying to avoid being consumed by a "big cloud of evil" that controls the spirits in the house. The first couple acts of the movie do a lot of good in setting up this mood, then the last act ruins it.
How? By showing too much. It's much eerier to see characters react to strange things, or to see truly disturbing things and to let your own mind go wild than it is to see "generic cloud of evil."
The other thing with Jaws is, again, in how it used the theme to acclimate the audience to recognize it as going with the shark, they "buy" this trust early in the movie, every time the shark is around, there's a POV shot and the theme.
In the middle of the movie some kids put on a fake shark-fin to terrorize some swimmers and we see the fin, and get some POV shots, but there's no theme, it's soon revealed that it was the prankster kids. That solidifies the theme=shark concept. Then the movie pulls the rug out from under-you a couple times in the movie with a "jump appearance" by the shark. First when Brody is chumming the water (when we first see the actual shark) and then later as Hooper is in the shark-cage and Bruce rams him from behind. (Err.... that didn't come out right. )
The later Jaws movies (namely the 3D one and to an extent 4) over-show the shark. There's no suspense and suspense is NOT showing things because, again, your imagination is always going to be scarier than anything the movie can show you.
The Thing (1982) does this a lot too, we don't see the actual creature a whole lot, we see it a few times but the suspense comes from not actually seeing it take-over people and not knowing who's to be trusted or not trusted. And the few scenes we do get of the creature are effects-driven gore sequences (the dog, the chest-mouth, etc.) Compare this to the "prequel" that came out a few years ago (which I actually didn't think was too terrible) and there's a lot more CGI-sequences showing the creature in various forms. Arguably, the movie is less suspenseful because of this.
I also think of the "House on Haunted Hill" remake that came out in '99(?). It wasn't too bad, and I thought most of the suspense and scary scenes early in the movie were good, there was some good, eerie, atmospherically scary and tense scenes in that movie. One where a character is in some-kind of chamber with a spinning projector wall, another with a character in a electric-shock chair, another where a character turns around to run into a specter that spazzes out right in front of them. A lot of good, eerie, mood stuff in it.
Then it blows it's wad and by the end/last act of the movie by having the surviving characters trying to avoid being consumed by a "big cloud of evil" that controls the spirits in the house. The first couple acts of the movie do a lot of good in setting up this mood, then the last act ruins it.
How? By showing too much. It's much eerier to see characters react to strange things, or to see truly disturbing things and to let your own mind go wild than it is to see "generic cloud of evil."
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According to the guys who made the latest 'The Thing', they actually did have build and have practical monsters on camera for the most part. The problem was that somone higher up on the food chain happened to be on set one day, and was horrified to see the practical monsters looked unconvincing when he was standing right in front of them. The directors tried to tell him that you have to shoot the props carefully to get their best angle, and that the ones in the original looked similarly fake IRL, but after that they were told to 'go over' all the practical effects with CGI 'makeup'. So now we have what we have.
The original 'The Haunting' is a great example of what you're talking about. We never see anything outside of people's reactions, and due to the nature of the 'monster' we don't really need to. It does do the 'really loud noise to make you jump', but the noise is meant to be diegetic and it's not just one quick 'sting.' I think Sam Raimi must have liked that scene, because he references it with his 'ghost' appearance in Evil Dead 2.
The original 'The Haunting' is a great example of what you're talking about. We never see anything outside of people's reactions, and due to the nature of the 'monster' we don't really need to. It does do the 'really loud noise to make you jump', but the noise is meant to be diegetic and it's not just one quick 'sting.' I think Sam Raimi must have liked that scene, because he references it with his 'ghost' appearance in Evil Dead 2.
And filmed in the editor's swimming pool.
I love stories like that - SO MUCH better than millions of dollars and blue/green screens and ping pong balls on lycra body suits.
I saw a preview screening for 'Sicario' tonight. In spite of it not being a horror movie, there were entire sequences where I was thinking 'If only the suckers who are making Ouija 2 were sitting here taking notes.'
It's a case study in how you build tension, and it manages to look both creepy and beautiful to boot.
It's a case study in how you build tension, and it manages to look both creepy and beautiful to boot.
Yup, and it's amazing how scary a woman looking at her own hand can be as well
It's like IT, what's scarier; Tim Curry dressed as a clown or a giant cg spider? No contest really.
Blair Witch is a great example, there's just such a feeling of dread throughout.
^ Sorry but I started watching the movie/mini-series of "It" and it was just ridiculous to me.
NOTHING could compare to the experience I had of reading the book in 1989 and the images my mind conjured.
As much as I love and respect Curry, him cavorting around in a Ronald McDonald suit with John Boy Walton and Jack Tripper was just......not scary.
NOTHING could compare to the experience I had of reading the book in 1989 and the images my mind conjured.
As much as I love and respect Curry, him cavorting around in a Ronald McDonald suit with John Boy Walton and Jack Tripper was just......not scary.
I find I actually watch the "documentary" extra on the DVD more often. There's more variety than in the movie, and all the pseudo-historical details are nicely creepy.
I can remember being with a bunch of boys at school and trawling through the online supplementary stuff, back in the days before everyone had the 'net at home. Someone even got their hands on the Rustin Parr book and shared it around.
We spent a lot of time going 'Yeah, yeah it can't be real, it's all totally made up...let's never go to America.'
We spent a lot of time going 'Yeah, yeah it can't be real, it's all totally made up...let's never go to America.'
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