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Nickolas Cook wrote:

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I had a really snarky response, but realized you may not have been trying to be snarky with me, so I decided to tone it down a bit. When I see big studios green lighting something like Van Helsing, the Underworld crap, and even the Saw sequels, it makes me sick to know that a whole generation of casual horror moviegoers are getting the idea that this stuff is actually horror. Video game as horror movie? PG13?
Christ! Seriously?!
I saw someone even listed Saw III as the best since 2000. Willard? Dark Water?
Creepyclassicfan has a decent list, all of which I have seen, and most of which I agree with, btw.
But it's probably best to ignore my comments when extolling the dubious virtues of modern horror . I am a 39 year old man who is more and more disappointed with the lack brains and talent in today's horror cinema.

Nickolas Cook wrote:

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misterd,

1. I agree that each decade has it's crap films. Sturgeon's Law is definitely in effect when it comes to horror movies. I don't believe I ever said that was untrue.

No, but when you disparage the amount of crap of the last decade as if it is something unusual, it seems as though you are suffering from the good old "nostalgic haze."

My concern is that, today, what is being offered up as horror in the US to US audiences is NOT horror. It's video game scenarios presented with a scant amount of childish horror trappings- just enough to get to the BOOM and the blood (and very little of the Red, red, groovy as it is), without the consequences of actual violence. Most big Hollywood horror is like Resident Evil or Constantine. Flashy, cut editing, overwrought with lots of CGI effects, thrown at the screen to cloak the fact that there just isn't any story, no pathos, and in some cases, no real conflict, no forward narrative thrust.
My contention is that it is not horror. It's kiddie video game porn. And the dummy downed remakes of superior, cerebral Asian, French and Spanish fare? Don't even get me started on that. There is no Hammer in this modern age of homogenoized horror.

Again, rewind the clock and people complained that "slasher" horror wasn't "real" horror either. We're getting old, and we like things we liked when we liked them, not like they are now, and that's normal. But there's a difference between not liking the films and refusing to even admit that they are horror films despite the broadness of the genre.

2. As stated above, I'm 39. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, seeing horror at drive ins, on TV, and reading any horror books and mags I could get my hands on. I remember the critical and parental backlash caused by the slasher overload. So I'm an educated horror fan. Hell, I write reviews for horror books and films, so I have to know my history. What I don't see in today's horror are any high spikes on the horror radar in the 2Ks. Not yet. Even the films I listed aren't genre defining in the sense that something like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Alien or the Exorcist were almost from their original viewing dates. What I see is a lot of lazy and childish film making that relies on pretty faces and CGI.

Please note the films you chose were all from the same 10 year (5year?) time span, in the decade that most concede was cinema's best. I don't see ANY decade offering up rivals to those films.

3. Hot Fuzz has enough of the slasher film trappings for me to make it semi-horror. I believe Edgar Wright even mentions that in the commentary on the DVD.
Seems thin to me, but I only watched it the once.

4.

Underoos were the height of geek-child fashion back in the day. And, yes, I had several pairs. Unfortunately, they no longer fit, so I had to give them up for big-boy underwear. When those bastards decided to ride up into the one brown eye, they found parts of me even my doctor never touched.

Nickolas Cook wrote:

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1. "No, but when you disparage the amount of crap of the last decade as if it is something unusual, it seems as though you are suffering from the good old "nostalgic haze."

Oh, most definitely part of the problem. But my opinion stills stands that 90% of modern horror is shite and meant for kids.

And as we already agreed, 90% of EVERYTHING is shite, in EVERY era.

"Again, rewind the clock and people complained that "slasher" horror wasn't "real" horror either. We're getting old, and we like things we liked when we liked them, not like they are now, and that's normal. But there's a difference between not liking the films and refusing to even admit that they are horror films despite the broadness of the genre."

So are you saying you liked Van Helsing and the Underworld crap? Maybe I'm coming from a literary background here, but horror is not a video game scenario and overblown CGI sequences that do nothing to further the narrative. I like my horror to have a shot of realism and pathos, thanks--something you will not find in most modern 'horror' fare.

Last I checked, Van Helsing was one movie, Underworld three. Even when you expand to include Resident Evil, Hellblazer and others, they don't come close to accounting for a large percentage of genre films of the last decade. And whether they are bad films or not has little bearing as to the genre they belong in.

2. "Please note the films you chose were all from the same 10 year (5year?) time span, in the decade that most concede was cinema's best. I don't see ANY decade offering up rivals to those films."

And that's where I'm going to have to disagree with you.
1920s: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, The Phantom of the Opera just to name a few genre defining films

1930s: Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy...need I say more?

1940s: The Wolfman, I Walked With a Zombie, hell, most of Lewton's films remade the idea of what horror could do and spawned more psychological horror flicks.

1950s: Them, Godzilla, The Thing From Another World...

1960s: Psycho, of course, Black Sunday, Corman's movies...

My points is that every decade, so far, has had movies that redefined horror, pushed it to the next level. The 90s had Scream and that was pretty much it. The 2Ks? Like I said, I don't see anything that has done what the movies listed above, and in my example of the 70s genre defining films, have done. If you'd like to take a stab at finding titles that have, please be my guest. Personally, I don't need to jump off a building without a safety net to know how it'll end. It's 2009. There's one year left to this decade. I just don't see it happening.

You are trying to change the parameters of the debate. There is more than just films that are "genre defining" or "excrement". I listed my 10 films of this decade that I thought were good, effective, horror films - Shaun of the Dead, the Others, 28 Days Later, Cloverfield, the Devil's Rejects just to name a few. Add in the foreign language films (which for some reason don't count in your book, even though this topic isn't your favorite American horror films since 2000), and you have a pretty decent selection, a much better one than you had in the 1990s (which started with Silence of the Lambs, and ended with Sixth Sense, but only had Scream in the middle).

Are any of these films "genre defining"? I have no idea. Putting such a label on almost any film this soonat seems too quick to me. Films need time to ferment, time to be revisited later to see how they hold up down the road. What were the "genre defining" films of the 80s? I can immediately think of The Fly and The Thing, but at the time of their releases, most people would have laughed if you called them such. Hell, even those that are "genre defining" may have trouble holding up over time. The Thing From Another World may have scared the crap out of my Dad, but now its a time capsule, a historically important film, but not one that has much impact as a horror film.