Yeah Rich and Eli are co-writing The Box, with Eli in the director's chair. But that's after he does his teen comedy for Universal.



I can't wait for Knowing, Richard Kelly and Eli Roth are my two favorite up and coming directors.


I didn't enjoy May on the same level I did Donnie Darko or Cabin Fever, but Lucky McKee is another person to really look out for, The Woods, or In The Woods, whatever it's called with Bruce sounds like it'll be great.

OK, the more I hear, the more optimistic my outlook. This film "The Woods" sounds good stuff - Filled with the sort of elements that make up classic horror. Apparently, Roth is also teaming-up with Scott Spiegal (those evil dead boys just can't let it go) with the aim of gettting three hideously foul horror features out each year. As for John Carpenter - Halloween may well have been his highlight, but I thought "The Fog" was an exceptionally good chiller. I'd site it in my top ten, purely because of all those old creepy staples that it plays with. "The Thing" I think was also a solid remake and an example of gross-out effects being employed to good effect .(Craven take note) On our TV network right now, (Channel 4) they are counting down the 100 most scary moments in horror. One comment made by Michael Madsen stuck with me as regards that ear-cutting scene in Reservoir Dogs - He suggested that the sequence was far more effective, more shocking due to the fact that the camera moved away at the key moment - What is left to our imagination is always far worse than what we actually see. That ladies and gentlemen, is what every director who cares a jot for the genre should have tattoed onto their heads and that is what gives me hope for the future.

ouch, that stung...on a personal level, how can you talk down on such a great series? freddy was suposed to be a little comical, with all his great one shots and all the blood, il respect your opinion though... as long as you dont start talking down on friday the 13th, then your a dead man

OK, I appreciate that Wes Craven did set up quite an icon in Freddy Krueger and the first movie wasn't all that bad. It's just a shame that the thing kind of strayed away from what horror is supposed to be about, you know? I'm all for laughs and scares sharing the same space in a movie - Sam Raimi managed it brilliantly in "Evil Dead II", as did Eli Roth in "Cabin Fever". As for Jason Vorhees and the various sequels he's starred in, well, I'm glad someone found them frightening.

no one said they were frightening, just entertaining...now the ring on the other hand...THAT is frightening

Yep, "Ringu" was spot-on. Even the remake was pretty good.

Are you saying latex special FX, comic amounts of blood, and one-liners don't have anything to do with good horror? I'm not saying good horror NEEDS those elements, but need I remind you that Cabin Fever had plenty of those elements and you herald Roth as a great director...

I'm personally a fan of the original NOES because Freddy is at his most violent in that film in my opinion. After that he became the stuff that sells kid's cereal.

Frankly, the only way I can see us being scared again, or at least making us feel the way we want to feel at a good horror movie, is to keep an eye on independent directors. Carpenter was one, Craven was one, and even Raimi and Cunningham. They all made their best movies that way...independently. Add a big studio, name stars, and a soundtrack featuring the latest and greates in rap metal bands and you have a recipe for disaster when it comes to horror...but lots of ticket sales unfortunately which is why they'll be around for a long time.

We need people like Roth, McKee, and even Miike to show us the different sides of horror and to give us something fresh to feast on...not leftovers or reheated remakes that do not taste anywhere near as good as the originals..

Spot-on - I personally am very optimistic about the future of the horror film. Despite the amount of bad examples it cannot be denyed that audiences consistently support this type of genre. Its development would seem to be cyclic and we've been seeing a return to a higher quality in recent years.
As regards CF, you're right, it does contain alot of gore. But a point I made earlier as regards the way Carpenter used FX in his remake of "The Thing" is valid here - I didn't think it was comical. I found the effects in that picture revolting and in that way, the movie worked for me. The same with CF - The sight of that girl slowly rotting, the fact that it was based on a real illness. Yes, it was a little far-fetched at times but compared to the circus that was "A Nightmare..." - Phones sprouting tongues, fountains of blood - I found it to be far more effective.
You're right about the independents though - The 1970s was such an exciting time in American Cinema, not least because of the apparition of the Vietnam War, but there was much more of a hands-on approach to film-making. It was Sean S Cunningham who gave the money to Craven to shoot Last House. Carpenter invented the "steadicam" in making "Halloween". Even in the early '80s, Raimi pushed the envelope with "The Evil Dead".
It's high time we had a new set of pioneers like that.

I'm optimistic, but what if those pioneers don't come along? You guys ever feel like maybe you've seen every great horror film?

"There's nothing to do anymore. Everything decent's been done. All the great themes have been used up--turned into theme parks."

I think that concept alone would make a good horror film - No more horror left and all we can do is watch girly flicks starring the olsen twins. I don't think you've got too much to worry about, provided the world keeps throwing bombs at one another, we will always have horror films