I've given my original post a lot of thought since I wrote it, and I feel like I have some more insight and thoughts.

See, I'm a writer who's OBSESSED with finding something truly scary, and I can't. It seems like there's nothing in the world that would scare adults anymore. Really scaring an adult would be like... losing your job... finding out you have cancer... not being able to pay your credit card debts. You can't really make a horror MOVIE out of these things, lol.

The closest I can think of (as far as scaring adults) is "The Exorcist", a movie that made my grandfather so terrified, he had to walk out of the theater... and could barely sleep for a month. He was in his THIRTIES when it came out!!

The problem is, since that came out in the late 70's... thirty years ago... the Horror genre has evolved into gross-out nonsense. It's all about blood, gore, beheadings, and quite honestly, horror isn't really HORROR anymore, it's just sick in-your-face stuff. You usually have your standard group of teens who get killed off one by one by some serial killer, and the appearance of the killer varies (hockey mask, red and green sweater, a doll that comes to life, guy with a chainsaw)... and it's usually just an hour and a half of screaming girls running in the woods, running in the house, running to their car, etc.

I don't think scary movies focus on being scary anymore... they focus on "how much can we gross out an audience?" --- See Hostel, which is closer to PORN than horror, in my honest opinion. Instead of it being sex-porn, it's gore-porn... people must apparently get off on that (since the success spawned a sequel).

It also seems like the bridge between Horror, Action, and Comedy has been crossed, so we have movies like:

Shaun of the Dead
Hatchet
Cabin Fever
Dawn on the Dead (remake)
Seed of Chucky
Severance
Resident Evil
28 Days/Weeks Later

... where scary movies aren't really just-plain-scary anymore, but some are actually funny at times, or some have action shoot-outs, car chases, and explosions. This really takes away a realistic element, where you're too busy laughing, or too busy being impressed by the car flipping over.

That's not what horror was supposed to be, in my opinion.

So, I think in order to have a movie scare the living shit out of people our age, some director has to start from Square One, really investigate the nature of horror, and ignore all films that have come out recently. I think you have to remove blood, guts, sex, boobs, car chases, and teens smoking weed.... and you have to really look at horror from a realistic standpoint.

What scares us? What's something truly horrific?

In my opinion, you could touch subjects that are not exactly PC:

- School shootings
- Being kidnapped
- Terrorism
- Rape
- Child abuse
- Getting lost

These aren't really subjects that we talk about. We always "stay away" from this stuff. Why? If the message of horror is that "Don't do these things or the Boogeyman will get you!!"... How can that affect us on a deep level if the "big, bad, boogeyman" is Freddy Krueger, a character who's been reduced to action figures, dolls, comic books, and cartoons??? THAT'S NOT SCARY!

I mean, although these films didn't "scare" me, I thought the subject matter was unique and on the right track:

Open Water
Bug
Se7en
The Mothman Prophecies

I mean, these films actually challenged you to THINK, and it wasn't all about tits and guts.

In closing (lol), I'm eagerly awaiting a movie to go outside the box and really tackle a concept that scares the shit out of our age-group. I don't know what it will be... but I feel like we DESPERATELY need an "Exorcist" for this generation. I haven't seen anything close to it yet. Maybe someday it will come.

Yeah I'm 20 and I've been watching them since I was about 3-4. I rememeber watching Freddy and I had my hands over my eyes but I was peeking through and Freddy was talking and moving closer that scared me. I'd sleep with my parents but that didn't keep me from watchuing them...I bet my parents were kinda pissed that they let me.

The things that creep me out are things that float toward you. Like I didn't like the grudge but when the girl started coming up the stairwell and the lights were flickering. When it is a gradual kind of thing. John Carpenter's vampires when the head vampire is catching up to the car..that kinda stuff.

I love movies but playing horror related games are scary because even though its a game your guy can still die. Maybe if an entire movie(which prolly wouldnt be that great...AKA Blair which) was in first person maybe its like your experiening it. Where movies you are watching other people. First person video games are scary because its like thats you as compared to watching the other people.

But besides that I love horror just because I love looking at the feel and the way the antagonists look,and the music and sounds more than being scared.

Can't we keep a little boob.....maybe just a side shot?


Most of us have been watching horror since we were wee ones.....so yeah, we pretty much have seen it all.I find the nightly news much more frightening than anything on celluloid.

You know I was just thinking about that today. Poor little baby grace,that marine that was allegedly raped and then burned with the baby. I remember hearing about some assholes that broke into this house and stole these people's stuff and they had two little dogs and they stomped on and twisted one and i think the other survived sick fuckers. I turned on the news and the first thing that came out of the anchors mouth was about a plane crashing into lake eerie. Nothing but gloom

I tend to think that truth is more terrifying than fantasy.

Of course..I mean you never know if there really are cenobites out there but there are freaks that would love to inflict pain to you. All the people that don't hav ADT home securtity including me. You just never know. Did you ever see the news were some guy was walking down the street and some guy came up and hit him in the back of the head with a baseball bat for no reason(or maybe he was getting iniated into a gang)and the man died, it's scary. Poor animals and children getting abused and neglected its bullshit and its always happening and theres not much I can do about it. Whats worse is there are people out there that could care less about what happens to these people and these animals.

It sounds like what you seem to find terrifying is what most exploitation films are made of. But you do have to take into account, you are searching for a horror film that will scare the pants off of you. That's not going to happen. You are old enough to realize, it's just a movie, and if it does wind up being too much for you, you can click a button and make it stop.

I don't think it's humanly possible for someone to create an experience such as near death, to be shown on a movie screen, and it still bother you. Boogeymen are the only things that are still somewhat, scary to most. And I guess they figure too, if you want something real, you can watch the evening news.

Vacancy, was technically a realistic scenerio. There are sick people out there, and I don't doubt that, that sort of thing happens. But because it is a movie, it's not going to have the same impact on you, as say, being there yourself.

Though many movies may not be realistic, they can still be somewhat effective. Take for instance, Dead Birds. I was watching this really late one night, and I could barely stay awake. But the way this movies suspense and minimal amount of horror actually played into it, it scared me. I didn't really want to go to sleep when I turned it off. I couldn't get some of those images out of my head.

Yes, movies such as Hostel, that the main focal point, is sex and gratious nudity, are not really horror in my opinion. They fall behind in the fact that they aren't scary with all of the naked women running around. Realistic? Maybe. Scary? Deffinitely not. But they found something that they are able to cash in on, and they are going for it.

As far as having another movie with the impact that The Exorcist had, it's not going to happen. At that time, people didn't know what to think. That wasn't a part of a normal film. No horror film prior to that had been quite that controversial in that field of play. Now days, we have come to expect it. All the general horror audience wants is more of the regular stuff. Mostly gore and nudity.

I think in the horror movie world, the only way to shock people now, would be to actually kill people on screen. Not in a special effects way, but in real life, they actually die. And I'm not talking about executions on tape.

I hope they don't ever take it that far, but some idiot is going to get the idea and go for it.

I wasn't a big fan of Hostel but when that dude used that blow torch GOT DAMN

Wow i never really thought about it like that. I mean the only flick that ever scared me was Dawn Of The Dead which i watched quite recently. I know that its fantasy but these zombie freaks look like they will just jump out of the screen and get you.

Im maybe sounding a bit pathetic but after watching it a few times, i half expect to wake up and find the world is full of biting zombies and something is going to break into my house and eat me, lol.

But yeah, ive taken a few ideas that will freak people out and leave them with memories of the film. What ive learned from talking to people about this is that what they fear through their childhood generally stays with them into later life. So, i went and took the basics and wrote a few ideas down. The feedback that i got was normally "Oh my gosh! what would you do if that really happened?"

So you take something that we all think about, even you adults...i think lol e.g.
Something behind the shower curtain
something under the bed
things getting into the bed covers with you
seeing your automatic outside light suddenly come on, so your obviously going to investigate. you reach the front door and...WHAM... some ugly shit is banging on your door.


Really, what would you do in this situation?

I think that the whole REAL HORROR thing is something like this. Making your audience feel that if they get scared and pull the covers over their head that something is going to be waiting for them underneath. What do ya think? :)

Yes, I believe that these movies are aptly being pinned as torture-porn now. Here's an article on America's new obsession, if you're interested.

Well, in defense of the industry, there's movies like:

Elephant (school shooting)
Captivity, Borderland (getting kidnapped)
The Hills Have Eyes, Devil's Rejects (rape, abuse)
The Blair Witch Project, Penny Dreadful (getting lost)

So they're there... You just have to look sometimes... The only problem with this territory is that, if handled incorrectly, it can definitely result in just more torture-porn. Directors like Rob Zombie definitely take a page from TCM and are more interested in exploitation than scare.


Ahhh. So you're looking for more "DISTURBING"... Not necessarily "SCARY."

I'm having an issue here with verbiage...

I think that there's a difference between "scared" (which tends to be more immediate yet temporary) and "disturbing" (which sticks with you after the horror movie ends).

Examples of movies that scared me recently (2000 - present, which would make me the ages of 18 - 25).

• Halloween (I had to leave the room we were watching it in because I literally thought I would wet myself)
• The Grudge (I was living alone at the time and stayed up all night until 4 in the morning)
• Crazy Eights
• The Blair Witch Project (I was home alone and had to go to a friend's house to sleep over)
• Event Horizon
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

These movies which HORRIFIED me when I saw them. As in I jumped, I clutched, I hid while watching. These movies generally focus more on suspense to draw emotion from you, but it's brief and not necessarily resonating. Afterwards, I am left with a feeling of utmost respect for a director that could actually pull that feeling out of me.


Examples of movies that disturbed me.

• I Spit On Your Grave (couldn't get past the rape scene)
• The Hills Have Eyes (I thought the mutant rape scene was horrific)
• Event Horizon (this pulls on emotional tendrils of loss that stayed with me - also the concept of complete and utter eternal Hell - really disturbed me)
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre (there are aspects of torture and of sexual abuse, both of which definitely stuck with me)

The "scary" movies just make me jump and cling to my poor boyfriend's arm. The "disturbing" movies generally actually upset me afterwards; I have SERIOUS issues with sexual abuse on screen, especially if the victim is female; this might be part of the reason why I have a difficult time with Rob Zombie movies. Notice here how two of the movies on this list are both "disturbing" AND "scary." Both Event Horizon and TCM: The Beginning have good suspense and also generally disturbing moments.

I think that some aspect of horror definitely has to be "real," in one way, shape, or form. Let's face it: You need to feel ACTUAL threat in order to response in a horror/fearful sort of way.

But, I think, in this pursuit of what "scares" you, we need to define "scare" because there is a significant difference between "scare" and "disturb." They can definitely overlap, yet. But they are not inextricably bound.

Personally, I have a BIG problem watching torture and abusive films. And I've just realized lately that I cannot tolerate seeing animals killed or abused either (or alluded to being abused - Most recently I watched an episode of Carnivale where it was alluded to a cat being drowned, and I could feel myself welling up). That is the stuff that truly disturbs me.