[Stingy Jack]

Oh! I just thought of the perfect example for my argument while I was preparing the coffee pot (I apologize that I seem to be overthrowing this thread ... its just that this is a subject I care a lot about.) Okay, Night of the Living Dead was scary ... and it was gory (particularly for its day). But then we got Return of the Living Dead and its sequels. None of these were scary. They didn't bother with things like atmosphere and character development that the first film had -- they were more concerned with making some gruesome corpses and showing a lot of brains getting eaten. And they turned the zombies into a big-ass comedy troupe! They're all running around, pratfalling and zinging off a one-liner: <in a thick, Southern accent> "Get that damn screwdriver out of my head!" These are the movies I'm talking about. I can't call these things "horror" movies, because they don't even try to scare. They try to make the audience laugh in the same way the bug zapper makes its audience laugh.

Anyway, I'm done now. Unless someone adds something I want to comment on. :)