I blame Wes Craven.

It took one of the pioneers of modern horror to push the genre into the mainstream, and inadvertently away from the devoted fans who kept it alive and flourishing for so many barren box-office decades – on a far smaller but “purer” scale.

A little history lesson

Ahhh, better times.

Prior to Scream’s arrival in 1996 the horror genre was doing OK thanks very much, but it was hardly bringing the house down. In the 70s for the most part horror was looked down upon, to outsiders it was cheap, nasty and considered merely fodder for the less intelligent or uncultured. Only occasionally did a film find box office success and even fewer were allowed critical approval. Notable exceptions to this are the obvious all time classics:

• The Exorcist 1973
• Jaws 1975
• Alien 1979

The 80s saw the mainstream get its way and horror was segregated, far away from “credible” cinema in the “arthouse” section of the video shop or one of the high shelves near the porno section. I hit my teens in the late 80s, and at that age I was most impressionable and willingly used myself as a test subject – over and again – with the purpose of deciding what I truly liked, as opposed to what I was force fed by the media.

Pretty Woman and Days of Thunder were both newly released about this time, and I guess it is in large part thanks to them that I decided that being considered “mainstream” perhaps wasn’t for me (I couldn’t understand why these shitty films were so popular) – up till that point in my life I watched either what my friends or parents watched.

It was time for something different. Something a little more challenging.

So I watched plenty of experimental cinema, foreign language films, real arthouse and a whole bunch of obscure stuff. At 16, living in a small town, with no girlfriend and a mate with parents who ran the local video shop there weren’t any better options. So hour after hour, week after week I churned through literally hundreds of films per year for the better part of a decade… 90 odd minutes at a time.

I always steered clear of the horror racks though, in my mind they were obviously too much for me, the covers were all grotesque and promised horrible experiences and events, and I couldn’t work out why anyone would voluntarily subject themselves to that.

(Now 20 years later this is still the best part of a horror film, the anticipation that it could very well get scary. The reality is unfortunately most films just don’t – but until the credits roll you can’t tell if the film you are watching is one of them or not. )

This is what keeps a horror junkie coming back for more, sifting through shelf after shelf, looking at online article after article, searching for the good stuff but knowing for every Descent there must first be 25 Blair Witch 2s.

So a few years on I’m 20 ish and living and working in the city and comparatively “cashed up”, but without any expensive hobbies (read: still single!) my primary vice remains films, primarily on video. I decide one day that my self imposed horror veto has gone on far enough, as I’ve watched practically every other film in the local store and have heard enough about The Exorcist, Jaws and co to suggest that I have been missing out on some good stuff.

So I rent a couple of them. Then a couple more. Now I watch horror films (plural) every week – and I have no intention of stopping.

But what about Mr Craven?

The beginning of the end?

I doubt in 1996 Wes consciously thought he must take the horror film away from the devoted horror junkie, he just wanted to poke a little fun at how clichéd the genre he helped sustain had become, and if he made some cash along the way so be it. But by putting established – and pretty – actors in the films and showing the audience “Look, it’s just a formula, there’s nothing to be scared about really” he convinced millions of people that horror could be a good time, and worse that it was OK to actually laugh at a little gore and not take it seriously.

Repeat MILLIONS of people worldwide – millions of mainstream people. People who thought Michael Bolton was a genius and Steve Guttenberg was a comedic marvel.

Doesn’t sound like a big problem right? After all if something is good shouldn’t everyone know about it? In theory yes, but what happens is that once something is accepted by the Mainstream they want more of the same (and only the same – it is hard enough to break into the Mainstream – don’t mess it up by changing the formula).

Instantly erased was the perception that horror was only for duffle-coated long haired losers who rented crinkly VHS cases with titles like Frankenhooker, Troll 2 and The Slashening, watching them alone with a big bottle of Coke and a bag of chips (or was that just me?). Horror was now for the pretty people too, and worse, it was now “cool” to watch a horror film, even a bad one! This being scared thing was great!

Now Hollywood might appear dumb but they ain’t that dumb. Scream came out in 1996 with a very low budget of 15M and promptly made over 100 million. All of the sudden horror wasn’t necessarily straight to VHS any more. Event Horizon, Mimic and The Relic (none of them classics), are all released to theatres in Australia – I know this, I went to all three happy to have a reason to visit a cinema without Schwarzenegger being involved (I was still in my early 20s, every guy needed them some Arnie!)

97; Scream 2. End of story right? Wrong! Proving the original was no flash in the pan the second film was a similar success both critically and commercially. Slightly higher budget, another 100 M clams. The secret? It was the same as the first more or less. A hundred serial killer, demented psycho films are released: Urban Legend, Halloween H20, Disturbing Behavior, Nightwatch etc.

Thanks to Wes the chink was already in the armour, then in 1999 The Blair Witch Project and The Sixth Sense change everything. Permanently.

A miniscule budget for Blair Witch turns into a billionish % profit margin with some clever marketing and word of mouth creating a massive buzz. Then a guy with a hard to pronounce name makes another little film that thanks to a surprise twist and again word of mouth makes even more millies, and brings Bruce Willis’ career back from the brink once again.

They say the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, but Hollywood didn’t want anything more than making a few bucks from the lucrative teen market, so they kept on with the formula. The only change being more projects announced and slightly higher budgets – but still not too much compared to big action blockbusters – and proceeds to churn out craptacular after craptacular.

Breaking mainstream was initially good for what in reality was a tired genre where most films were almost the same:

Prey, meet “bad thing”…

• 1/ introduce “bad thing” – Serial killer, virus, monster, killer animal.
• 2/ put “fodder” in front of “bad thing” for thing to scare/kill.
• 3/ have “fodder” run around, cry, scream, bicker and backstab while “bag thing” looms in background.
• 4/ “bad thing” picks off “fodder” one by one until showdown.
• 5/ after showdown plan sequel. If “bad thing” is dead revive, if “fodder” is alive sign them up to be chased again.

The outcome?

Larger budgets and more projects meant that real “Name Actors” would start considering horror films, instead of the no-name or the washed up – need money kind. Established stars even had a go at playing a bad guy for a change… Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise even made a Vampire movie! (A pretty sucky one.)

With bigger box-office projects that would have never seen the light of day were green lit, unknown directors with a vision (sometimes misguided, other times inspired) were given bags of money and told to go for it. This lead to a massive influx of talent and creativity, with so many horror films arriving annually they simply all couldn’t fit into cinema scheduling leading to a *gasp* increase in quality.

All of the sudden some pretty special films were being released direct to video with little fanfare to an audience hungry for more. True gorehounds and afficionados were fighting over tattered copies of Ginger Snaps and The Ring (even the original Japanese version!) with Mums & Dads and accountants.

Even stranger but ultimately more beneficial, International filmmakers quickly saw the opportunity to be noticed, they seemed to operate quickly and efficiently and created films that saw things from a different perspective and found scares that American directors ignored.

Now hardly a year goes by without a decent French horror film, the UK has branched out recently after spending a little too much time trying to make Shaun of the Dead 2 and from all over Asia films featuring long black haired ghosts line up to say boo (yes I’m generalizing). There’s even been a few decent flicks to come out of Australia. From this rise in International horror two things now inevitably happen:

1. / Directing a successful foreign film means a job in the US within 12 months – practically 100% of the time.
2. / If your original film was in a foreign language it will be remade in the US featuring a cast of former soap or reality TV stars. It will almost always be a far worse film but will invariably make more money.

Still looking for the bad side?

Braces have come a long way.

Saw came out in 2004, it was directed by a total unknown and featured a washed up or never-was cast – I’m lying? Pronounce Cary Elwes last name for me with confidence! It made squillions on a miniscule budget and lo and behold every October another sequel is released to an instant profit – Saw 7 in 3D soon!

Hostel was released the following year and a one note film about tourists being carved up for fun introduced the torture-porn craze that was imitated by dozens of increasingly uninspired cinematic drones – Turistas, Captivity, Martyrs, Hostel 2 etc… until now we have a one note film so lame that the filmmakers tell us what we’ll see before we see it! So three people will be sewed together in a dopey S&M conga-line of bodily functions – and you’ll like it. Is there where we have come where the mere description of a carefully calculated gross-out and some controversy is enough motivation for people to see a shitty (pardon the associated image) film?

Apparently.

I spent an hour the other day looking at the 206 (mostly) mainstream releases that were dubbed “Horror” on Rotten Tomatoes, after culling some obvious “Huh?” titles (The Scorpion King. Jennifer’s Body. The Box. Snakes on a Plane?? Hellboy?? Dreamgirls????????)  I tried to work out how many truly original horror films that were released over the last 10 years or so, and of the non original films how many were actually any good.

The horror genre has now pushed itself too far into the mainstream to escape, so it has now split into three distinct categories:

Category 1: Franchise / Name recognition

“You’re kidding me? 20 years and he’s fucking STILL there!”

My most dreaded phrase of the last few years? “Edited down to get a more favourable PG 13 rating”.

Most films in this bracket rely on an already well known name or brand, be it an older series of films, comic books or more recently video games. In short they know they have an inbuilt audience that will probably show up regardless – so invariably you know 99% of these films will suck before you buy a ticket – yet they make money anyway… leading to more!

Many of these franchises don’t even need a title, just the bad guy’s name is enough. Where many sequels are involved usually the first film seemed quasi-original at the time, and blind faith – or stupidity – proved powerful enough to get punters in to the sequels.

• Paranormal Activity
• 28 Days/Weeks Later
• Hostel
• From Hell
• 30 Days of Night
• Constantine
• Silent Hill
• Ghost Rider
• Blade
• Doom
• Alone in the Dark
• Scream
• Chucky
• … of the Dead
• Resident Evil
• Final Destination
• Freddie Kruger
• Jason
• Jeepers Creepers
• Halloween
• Saw
• Urban Legends
• Underworld
• The Collector (One film so far, but so desperately wants to be a franchise it had to be included.)

Basically everything listed above had films released in the dubbos, by my rough count around 52 titles. Of those the following were worthwhile and warranted a look:

Movie franchises

• Paranormal Activity (only the first)
• 28 Days Later
• 28 Weeks Later (Months to come in 2011!)

Gamer franchises

Only Silent Hill was interesting (hey I still like it – even if I don’t understand it.)

Every shitty sequel makes me think less of the first Resident Evil.

Comic Book franchises

For a start none of them are really scary in the first place, but Constantine I will defend and Blade 2 is Great! 30 Days of Night I could be talked into…

7 into 52 is 13% quality. Filter that ticket-buyers!

Category 2: Remake / Reboot / Reimagining / Reep off!:

How could this be scary? Try some Rumer Willis nudity!

It’s particularly depressing to note that the inferior remakes of classics such as The Omen and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre made far more than the originals, and that’s before I even bother with the shitty reboots of some of the more renowned franchises such as A Nightmare on Elm St, Halloween and Friday the 13^th, all three in the last few years, all awful. As many of these cross into the first category, let’s rip through the reboots first: Halloween / Nightmare on Elm St / Friday the 13^th / Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

All sucked. Moving on…

If something is good enough to remake it is probably good enough to not require a remake. Does that make sense?

Even though real horror fans will eventually trawl through the DVD racks, online articles and best of lists and find them anyway Hollywood is greedy and caters to the lazy, impatient and gullible.

Aside from the awesome Dawn of the Dead reimagining there was precious little value to be found in remaking stuff last decade.

Hence we have:

• Hollow Man (X 2)
• The Omen
• House of Wax
• Amityville Horror
• The Hitcher
• The Wicker Man
• 13 Ghosts
• The Hills Have Eyes (X 2)
• Valentine
• When a Stranger Calls
• Prom Night
• Sorority Row
• The Fog
• My Bloody Valentine
• Last House on the Left

I’m sure I missed others but my eyes were glazing over. Anything catch your eye from that list? No, because they all sucked too.

Made money though…

There is a wrinkle in this category though that provides some hope of quality, the remake of a foreign language film. While I am happy to stretch out and watch a film with subtitles it generally doesn’t sell tickets on the big screen.

The list below has films that were originally made in a language other than English *they have those?*, and you can see that some of the new versions actually hold up.

First those that don’t:

• Pulse                            (AH! Technology!)
• The Eye                        (AH! I see stuff!)
• Dark Water                  (AH! Water!?!)
• Quarantine                    (AH! Stick with the original.)
• The Uninvited               (Ditto.)
• Shutter                         (Double-ditto.)

But the following are all OK in either tongue.

• The Ring
• The Grudge
• Let Me In

Still, from the 35 I’ll allow 5 as worthwhile, another 14% return on time invested – with The Ring and Dawn of the Dead actually worthy of Great status – Shutter, Let Me In and The Grudge being the other three.

Category 3: Same shit / Different title

“I’ve got a secret… this movie sucks.”

This category still has more than its fair share of spam, but as it contains films that while heavily derivative and easily filed into a sub-genre there is enough scope for creativity and (limited) originality to provide hope.

I’ll deal in sub-genres:

Exorcisms / Evil possessed people (mostly kids):

• Lost Souls
• Orphan
• The Reaping
• May
• The Exorcism of Emily Rose
• The Last Exorcism
• Godsend
• Frailty

All bar Frailty, The Last Exorcism and perhaps Emily Rose sucked.

Ghosts / Haunted things

• Darkness Falls
• Ghost Ship
• Dead Silence
• White Noise
• An American Haunting
• What Lies Beneath
• The Unborn
• Boogeyman
• Gothika
• Mirrors
• The Haunting in Connecticut
• Session 9
• Below
• 1408
• The Others

The last four are all OK, Session 9 being Great.

Torture / Cannibals / General Unpleasantness

• Captivity
• Turistas
• Cabin Fever
• High Tension
• Wrong Turn
• Human Centipede
• Stuck
• Anything made by Rob Zombie (X 4)
• Pioneers: Hostel / Saw

There’s fun-gore and pointless gore. This looks fun…

All bar the first Saw sucked – and even that wasn’t much chop.

Or might I just say it didn’t really cut the mustard?

Was it because it was a little toothless?

Tee-hee, I could go on for hours…

No that was it.

Giant / killer animals & monsters – were fun in a silly way – aside from The Descent which is All Time Great!

• Chaw
• Open Water
• 8 Legged Freaks
• Black Sheep
• The Cave
• The Host

The Host was OK, Black Sheep good and The Descent… *Home Voice* “Mmmmmm, The Descent”.

This leaves:

Zombies – Fido / Ghosts of Mars / Dead Sno / Undead / Zombie Strippers / The Horde / Dawn of the Dead.

Dawn of the Dead I’ve praised already, The Horde was pretty good, scratch the rest.

Vampires – Daybreakers / Thirst / Twilight (Shudder)

Daybreakers was silly fun, Thirst OK and I forgot the last one…

Werewolves – Some Ginger Snaps sequels / Cursed / The Wolfman

Not a good decade to be a hairy-by-night guy I guess.

Serial Killer / Stalkers – Wolf Creek / P2 / The House of the Devil / Red Eye / Vacancy / Severance / The Strangers / Swimfan / Untraceable

Some wheat amongst the chaff, Wolf Creek and The Strangers were nastily effective, Red Eye hardly scary but it was OK, and Severance a welcome surprise. (I would never have thought that this sub-category would have the highest ratio of good to spam.)

Summary

As I mentioned if you are patient there are some good flicks to be found, out of 65-ish titles a reasonable 30% could stand up to scrutiny. A quick reality check, that’s a 110 hour commitment to watch maybe 18 decent films.

Overall that means of about 150 films released in the last 10 years a massive 20% were (perhaps) worth your time as a true horror fan. But at the same time over 80% of those 150 made cash – lotsa undeserved cash.

• Shaun of the Dead            (Zombies)
• Slither                                   (Zombies / Monsters)
• Black Sheep                        (Animals – mentioned)
• Drag Me to Hell                 (Possession / Ghosts)
• Zombieland                        (Zombies)

There were other titles mentioned earlier that had comedy elements – Fido, Dead Sno etc but none of them really warrant mention here. Also, Scary Movie proved that while it isn’t easy to make a truly great comedy pulling piss out of horror, it is truly easy to make money out of it.

The Exceptions

Hungry for good horror?

So I’m now 3000 words into bitching about how horror films of the last decade sucked balls. But the following not so easily categorised films provide a glimmer of hope.

• Let the Right one in
• Pan’s Labyrinth
• The Orphanage
• Three Extremes

The top 4 rated films of the decade that don’t easily slot into a category – yes I know Let the Right one in is a vampire film, but a truly original one – are all foreign language films, shows how hard Hollywood is searching for new ideas!

• Pontypool

Ahhh the English language… What, it’s Canadian? Figures.

I loved half of this film, but I’d rather something just missed aiming for originality than settling for mediocrity.

• Teeth
• Hard Candy

I’d hardly call either of these horror, Teeth was about hungry genitalia and Hard Candy was quite unsettling – and excellent.

• The Cell
• The Jacket
• Pandorum

All victims of trying a little too hard (Pandorum less so as an interesting Event Horizon clone), no shame here.

• Fear.com
• One Missed Call

Ah my phone and computer are trying to kill me! Give me a fucking break. I dread the day this evolves into its own sub-genre – Monsters / Animals / Technology.

Stay tuned in 2012 for:

I-C-U.Pad… The “Next-Gen” in terror.

So where to now??

I feel like Harry Doyle in Major League reading these stats:

“That’s it?

… 206 + films and 12 of them original!

… And less than half of those goddamn films were worthwhile!”

“ONE GOD-DAMN HIT???”

Sure 50% is better than 20%, but the selection available is putrid, less than 6% of horror films made in over 10 years can be labeled as truly original…

This triumph of profit over quality is the primary reason that the standard of horror has continued to fall steadily for years now. Until people stop buying tickets to these inferior cash-ins and knock-offs there is no real reason to try to increase the output.

This has resulted in true fans delving deeper and deeper to find that small arthouse flick that proves worthwhile, or the as yet unknown flick that is yet to be cheapened through a remake or diluted by unnecessary sequels. Paranormal Activity would be remembered as a better film if the second was never made.

We’re willing to do it, but it’s getting harder. I worry that in 10 years the way we’re going kids will proclaim themselves true horror fans as they head into the now G rated Saw 16.

That will truly be the death of real horror.

Or maybe the fact that Dreamgirls is listed on Rotten Tomatoes as a horror film means that the genre is already dead?

Hear that Hollywood? Pull your fucking finger out!

The Solution?

As I don’t want to just be a guy pointing and criticizing, here is a helpful 10 point checklist that will ideally give you some dos and don’ts to guide your next project along the path to worthwhile-dom.

• 1         Stop bankrolling sequels to films that sucked in the first place. (Bonus 1A: No real horror fan is crying out for 3D… )
• 2         Stop putting big names in films you know are shit just so the first weekend – before people realize it sucks – will cover the budget.
• 3         Stop scouring the foreign language racks at the DVD shops for the ‘Next big thing”, OK don’t stop but actually watch the original before greenlighting the US version.
• 4         Let Freddy, Jason and Michael Myers die in piece. Geez try to come up with the serial killers and monsters of the future – Note: Not the Collector. Not Hatchet.
• 5         Stop building a shitty film around pointless gore. Gore is Good: But when relevant to the film. Remember even a mediocre film needs something resembling a plot.

But oddly enough:

• 6         Stop cleaning up the gore on films that really need it. If someone needs and deserves to be killed give us a good look at it will ya?
• 7         A concept alone isn’t what scares us. Just saying “Ghost!”, “Zombie!” or “Vampire!” won’t cut it, create situations where you can actually provide some tension or fear.
• 8         Enough with the prequels that attempt to show the “origins” of a character. I could give a fuck how Michael Myers found his mask– just gut those teens in new ways.
• 9         Building your entire film around one concept – regardless of how horrific it might seem – is just lazy if you don’t throw some scares behind it. I’m talking to you Grace / Versus / Martyrs / Naked Fear etc…
• 10       Forget the twist endings in serial killer flicks, unless its truly clever or meaningful I just don’t care if Extra # 11 did it.

(Note: We know the unwritten rule in identifying the guilty party already: if a “name” actor seems to be there without a defined role or reason – they did it and will be unveiled with 5 minutes left in the film. See Whiteout and countless others.)

And Finally a bonus one…

• 11        It was very gratifying it might be at the time to see Paris Hilton get a steel post through her head.

It’s nice that you offer the latest reality star a role to provide a springboard to the red carpet.

It’s great that you can fit an in-joke or a hooky scare by making the grandma or little kid say something scary or momentarily evil.

Feel free to continue with the E Channel interviews where you tell people “Don’t worry there’s something for everyone in Murder-Death-Kill 6, the garrotte-ening.

But ultimately please try to make horror films for horror fans, not the casual dead shits that buy a ticket because “there’s nothing else on”.

• We’re the ones who buy your Special Edition DVDs and Blu-Rays.
• We’re the ones who buy the unnecessary (but undeniably cool) toys to gather dust on the shelf.
• We’re the ones who enabled you to make all this braindead teen-cash in the first place.
• We’re the ones who kept the genre alive by renting the films with tacky plastic covers that often had precious little to do with the actual films inside.
• We’re the ones who watch Troll 2, The Reaping, House of the Dead, Critters and Seed of Chucky hunting for the new Mega Piranha (it really is hilarious).

So finally. Show us some fucking respect for a change. Make horror films for horror fans.

________________________________________________

Got that Mr Craven? Whoops sorry I bothered you while you’re hard at work making Scream 4 in time for its 2011 release…

Please save me. My once favourite genre depends on it.

Somebody.

Anybody?