What's a good horror movie these days

I've recently seen the trailers to two upcoming to horror remakes (I don't subscribe to the euphemism of "re-imagined"). Friday the 13th and My Bloody Valentine (in 3D). I am currently writing my own horror movie. If my horror film gets made I think it will be enjoyable by horror fans. I've been thinking lately of what makes a good horror movie. What has to be in it to make it memorable? What will make it so that people will talk about it? One that perhaps the people at Fangoria magazine may dub it one of the years best.

I realize that over the years horror has changed. I recently looked up the definition of "horror" in a dictionary and here is how it was defined, "1: painful and intense fear, dread, or dismay. 2: intense repugnance. 3: something that horrifies. So a "horror movie" would be something that helped fulfill this definition through the art of film making.

I mentioned the two upcoming remakes and no one would argue that these two film fall under the horror genre, but those kind of movies weren't always what was considered a horror movie.

Now back in the early 30's, movies like Dracula and Frankenstein (The Wolf Man in 1941) were considered GREAT horror movies. They scared audiences, and like the horror movies of today spawned plenty of sequels. Now I'm sure if the teenagers of today who go to these current horror movies would NOT consider those old black and white Universal films (that was the studio who released those movies) would consider them to be scary AT ALL.

The movie I consider the scariest movie of all time was a film titled, "Train Pulling into Station", or something along those lines. This was one of the first movies ever screened for an audience. It may even be in single digits as far as first films ever seen, but I can't quote that as a fact. Back then films weren't telling stories, they were just shots of stuff. Another early film of this time were a bunch of people leaving a factory after a days work. "Train Pulling into Station" was just a single shot of a train pulling into a train station. Since film was a new technology, and even though it was in B&W, when the audience saw this train pulling in, they actually thought it was areal train and many went running out of the theater in fear of being run over.

I've never seen or heard about a horror movie being so scary that people went running out of the theater in true horror. I once saw a girl walk out of a screening of Dead Alive (by Peter Jackson, perhaps the goriest movie ever made). I imagine she left out of disgust of what she saw. I'd imagine her boyfriend who left about a full 10 seconds after her (to the laughter of the whole theater), left because he couldn't very well let her leave alone.

While many people probably would not define "Train Pulling into Station" as a horror movie, did it not fulfill the definition of what horror is?

While horror went through many incarnation through out history, I think it really entered a new territory in the 70's and 80's. In those cases the movie premises went something like the following.... A group of people (usually late teenagers early 20's) are stalked and killed in many different and creative (hopefully gory) ways by a terrible killer. Some were hard to kill, some were disfigured, some wore masks, and often filled more than just one of these.

There was one scene that we often saw in almost all of these movies. Someone is alone and hears a noise. They investigate. "Hello, is someone there?" Tense music. Often a close-up shot of the persons hand reaching for a door or a window. The music comes to a sudden high pitch and a cat jumps out of a window suddenly blows open and closed from the wind. We, the audience, jump at the sound of the music and cat/window/door/whathaveyou and our character feels a sense of relief that there was nothing to be scared of in the first place. Then the camera shot widens or pans and we see the killer is standing right behind the person. The killer waits for the person to turn around and STRIKES.

This is a scene we still see today. It is pretty much expected. If the director and editor does a good job, a lot of suspense was build up during this scene. Right now, the movie I am writing does not have a scene like this. I can not say, at this time, if it will get one.

The horror genre dried up for a while in the late 80's early 90's. There is only so many times you can see the same formula spun out again and again. In 1989 they had to send Jason from Friday the 13th in Manhattan (it was STILL a terrible horror film). Then we got Scream in 1996.

Wes Craven helped us feel scared again as the opening scene with Drew Barrymore showed us real horror again. As the character was being terrorized, the audience was right there with her. Plus, Scream, and many films like it afterwards gave us the, "Who is the killer behind the mask" kind of horror films. Scream went on to make over 100 million so horror genre got a much needed shot in the arm and studios started producing more of the again.

Lately we've been getting horror movies like Saw and Hostel. Some have dubbed them torture porn. In those we get some real gruesome kills. They don't go as far as some of the horror films that come from Europe and Asia (those countries don't have to worry about the Motion Picture Association of America to worry about), but those films have pushed the boundaries of horror once again. These films make some pretty decent money at the box office and do even better when they come out on DVD in Unrated versions ("see what they couldn't show you in theaters" has been a great selling point for these films).

Remakes are big now and are making good money. Many fans of horror were upset when they heard they were making remakes of such classic like Dawn of the Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but they went to see them anyway, and many of them had good things to say about them too. I took a date to see the Halloween remake and believe me that girl was tight into my arms by films end (thank you Rob Zombie). I can't say how the new incarnations of Jason and "Harry Warden" are going to play out, but I'm sure they'll make some decent cash.

The name of the horror movie I'm writing is called, She. After five pages in I'm certain it would get slapped with an NC-17 rating. Death for even a horror movie because there are many theaters that won't show any of those and many places that won't even let you advertise such a film. I wish I could release the movie like the film Clue was done. For those of you who don't know, Clue was a film based on the board game of the same name. As a gimmick, the film had multiple endings. You get to see them all on the VHS/DVD, but back when it was released in theaters they put out an A, B and C ending. The newspapers would list which one was playing where. I don't know how this worked for the studio, but I thought it was a cleaver idea.

I wonder if She could be released something like that, but instead of A and B, you could have some theaters have the R-rated version while others carried the NC-17. That way you could still release it wide, even advertise it, and just, "check local listings for NC-17 theaters" or something like that. That way the true horror fan who demands his or her gore can get ti on the big screen and share it with an audience. That was something I liked about horror movies. Sharing that scream with a room full of strangers. Seeing a movie with an audience is something I always cherished. No matter what kind of system you install in your home, you will never be able to replace that.

This is my first blog. I have a very close friend of mine who told me I should start writing a blog dedicated to horror films since I know them so well. I'll write as often as I can. Sharing my thoughts on different horror films when they come out, or anything else that may come to mind.

I'll sign off about sharing with you the film that scared me more than any film ever has to this day. It was Jaws. My father took me and my little brother to see the re-release of the film in 1976 at the Port Washington movie theater (VCRs were not around yet). I was five years old. My brother has no real memory of it. He swore for years that when we first saw it, the film was in Black and White.

I rode in the front seat on the way to the theater, so my brother got to sit in the front on the way home. I spent that whole trip looking out the back window to see if the shark was chasing us (yes, I know we were on dry land). That night I slept with my legs in tight, because I thought if I stretched my legs out the shark would bite them off. What made things even worse, the carpet in my bedroom was blue. I was 100% certain that during the night the carpet would turn into water and the shark was going to get me. I got so bad that my parents had me sleep in my little brothers room so I would feel safer (he had green carpet). Boy, my mother REALLY chewed out my father for taking us to see that movie.

Today, Jaws is my favorite film of all time.

Some people would say it is a good horror movie. Others would say otherwise. It scared me so that's pretty good. I suppose a "good" horror movie is mostly subjective. If a lot of people died in really disgusting manners then that was good for them. Sometimes just feeling that tension build up in your stomach as your watching a certain scene could be enough for you to label a horror film as, "good". The original Halloween is a favorite of mine and that was mostly due to the music. In the end, if YOU consider a movie to be a good horror, then it is.

Thank you for reading my blog

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