by Nadiya Waterloo

Created on: February 23, 2009

The music is ominous, suggesting something bad is about to happen. A woman is swimming in inky black water on a poorly lit night and even though we know it's coming, we still jump when the she is suddenly yanked across the water with an ear piercing shriek. Her screaming continues as she struggles against an unseen force. She is pulled under the water for a moment and then breaks the surface gasping for air while begging for help from a higher power. On the edge of our seats we watch her slowly fail in her battle for survival. She is pulled below the surface for a final time, and the only sign of the heart pounding battle is a slight rippling of the water.

Perhaps one of the most remarkable things about this scene, as well as large portions of the movie, is that the scariest moments were created without the focus of our terror ever being seen. "Jaws" was a true horror movie. The audience was filled with fear by the thought that when it came to the ocean, man was not the top of the food chain. It left thousands of people "afraid to go in water" and gave sharks a bad reputation for decades. "Jaws" made you realize that even more frightening than seeing what was lurking beneath the surface, was not seeing it at all.

Horror movies were usually the least funded movies for a studio. As a result of small budgets, directors had to come up with creative ways to induce terror in their audiences. For "Jaws" it was largely done by an intricate system of pulleys and wires that would drag the actors across the water to simulate a violent shark attack. There were minor splashes of blood and quick shots of severed limbs in order to convince the viewer that they were seeing a mutilated body, but never so much and not for so long that the audience could question the authenticity of the props. Although they had small budgets, directors knew that less was more when it came to the willing suspension of disbelief in the audience.

In contrast, modern horror movies are more than willing to show you what is hiding in your closet and reveal it in a wash of body fluids. It is almost like there is a secret competition taking place between production companies to see which movie can use the most blood, mutilate the most bodies, and create the most sickening displays of twisted human behavior. Unfortunately "Horror" has become synonymous with "Blood and Gore".

While blood, gore and twisted human behavior have their place in horror movies, the overwhelming amounts in the modern horror movies have led to the desensitization of the audience. At a certain point, blood splattered excessively on the wall just becomes poorly applied red paint to the mind's eye. Instead of being terror inspiring, the special effects have become laughable. After all, does the human body really contain ten gallons of blood?

With the advent of CGI and better special effects, horror movies have been able to push the limits of the genre. Audiences are drawn to the theaters to see the ghostly girl who crawls through the television to get you, to see just how far movie magic can scare them. However, crafting a truly terror inspiring horror movie is an art form. There needs to be a balance between telling the story and painting the picture on the big screen. If the story is lost in a river of blood, then the overall movie suffers and if there isn't a good story then no amount of blood or brain matter can create one. Unfortunately, most modern horror movies have come to rely on these special effects and have lost the art of storytelling. Who's afraid of the big, bad CGI wolf? Not I.

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