by Christyl Rivers

Created on: January 05, 2011

Horror movies used to be amazing. The suspense of Hitchcock would scare the bees knees juice out of you.  You had no idea why a sociopath would be called a Psycho, but it did not matter.  Showers in motels have not been comfortable ever since. You also had no idea why the birds began attacking, but you knew it was something like what recently happened likely due to military testing in Arkansas. You know those red wing blackbirds were unjustly murdered.  It only makes sense that nature would exact some cost.

The old time science fiction and mad scientist kind of movies of long ago at least held your attention while you uneasily perched at the edge of your seat waiting to see what strange creature, or Thing, would lurch, swim, crawl, or stomp out of the dark.  It could be almost anything, a cloud, a mutant spider, a giant squid, a blob, a robot, or a tiny but persistent army of dolls, or invaders from another world.  The kitsch of Godzilla kicking around power poles and stumbling over buildings spilling out screaming citizens comes to mind. The power of old Dracula movies would enthrall us.  Vampires had to be really sexy, but also mysterious and horrifying, in a palpable way before they were so trendy and  cool that they lost all appeal.

The bogie man weirdoes who creep us out, drift into town.  The strange little girl “innocents” who are either possessed by demons, spirits that bump in the night, or are about to turn into troubled teens with more than the usual growing pains in store for their peers are about to go rogue.  Then there are the undead.  What are they doing?  Why do they move that way? Run away, they’re slow, but oh No, they are everywhere… Arrgh!  Then there is Stephen King. What is a “Shining?” It does not matter, it will freak you out. And who can ever really pull off that Pig’s blood veil look at the prom better than Carrie?  Those old movies have lots of surprise, lots of strange plot twists, and lots more appeal than the factory farmed out splatter flicks we see today.

These days more gore than story seems to leap out of the screen.  Chop and slop movies are everywhere.  They use simple plots, and lots of gratuitous sex and violence that are dripping all over everything, but in a word, not scary at all because they are so predictable. After so much blood and screaming, running, slicing and dicing and one scene very much like another, they have you horrified. You are horrified at how bored you are after spending good money on this stupid movie.

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