by Wayne K. Wilkins

Created on: August 05, 2011

The phrase “they don’t make them like they used to” certainly comes to mind when it comes to modern day horror movies. Horror movies simply aren’t scary anymore. There are a few modern day exceptions to that rule such as Insidious, Scream 4, Drag me to Hell and Paranormal Activity, but other than that, high quality, truly scary and interesting horror movies have been few and far between. Why has there been such a decline in the quality of horror movies in the modern day and age and more importantly, what is wrong with modern day horror movies?

Too much emphasis on sex

Nowadays, horror movies put way too much emphasis on sex and sex appeal. Women are scantily clad and are tortured and abused just for the sake of it. There was a time when women were a viable asset to the genre of horror by being the damsel in distress or even the main protagonist and hero. It seems that modern day movies forget the past however in favor of having beautiful, half naked women parading on the screen and they think that inspires horror when it doesn’t. Horror movie creators need to stop focusing on sex and sex appeal in their movies and instead focus more on both character and storyline development. Naked women to not make a scary film, but instead, they distract and even ruin the horror aspect completely.

Too much blood and gore

With the constant advancement in technology, movie creators are now capable of creating some of the most over the top special effects ever seen. This means that blood and gore is some of the most realistic and most shocking that the movie industry has ever had. This is evident in such movies as the Saw series. However, it seems that movies put too much emphasis on blood and gore in the modern horror scene. Blood and gore, when used correctly, can add to a horror film but only when used as a part of a storyline or situation. Using blood and gore for the sake of it is not horror at all and it is not scary. It gets very dull and very boring quickly. Modern day horror movies take advantage of blood and gore to the point where it becomes stale and to the point where it actually hinders the storyline development completely.

As the movie industry continues to change and technology continues to change with it, it is a sad reality that the horror movie industry has taken such a major hit. It is very rare to see a high quality, genuinely interesting horror movie in today’s day and age because it seems that movie creators seem to take advantage of today’s more lenient movie standards in favor of having more sex and more blood on their screen. However, these things actually hinder the movie and it is these two things that are major contributors to the constantly declining duality in today’s horror movies. You need only look to modern day classics such as Insidious and Drag Me To Hell to see that excess blood and sex is not needed at all but what is needed is a great storyline that develops over time and a likeable cast of characters which also develop throughout the course of the movie. It s these age-old movie qualities that make a solid, high quality horror film, not modern day over-use of sex and blood.

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