Horror movies have always been scary to me. Movies like The Exorcist, The Shining and Nightmare on Elm Street made me afraid to go to sleep. Horror movies these days are rehashing old ideas in order to make it appeal to viewers. Is the genre getting repetitive and dull?
Movies involving the horror genre have rehashed the same ideas over and over again throughout the years. Ideas like, there is a murderer on the loose, a character being possessed, or the found footage film has been done and re-done. Even if horror movies have an interesting idea, for example The Purge where one night crime is legal, it utterly fails because the characters are horrible, the plot is scattered, and the movie fails at being genuine. The Purge fails on the same things like movies in modern horror fail to do.
Horror movies do bring in audiences to the theater though, turning small budgets into large box office numbers. These movies mostly target the teenage audience. For instance, the movie The Omen has a 26% on Rottentomatoes but with their ad campaign they make almost 120 million dollars with a budget of 25 million dollars. The younger audience falls for horror movies thinking where they can get a huge scare from it. Most of the time though you go into the movie, probably get a jump scare, listen to the uninteresting or horrible plot and deal with characters who we have no interest in and then regret spending your money.
Not all horror movies are bad today. The Conjuring brought a unique story and atmosphere that made it worthwhile. This movie took risks and succeeded at it, something that modern horror films fail to do. The movie Oculus that came out this year was average, but the concept of the movie showed that if the story didn’t have a fork in the road; it could have been much better.
Remakes are known for being notoriously bad, but a remake that came out last year showed that it can be done. Evil Dead was a remake of one of the best horror movies ever made. This movie took a different turn, making it more serious instead of adding slapstick humor to the movie. With the original director re-visiting the franchise after 20 years (Last movie was Army of Darkness), he showed that a new take on the movie was needed for modern audiences and it was done successfully. So successful in fact that a Starz mini-series on the franchise was announced, coming later next year starring the original actor from the 1981 classic, Bruce Campbell.
To me the horror genre has been stale for a while. Having 10+ Friday the 13th movies just shows it. There are just gems out there to make the genre stay relevant.
