So... I'm not really sure what The Film Experience audience's stance on horror film is. But I'm a horror fanatic and am curious to see what y'all think about this much maligned (and very often rightfully so) genre. I assume it's the same as any genre - make it well and you like it. Unfortunately horror's about as mixed a bag of rotten apples as there is.
But ya see, I've got horror on the brain after seeing The Descent yesterday (you can read my half-assed review here) and really, mostly, liking it, and then watching again some of High Tension which could've been fantastic if not for an horrific-in-the-worst-way-imaginable ending that succeeds only in spoiling everything great before it.
So I guess my question's this: What's the last movie you saw that scared the living bejesus out of you? I'm often thinking about the recent state of horror, especially with this wave of gore-fests (Saw, Hostel, et al) that've permeated the genre as of late. Or do you just think it's a crappy genre filled with shit and the questionable intentions of sadists?
Now, I've got nothing against a good gore-fest, but the argument's often made about these types of films versus the kinds that try to get you on a more psychological level; things that play by the old-school "less is more" rule like, say, The Others.
The Descent had its moments but, like I say in my review, it did not better the best new horror film I've seen in years, Wolf Creek. WC sat like a shudder down my spine for days. And unlike a Saw film (I've only seen the laughably terrible original), WC shows very little actual violence yet, like the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, is accused of being graphic because they both imply so much the viewer imagines they actually saw the things they did not see.
It doesn't miss my attentions, either, that the three most interesting, to me at least, horror films of the past couple years (WC, High Tension, and The Descent) were all made outside of the US. Maybe we ought to start thinking up some new ideas instead of throwing cash at remakes of, say, the J-horror films? Like the oncoming slit-my-wrists spectacle of Battle Royale being remade?
So what do we prefer? Pus-spewing eyeballs onscreen or possibly-bloody - but maybe not! - twigs outside the tent door? Do we have to choose? Can't we enjoy both? Without, you know, being a homicidal maniac barking up the wrong blog-audience, of course...?
