When did horror films jump the shark?

I grew up on Vincent Price. "Psycho", "The Haunting", "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" and "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte" kept me awake late at night as a pre-teen. In high school, "Night of the Living Dead" blew me away, "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" scared the shit out of me, and "Phantasm" left me week-kneed and nervous. "Last House on the Left" and "Clockwork Orange" were the icing on the cake...

Then it died.

You have "Friday 13th"; You have "Halloween"; then there's "Ran" (did NOT impress me), "Jeepers Creepers" (Jesus, how bad can it get), and "The Village" (THIS is as bad as it can get!)

Seriously, contemporary horror is sadly lacking. "The Others" with Nicole Kidman had its moments but never really scared me. I watched the miniseries "Rose Red" today while washing dishes/cleaning and almost fell asleep.

The only two films that have kept me literally on the edge of my seat in the last 20 years have been "The Hitcher" (1986) and "Joy Ride" (2002).

Any thoughts on the death of horror or suggestions on good, new movies?

a good example is the remake of the classic 1963 The Haunting - what a piece of crap that 1999 version was. I agree with you on The Others - good acting, good story, well done - just not scary. And Red Rose put me to sleep before it was halfway done.

The '63 version was really frightening in its creepiness. I remember watching it on television late one night with my mother and being scared as shit! The 1999 special effects version was a total POS. Special effects do not make up for poor storytelling.

I think no physical horror of the gore variety can beat the chilling effect of having the horror generate in your mind - in other words, just sheer CREEPINESS. That sort of stuff takes a great screenplay writer and a stellar director, a rare combo that The Haunting (1963) did have with Nelson Gidding and Robert Wise. And the MUSIC alone in that movie creeps me out to this day!

and it makes me sad. You're right-creepiness is whats missing in todays horror. Its always the same. 6 or 8 hot 20 year olds gather in a scarey place, then they seperatefor no good reason except to make it easier to slaughter them. Yawn....George Bush does that every week in Iraq.

Seriously, Hitchcock knew how to do terror and do it well. I'm beginning to doubt that anyone alive today shares his skills.

It was a CG crapfest. I hated that damn movie. "Rose Red" and "Ellen Rimbauer" were both crap as well. "Ellen Rimbauer" was a lurid little supplement that showed her predilection to have threesomes with her husband and West Indies women. Crap, crap crap.

Boring story, cheesy special effects, and bad acting! Liam Neeson, Lili Taylor, and Owen Wilson were all equally pathetic in their respective roles. Catherine Zeta-Jones was able to flaunt her sex appeal a little bit, but only that could do so much. This movie was a total snoozefest! :boring:

The scariest thing in that movie was Owen Wilson's nose!

It followed the book pretty faithfully and relied on character development rather than special effects. It worked...

"You may not believe in ghosts, but you cannot deny terror...."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057129/

I'll have to check out the original. :-)

Its been many years, and its probably not nearly as good as I remember, but I can GUARANTEE it will be heads above the POS they put out a couple of years ago. That was one pathetic excuse for a film.

so disappointing - and Ms. Jones cannot hold a candle to her counterpart in the original, Clare Bloom

She really did an excellent job in "The Haunting"

The original was the most frightening movie I've ever seen because it let the imagination run wild. No ghosts, monsters, etc. seen throughout the entire movie, but the implications were intense. The "whose hand was I holding" scene stayed with me for a long time.

Julie Harris was superb as Eleanor, and portrayed the psychological nuances perfectly.

I had nightmares for weeks when I saw that as a kid.

on it, but if I ever get the chance, I'll give it a shot...

It gave me nightmares, too. And I was about 35 when I saw it.

It was a good movie, though.

A modern classic, in my view.

Bout the same as others here, nightmares for a week lol

Gotta mention Hellraiser and Alien too.

Oh, and the Dead movies!

I know tho, not much in the way of horror movies for a long time. "Dead BIrds" was kinda creepy. Fo a while. No masterpiece.

An even rarer beast is a good Sci-Fi movle.

flying thought space really blew my mind -it was 1979, for Christ's sake-you KNOW what we were doing!

"Hellraiser" just never really got me excited. Likewise "Alien", and all the damned "Chuckie" movies.

Good sci-fi movies are IMPOSSIBLE to find. If you exclude Star Trek and Star Wars, THX1138 is probably the last great sci-fi flick and that was made in 1971.

Lathe of Heaven (PBS made-for-TV)
Terminator
E.T.
Aliens (I liked it more than Alien)
Donnie Darko

These are the ones that immediately come to mind as great sci-movies that have come out since 1971.

The endless run of copycats from the 1980's extending into "Scream" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer" in the late 1990's. It's a simple formula that's guaranteed to either make enough box office or video rentals for a profit.
New horror? "The Ring" and "The Blair Witch Project" are the only two decent horror movies I've seen in the past few years. "The Blair Witch" worked for me because of the stylized gritty realism that drew you into their trip into the woods.
I also enjoyed the first two "Hellraiser" movies, but the rest have been absolute crap.
Right now, I've got Karl Theodor Dreyer's "Vampyr" and "White Zombie" to watch from Netflix. I believe both of these movies are circa 1932, so that tells you my opinions of modern horror.
ON EDIT: I forgot to mention "Stir Of Echoes". That was a great movie too.
Edit #2: "At the Mouth of Madness" and "Event Horizon". Both of these deserve honorable mention.

Maltin's guide. May have to check it out. Thanks.

Everyone has seen THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

OPEN WATER
CUBE and CUBE ZERO


I also liked THE CELL but many people did not.

introspective horror.

Halloween IS one of the greatest horror movies ever made. It's arguably the greatest slasher movie ever made. I'll concede that the sequels pale in comparison, however have you seen the sequels to Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

To me the horror genre died in the 1980s with the rash of Halloween-like horror movies (starting with Friday the 13th). While I enjoy watching them, horror really stopped taking itself seriously around that time.

Horror in the 1990s reverted somewhat back to the original slasher classics of the 1970s (TCM, Black Christmas, Halloween), yet they were more about the cheap scares rather than the strong substance. Now we're seeing PG-13 Paranormal flicks that got their start around the time of The Sixth Sense.

Sadly, they too are watered down and tend to go for the cheap scare rather than a strong plot.

Horror died in the 1980s...at least as a respectable film genre.

I just don't care much for slasher films in general. They lack subtlety and are pretty generic. "Halloween" does stand out though, and I admit I ignored it because of its sequels..

There is of course a plethora of horror flicks that are new and interesting coming from the east. Japan, Korea, and China seem to be making some quite inovative horror flicks these days. Well worth checking out if you don't mind subtitles.

It wasn't the advent of any particular genre or even the availability of special effects. Rather, it's the same thing that's been killing a lot of the better dramas: the tendency for filmmakers to water down the content so they can get the much-desired PG-13 audience in the door. It's not that horror movies need a ton of violence to be good, but they nearly always have some kind of tense, dramatic situation meant for adults. Despite all the hand-wringing about the effects of modern entertainment, movies just 20 or so years ago told bolder steps in terms of their themes, levels of violence and doing other things to appeal to mature audiences. Since that died, so has many genres meant to appeal to adults. It's much easier now to turn out an insipid, effects-laden clunker with half-stars than hire good actors and make a movie with a decent theme and plot. In the same way, it's much easier to turn out maudlin crap with a few ghosts in it than produce a horror movie with a consistent theme.

Big corporations are not about increasing risk. They want to be able to make accurate predictions about their money. Therefore they only back projects they can predict the profits to. This means using formulas they know the outcome of. This means death of inovation.

We sat there watching the trailers before StarWars the other day. It was astounding. A ton of trailers and the people in the audience were actually groaning/laughing at all the retreaded plots they were throwing at us. Holllywood isn't out of ideas. Its simply not allowed to use any new ideas.

...in fact, I'm inclined to think the advent of PG-13 killed them, since it eliminated the "need" for some gratuitious nudity in order to ensure a "not a kiddie-flick" R-rating.

Forget the axes, it was the skinny-dip- and shower-scenes that sold those movies (just look at their posters).

The slasher flicks usurped the name of the horror genre, but the horror parts were mostly cover to "justify" the soft-porn parts.
Then the franchises kept going to feed the newly-expanding VCR market, for similar reasons. In the meantime, real horror didn't fit that period's movie-financing view, so they didn't get made.

Sorry, I hate horror movies.

No apologies necessary.

I still enjoy the occasional horror film, but not from America: Asia have produced some excellent horror movies fairly recently: Ring, Ring 2, Dark Water (by Japanese director Hideo Nakata).

And a very underrated Korean film, Say Yes. Really creepy stuff.

Seen em all and Spiral and Tomie etc. Right now Japan and Korea are pumping out films full of atmosphere and clever writing.

And every time they remake them for the American audience they get dumbed WAAAAAY Down (Grudge and Ring classic examples).

Say Yes is the Korean version of the Hitcher...two thumbs up.

28 days later and Dog Soldiers were also a couple good imports.

A good indie flick is May

Hollywood is rotten, but there are some quality international and indie flicks out there

serious video (especially foreign) is very hard to find. Any sources you can suggest?

website focuses on asian: horror, film noire, and mob flicks. pretty good website if i say so myself. used it for my recent report at school. there really seems to be an asian film renaissance going on.

from there check stores, most likely 'net stores, and netflix-like companies.

I'm very fearful of where Netflix might be going with this new Walmart deal...I'd hate to have to give them up...so I'm watching where it goes. But for now...Netflix. If you click on almost any movie you like you can get a list of similar movies.

The Audition is another one that's very interesting. I find the recommendations to be ok on netflix if you rate enough movies. I also get a good bit of info from the reviews that members write under each movie...lots of good suggestions down there.

The other places I read about movies is
http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/ (which is admittedly a bit of a fanboy site)

http://www.upcominghorrormovies.com/

http://www.darkhorizons.com/films.php

http://www.reallyscary.com/

Lots of movie info like this out there...most of the sites link to each other. Hope that helps.

Saw "Ringu" and thought it was really a pretty mediocre horror movie. Saw "The Audition" and s&m as the only theme for a horror movie just doesn't cut it -excuse the pun.
There hasn't been a decent horror film since "The Silence of the Lambs", 13 years ago, and that film fits more into the thriller genre. I've not seen a really great "horror" movie since, well I really can't remember, and I see most films of that genre (except teen slasher films, which I detest). I can't believe M. Night Shyamalama-ding-dong films do so well. "The Village"? Come on. "The Sixth Sense"? I turned to my wife at the drive-in half way through and said (No, I didn't know the twist ending), "This is just another version of "Touched By An Angel." Sure enough, I was right. "The Blair Witch Project" kind of worked for me, that unforgettable final image. I thought "28 Days Later" was just OK. The constantly moving camera and rat-a-tat editing gave me a headache. The Canadian filmmaker Guy Madden (or is it Madson?) has made some really creepy films, but they're more arty and surreal than horror. Same with David Lynch. I'm still waiting for the next "Night of the Living Dead" or "Rosemary's Baby". Now those were horror movies!

how Mia Farrow's baby turned out. However, "Night of the Living Dead" really grabbed my attention big time, immediately, and never let up until the closing credits. That, to me, is the mark of a great movie.

I didn't talk, think, eat or pee. I just watched the movie unfold and damn those zombies scared the shit out of me!

i liked sixth sense, because for the most part the story and characters were interesting. i loathed everything else m. night shamalan has made thereafter though.

hated blair witch project. gave me motion sickness, was thoroughly trite (dude, if you really were that freaked light the whole fucking forest on fire. *someone* will come into the forest and get you out), and the last scene left me confused, because i felt insulted and robbed of my money, and then i laughed that this pile of shite was bilking so much money and was considered 'novel'.

the remake of 'dawn of the dead' was ... gory? boring. mildly humorous. the latest trend in horror is the "lightning fast zombies from hell!" which is really disappointing. and it's weird how western zombies are contagious, instoppable mobs, harbringers of apocalypse. when i was reading zora neal hurston's journal on haiti and voudoun she mentioned zombies and the ritual, culture, interpretation behind them and *that* was some scary shit. a bocor (sorceror) riding backwards on a slowly walking horse speaking in tongues with eyes rolled back in his head? shit, i have no idea what it meant before and that image alone would've scared me back into the house. now knowing that it was the sign of the bocor coming to steal someone's soul and turn them into a zombie i'd definitely run screaming back into the house.

last great horror movie i saw in the theater was the director's cut rerelease of Exorcist. that was more exhausting than the original. all the scenes of normalcy and medical confusion contrasted so beautifully with the horrifying downward spiral i knew was coming. they don't make them like that anymore.

How about other edgy but somewhat unique movies like Cabin Fever?

I find atmosphere more important than a lot of other things these days...and that's why I'm drawn to much of the asian cinema...the US remakes tend to lose that dark aspect that makes a Horror movie for me. Horror comes in a lot of varieties...demonic, vampire, werewolf, slasher, thriller...guess a lot depends on which sub-genre you're looking for at the time as well.

On the other hand I am in agreement on the jerky camera thing that's infected so many movies. It does give me a headache. Hate it in Horror flick, action flicks...and any other flick...it was the greatest problem I had with Gladiator. They need to STOP IT!

The Thing ...... it gave me nightmares for months

Try out Battle Royale. It's a Japanese movie about some kids put on an island that have to kill each other. I think you can find the special edition on Ebay for a decent price.

Also, there's another film from Japan called Suicide Club. That's another really disturbing one.

"suicide Club" sounds interesting too. Thanks.

Except they have electronic collars that blow up if they leave the island. The kids either just start killing each other right off the bat, create groups and try to figure out what they can do to escape, and some end up turning on each other. There's a lot of drama, sometimes a little mellowdramatic, but it keeps things interesting. Amazon has a section about the video but the studio didn't release it according to them. There's actually an euro special edition release that'll work on US DVD players. It's on Ebay all the time.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005JL9B/qid%3D1116739297/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/104-1499307-7007151

There was a sequel to this where the people that survive end up making a terrorist group similar to Bin Laden and commit terrorist acts against the parents that did this to them. It wasn't nearly as good as the original, though.

movie. So much that is meant to be terrifying is just limp.

The US and it's attitude towards terrorists is the McGuffin throughout the sequel. We are the real bad guys behind the scenes making the violence necissary. They even read off a huge list of nations we have attacked. Its disgusting just how many nations we have bombed.

Well, it was really more of a suspense movie than a horror movie. This was the only movie I've seen in a long time that had me on the edge of my seat. :scared:

And I'm with you--"The Hitcher" scared the hell out of me when I was a kid!!!

It reminded me a lot of Seven, which I thought was a better movie.

but mostly from being grossed out rather than creeped out

Poltergeist, so I am definitely in the same boat as you on the new ones.

I also loved Happy Birthday to Me, Carrie (the original), I think there was one called The Little Girl at the end of the Lane?

Can't remember.
The oldies were definitely the goodies.
Blood and guts doesn't always equal horror, just gross.

Carrie was damned good, and The Little Girl at the end of the Lane was a great Jodie Foster flick. Damn, can she act or what?

Tension, not blood and gore, is the answer to good horror.

Bruce Springsteen's younger sister (don't know her name) was in a slasher flick from '85 or '86 called Summer Camp: Unhappy Campers. It was on last night. :-(

That was SOOOOOOOO incredibly bad, I can't imagine even explaining it. But that, of course, was THE MOMENT when horror films "jumped the shark."

Just kiddin'.

Most of the movies you've cited as doing it for you relied heavily on psychological tension more than absolute horror. It has been replaced by special effects which just can't compare.

It takes more than M. Night Shalayman's incessant use of the whisper to create tension.

And the trendy use of the "sudden loud noise" is just lame.

I will recommend "The Devil's Backbone" http://imdb.com/title/tt0256009/
but it's not really "edge of your seat" material. It is, however, fairly original and unique. Marisa Paredes turns in another great performance. I think you'll like it.

Worst horror movie in recent memory? "13 Ghosts". That sucked out loud!

and Tony Shalhoub, who deserves to be in a better horror movie.

And I forgot the proper title: Thir13en Ghosts

Who thought that was a good idea?

The production design was impressive. Not enough to merit sitting through the film, however.

I was fascinated at all they had to do to make the house look so spectacular. And the backstories/design of each ghost was detailed and quite scary...too bad none of that made it into the film.

I'm almost 50. Saw Psycho as a teenager, alone at home on a Friday night. To this DAY, I cannot take a shower without periodically pulling the curtain aside to make sure it's OK.

No other movie has ever scared the living shit outta me like that. The key is great storytelling (lost long ago) and building suspense.

Bake

I don't know why. No one has ever entered the house while I was showering, but-you never know. "Psycho" was an incredibly effective movie and you're right-building suspense and terror is the key-not blood, guts, slashing and monsters.

of horror and sci-fi films growing up in the late fifties, early sixties. My dad was a movie nut and took us to see everything! While we watched he deconstructed how the special effects were created which took the edge off of any real scares that his kids might be experiencing. I was truly never afraid of any of the American International Roger Corman type films that were the norm back then. In 1966, when I was 13, and these films were in already in re-rerelease, he took us to see a double feature at the drive-in. "Psycho" and "The Birds" and, well, even my very jaded father and his young teenage sons shit a brick. It was the first time my dad and his kids ever experienced real terror at the movies. It was the first time I can remember that my father wasn't yakking about how phony the special effects were. I was hooked on Hitch from that moment on.

Horror/suspense was his specialty and he could terrify you without killing off a dozen random horny teenagers. Hell, he knew how to build suspense and that 90% of the job.

it was interesting for me to learn that Hitchcock would have despised Ann Coulter as much as we do. According Patrick McGilligan's 2003 biography "Alfred Hitchcock, A Life In Darkness and Light", although he used "communists" as the enemies in his post World War II spy films, Hitchcock hated Joe McCarthy and he went out of his way to hire a few blacklisted technicians and writers to work on his films. Even though he became an American citizen and he never voted, he had great respect for FDR, Kennedy and LBJ. He considered himself a Progressive and he was extremely cagey about the way he handled the Hays Commission censors in order to put on celluloid his dark, and for their time, sexually charged visions. I highly recommend this book.

though he was far roo smart to be a conservative. Thanks for the heads-up.

I saw this marketed a few years ago: the "Psycho Shower Curtain." No shit. A shower curtain with the opaque outline of someone coming at you with a knife raised to strike. HOLY F'ING SH*T!!

Now THAT is insane!!! Still scares the crap outta me!!

Bake

First, you have to CARE about the characters before you care whether they get killed or not. Being young, pretty, and half naked isn't enough to make you truly involved with the character.

Second, the buildup is more important than the "payoff". You have to create tension and suspense. Again, this isn't possible if you don't care about the characters.

of who the characters are before they're eviscerated. It's boring, not frightening. Yeah, yeah, yeah, another hot teen couple gets a machete pinning them together for eternity. And I should care because....? How many times can you do that and expect people to give a damn?

I liked SAW. It's not a scary movie so much as a disturbing movie.

If you've not seen THE GRUDGE and nobody has described the surprises to you, it's worth a play alone at night. Very interesting how the pacing and scare setups are *completely* different from American horror movies.

GINGER SNAPS is a reinvention of werewolf mythos.

It had great potential but didn't follow through

since then everyone has pretty much copied Halloween

recently, though, there have been some pretty creepy ones of a different flavor

The Mothman Prophecies
Sixth Sense
The Ring

those were pretty scary/creepy

we've had WAY too many of the Freddy, Friday the XIII, Scream formulaic "boo" fests.

I agree with your statement. Twilight Zone, the original Outer Limits, Alfred Hitchcock Presents....
Great scary stuff.
Hack producers and writers who will work for them killed the genre.

One of those where you can poke your wife in the ribs and get a scream.

I was thinking movies after reading the OP's opening post, but now that you mention the "Outer Limits" and "Twilight Zone" (Rod Sterling's TV series)... yeah, scary but super cool stuff! :D "To Serve Man" scared the jeebus outta me... but I LOVED to be scared. My mom used to hold seances for all the neighborhood kids (yes, freeps, we're ALL heathens or Vodou witches here in New Orleans), and tell stories by Edgar Allen Poe, an do things like throw a monkey's paw (that she made) at us, or a beating heart, etc... Fookin' hilarious! :rofl:

Question: What was that "Outer Limits" episode with the ant creatures that came out of a space ship?

I saw it while in Minneapolis in November on the motel cable teevee. The ant invaders were hilarious!

VERY funny! :rofl: What was the NAME of that episode?! I gotta see it again! :D

but I'm also lazy.

I'm to lazy to say anything meaningful. :D

Got me outta the 700 Club!

where is that and what bridge is it?

It's the Broadway Bridge across the Missouri River.

I don't know why. During the "Exorcist," while people were crying, screaming, and vomiting, I had tears rolling down my cheeks from laughter (I was 9). Though, at that age I started reading Kafka, H.P. Lovecraft, and others that kept me up all night. I even thought I might turn into Gregor Samsa. :scared:

Grok

And, regardless of your answer, can you name three movies that frightened you?

BTW, I thought the Exorcist sucked BIG TIME too!

Yes... there must be an old movie. Maybe "The Blob." I first saw it when I was 4. I don't think I was all that scared though. Let me think about it a while.

I can sit through just about anything, but I was tempted to turn that one off at times. Extremely disturbing.

and I'm a huge horror movie buff. But Henry was a bit too ...I don't know. It felt too real too often...a strange thing for me to find myself saying.

In the end, I guess I am attracted to movies with at least a bit of camp...some fun in the scare.

Henry wasn't fun. It was, as you said, extrememly disturbing.

wasn't Ben Affleck da bomb in Phantoms, yo?

Seriously, I thought that was one freaking, scary book. 'Listen, I am in Snowfield. At appears as if everyone who lived here is dead, Gary.' 'What?' 'Five hundred people.'

Of course, it did not really work as a movie.
Question, do you still think the old ones are scary, or good? Isn't it easier to scare a kid?

I do not care for horror movies myself, nor for the way that sci-fi gets turned into horror.

granted it was a Tales from the Crypt movie, but Demon Knight actually worked a bit more in building up character so that you actually felt something for them. that and more than anything billy zane makes an amazing charismatic demon. plenty of gore for the gore-fiends, but enough of a story that it didn't outright suck.

but most horror movies don't do it for me, unless it is spiritual, mystical stuff. i like that stuff.

though there was the italian 70's movie 'zombie' that was actually amazing. the music and make-up were amazing. it was still the usual 'contagious zombie mob' story, but it definitely had pizazz. 'dagon' was not even a horror movie, but quite funny. a pity, because lovecraftian inspired horror movies should actually have some, y'know, horror. actually, to be honest, i don't even like most of lovecraft's stories. too excessive in description, tries to dwell in some pseudo-scientific tone while the fantastic occurs. the only real lovecraft story that really spooked the living crap outta me was 'the colors out of space'.

i'm so worried about the remake of war of the worlds. i really love the original. i'm so scared about the story being overwhelmed by special effects. it'd be wholly pointless special effects too, because the battle is so one-sided.

At least I've watched it more than any other movie. Dozens of times. The Stepford Wives would be my second most watched, although more of a thriller. I tend to like older movies. There's more focus on story and less on special effects. Psycho, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, American Werewolf in London. The Demon Seed was pretty cool.

I don't like slasher movies. I prefer psychological horror to blood and gore.

Joy Ride is one of my favorite more recent ones. I've watched that a lot! The Hitcher is high up there too. The Mothman Prophecies was pretty good. Rose Red did suck really bad. The Blair Witch Project kept me turning the lights back on all night long, so it must have gotten to me. It was realistic enough. I liked to be creeped out but not *that* creeped out, and left with a hopeless feeling.

I like the Scream movies. They're the closest thing to a slasher movie that I can say I find fun. Thrillers and horror are my most-watched genre. I'd rewatch more comedies if there were more good ones. Flirting With Disaster and Bowfinger would be two of my favorites. Also Dumb and Dumber. What can I say? :silly:

I don't know when horror jumped the shark. I like to pretend that it didn't so we can expect better things in the future. Really, for a while now reality has been scarier than any movie. I'd hate to think what it would take to really scare people these days! :scared:

Remember when 'we' were always the good guys. Not anymore, we are the monsters. Self observance is no fun.

Not the ones you mention, obviously, but here's a few:

Seven

The Ring (orig.)

Audition

What Lies Beneath (not that great, perhaps, but an admirable film in many respects)

28 Days Later

Dawn of the Dead (the Romero remake; "Land of the Dead", his follow-up, looks promising)

Event Horizon (a controversial choice perhaps because I know a lot of people hated it, but I thought it was pretty good)

There's a few to start with.

is that they seem to come in only two varieties.

First, there are the "splatter-fests" who are more concerned with who can get the goriest deaths and dismemberments on the screen (which we don't get a lot of anymore now that Hollywood is producing kindler, gentler horror movies that qualify for PG-13 ratings).

Then, we have the ironic/post-modern horror films that are more concerned with being preceived as "hip" instead of scary. Think of Bruce Campbell in "Army of Darkness" or movies like "American Werewolf in London" or "The Howling" that could be scary in places, but were more intent on delivering "ironic" humor or social commentary.

Personally, some of the most unsettling horror movies are some of the Gernman films like "Nosferatu" with Klaus Kinksi or "The Tenderness of Wolves" (which was a fictionalized version of "the vampire of Hanover" who murdered and canibalized young men and sort the left-over meat in a butcher shop after World War I).

Other recent efforts that I found quite fun are "Cabin Fever" and the remakes of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Dawn of the Dead".

"The Grudge" is pretty scary.

And you left out "The Shining", my personal favourite movie of any genre.

I really loved the homage to the great sci-fi horror flick Day of the Triffids. (Guy wakes up in hospital to find world gone mad.)

And anyone who wonders how they managed to scare people in the old days with just B&W, a low budget and no CGI needs to check out Triffids.

I don't expect horror movies to get any better as long as thieving hacks like M. Night Charlatan are around.

First of all, what kind of pretentious asswad calls himself M. NIGHT? Is his first name "Mid?"

Against my better judgment, I watched The Village a couple months ago on a 12-hour flight. I would have had a more enjoyable experience reading the airsick bag.

The BIG SURPRISE was no surprise at all to anyone who's read/seen some sci-fi.

One friend of mine called it a two-hour episode of The Prisoner with lousier acting. She was right.

...it's the way that, on the posters, all his movies - even the first one he released - are called "M. Night Shamalyan's Whatever". How pretentious is that? If Kubrick, Scorcese, Polanski etc don't feel the need to put their friggin names in front of everything they do, there's certainly no call for you to be doing it mate.

(To be honest I quite liked "Unbreakable" :) )

What Lies Beneath was an excellent thriller, with Harrison Ford as a bad guy and James Remar as a good one.

So was Sixth Sense.

I would posit that the movies you mentioned are closer to these than to F13 and such.

Was one of my all-time favorites.Not alot of gore but it was so well written that it didnt need it.

Misery was good, that was a while back, but still good.
Silence of the Lambs, although not really a horror flick, had its moments. I enjoyed The Sixth Sense. They don't come out often, but that is what makes me enjoy them more. Yes, sucky horror flicks are common, but they really have always been. When Halloween came out, a lot of people were scared by it. Then they go and make millions of sequels which totally screws up a horror flick. I'm waiting patiently for the next actual good one.

Lol, I didn't prepare myself. Was expecting just your usual Sci-Fi flick, seriously couldn't get good sleep for a couple days.

Alien was good.
Shallow Grave was good.