Things By Mike

I know what so many people would say to a statement like that. “Dude, you should totally watch the Saw movies!” Or Hostel, or whatever other waste of celluloid is popular these days. Alright it sounds silly to say “these days” since I’m not even that old. Thirty-two to be exact, but it just seems like all the horror movies lately are following the same sort of trend. Be as gory as possible and never mind actually being scary.

I want a movie that makes me jump…that makes me cringe wondering what’s around the next corner…that makes me want to cover my eyes…that gives me nightmares for several weeks after watching it. In fact speaking of nightmares and covering my eyes, the last movie to cause that kind of reaction in me was Creepshow ages ago. Remember the cockroaches? Me too. It still makes me uneasy thinking about them. In fact I still won’t eat corn flakes to this day. Now THAT is an effective horror movie! Why can’t we get movies like that anymore? I know, I know…it was kinda gory as well to see cockroaches crawling out of a dead body, but it was more than that. It felt like something more realistic. Is it possible you could open a nasty old forgotten box of corn flakes in the cupboard and have it be full of cockroaches? Probably. Everything that happened after eating the cereal laced with cockroaches just added to the creepy factor. Just the thought of nibbling cockroaches in my cereal was enough to scar me for life. That’s good stuff, man! More movies like that…please?

I think so many of these “new breed” horror directors are more concerned about shock value. Sure it’s shocking to see a guy have to cut out a girl’s eyeball with scissors, but is it really all that scary? Not really. I just wish some of these new directors would just go back and study some of the old horror movies and take some notes. Learn how to get into the head of the viewers and scare the crap out of them. Go after the things that really scare them. Make the stories feel more realistic. For example another good old horror flick was Cujo. Remember the psycho Saint Bernard? Stuff like that is frightening, because it feels like it could actually happen. That’s what I mean by making a movie feel more realistic. Let’s see more of that.

Okay, I’ll climb down from my soapbox now.