What Country's Horror Films Do You Have the Hardest Time Enjoying?

Sure, we like horror of all kinds, but we're also partial to genre, be it slasher or vampire, or country. More than genre, even, a country's stamp can really shape a genre, from J-Horror to Euro-Horror. What nationality brand of horror do you have the hardest time getting into?

I've included the main national stylings of horror - if you really dig Nambian horror films, sorry. At the risk of profiling, I'm going to say Korean horror, or Mexican horror, aren't different enough from their more popular counterparts (Japanese and Spanish, respectively) to warrant their own spot.

Maybe another question to ask, too, is how much does the country shape your viewing habits? Or maybe that's an entirely different thread...

 

i gotta go with Japanese. to be fair, maybe its just because of the glut of j-horror we've received over here, so unlike french or indian horror films, i've actually had the chance to lose interest in their product. but the fact remains that i have a really hard time getting involved in any of the japanese horror films i've seen lately. the most recent one was nightmare detective, and while it was by no means bad, i just found it incredibly uninvolving. i just didn't care.

its actually kind of ironic, since classic japanese cinema by people like kurasawa, ozu, and honda, is probably one of my favorite sub-genres.

 

It's Mexican for me. Sorry, I know that it's not on the list and I'm not trying to be difficult, but Mexico is the first country that comes to mind. For some reason Mexican horror movies make me fall asleep every single time.

 

I love japanese and really any asian horror for that matter- but I get a feeling that due to the J-horror craze it may get some backlash on this poll. But for a while there the best and most original horror flicks were asian and then redundancy seemed to kick in.

 

German for me. They're usually just too grim.

I like horror movies that have an infusion of comedy or fantasy.

Japanese movies also have a grimness to them, but there have been enough good ones that I do enjoy that I couldn't vote for it. I can't think of one German horror movie that I really like.

 

I guess I would say Japanese. They make allot of brilliant films but they're often deliberately slow paced with allot of dialog. There is nothing wrong with that, it's just takes some work on the non Japanese viewers part.

 

Backlash coming...well, not really but:

I remember watching the original Ring before the US remakes kicked it. It didn't quite freak me out like others were saying it would. In a nutshell, I find ghost story films, including the slew that came out from Asia, are too PG. I don't find them scary no matter where they are made. But that may just be because I am jaded.

Miike was the saving grace. But even he makes far more garbage than quality. He makes some great scenes of violence for films that are unnecessarily 2 hours long. I'll still have fond memories of Audition and Ichi, though.

I think this is all subjective. If you are into stuff from Japan/Asia, you have your reasons.

I'd say France as of the last 10 years makes the best shot, mature and most violent horror going on nowadays.

 

I totally agree with most all of this. France has been top notch all decade long. Britain has put out a surprising number of good genre films too, particularly if you include horror comedies.

 

I agree...similar to the Spanish cinema to me.

Haven't made it through a Bollywood horror flick yet, so that gets my vote. Also not a huge fan of Japanese stuff lately.

 

I guess India by default- only because I haven't seen any Indian horror films that I can think of off the top of my head. What would be some good ones to start out with? I guess I should check out the Bollywood Collections from Synapse, maybe?

As for other countries, I love 'em all! There was that glut of J-horror a while back which got to be overkill, but that didn't hinder me from enjoying the good ones.

 

I'm not a fan of French cinema at all. Perhaps it's hearing the actual language, which is similar to fingernails scraping a chalkboard for me.

 

Haha I don't mean to attack your posts about French films and the French language, but really, you think French sounds that bad? I love the French language, I just wish it was taught properly in schools in Canada. (You have to take French class from grades 1-9 in Canada - it's law, but how come by the end of grade 9 nobody can actually speak the language to save their lives? It's just not taught properly.) They teach you verb conjugations and grammar when they should just talk to you in French. I remember on most French tests, the instructions would be in English. Looking back on it, that's so bs.

But yeah, love French films. In terms of their contributions not only to the horror genre, but to cinema as a whole, they've been immense. Along with only maybe the United States and Italy, France probably has had the greatest influence on the development of the cinema out of any country. To film genre and style, to film theory and criticism, their contributions have been virtually endless.

~Matt

 

Voted Spanish. Pretty Lousy films but had Mexican been included in this poll, that would have gotten my vote. I cannot think of one Mexican horror film that I've ever liked. They do the same to me.....snooze city.

 

America...easily. I'm not thinking "overall", I'm thinking in recent memory (and hopefully that's what other people are thinking, as 50s/60s Kaidan films from Japan blow away anything recent, and if you haven't watched them, you have no right to even talk about Japanese horror being "lacking"), and looking at the shit I have to wade through to find anything worthwhile coming out of the US, it's an easy choice. There's only one horror film from the past 3-4 years to come out of the US that I fell in love with (The Mist) while there's at least 2, but generally more, to come out everywhere else.

 

I'd never thought about it before, but if given the choice I'd almost always go for another country's horror flick over anything American. Not that I specifically dislike American films, but I'm much more interested in seeing different country's take on it. Even French. Canadia I don't differentiate from American much.

But Australian movies don't really interest me. I can't put my finger on why, but they just seem off for some reason. Plus you usually still need subtitles, and even then you can't understand a word they're saying. Thankfully this discounts New Zealand.

 

I could never include Spain. I enjoy Del Toro, Ossorio, Klimovsky, and Naschy too much.

 

American crap, then overhyped Japanese crap. Thirdly Mexican crap. There is less a d less german horror films IMO mostly they are all serial killer movies

 

I never even heard of an Indian horror movie before, so I picked that by default. Sorry Indian horror fans.

 

i enjoy the french language, but agree with you in regards to quebecois french. its just an ugly way to speak an otherwise beautiful language. so nasally and ungraceful.

 

of the stuff I have seen I gotta say...Italy. I haven't seen an Indian film tho. any suggestions?