How do you feel this decade has been for horror films?

[Ash28M]

I personally think that when you weed out the crap and you base each decade on the good horror films they have produced. This decade stands up pretty well. As far as American horror films are concerned, you may need a bigger weed wacker but again just taking the good films it was allot better then the 90's and when you look at Foreign horror it hasn't been this good since at least the 70's.

Saying that I think with all the really good horror films that have come out the last ten years the one thing that holds it back is the lack of bonafide classics. The 70's had so many Amazing classic ground breaking films that we put on a pedestal. Does this decade have a film that can stand up to those? Personally the only film that does for me is The Blair Witch Project. Haute Tension and Inside come close IMO but they seem in the end to feel too much like retreads and not necessarily groundbreaking.

What do you guys think?

[HAEMORRHAGE]

I'm totally stuck in the 80's as far as horror goes. This decade's been pretty tame for me.

[Rockmjd]

I think this decade has been much better than the 90s. The 90s had some incredibly good thrillers like Se7en and Silence of the Lambs but nothing that I really enjoyed as far as straight up horror. I thought Scream was overrated.

[Anaestheus]

For me, the late 60s and early 70s were the pinnacle of horror so far. And I'd say there has been a decline ever since. There have been a few gems this decade, but nothing that has really hit me with the depth and impact of the genre highlights from the previous decades. However, I do think that if I was younger and less knowledgeable of the world history of horror, I would probably think that this decade is damned fantastic. That's not meant as a slight to anyone who is younger or less experienced, really more a comment on how jaded I suspect that I may be. But, I also notice a lack of autuerism in today's films. There are very few new specialists in horror who are trying to really say or do something distictive or personal with the genre and that is what I miss.

[dwatts]

30's through 50's was the genres golden years. 70's were cool. 80's things started to go off the boil. 90's the well went dry.

Things are pretty good today.

[satans-sadists]

The current decade is definitely an improvement over the 90's, yet I find myself going to the movie theater less and less. This is undeniably the decade of remakes. Overall this decade of horror lacks an identity and sense of style.

[The Chaostar]

Decade of remakes. That says it all.
With the sole exception of The Descent, english-speaking horror has reached a new low.
Euro-horror though has presented us with some of the genre's best films ever...

[x666x]

I think the obvious French films plus the Decent has really helped.

I am also one who grew up on 80's horror. But I think the likes of Hostel brings us back to that time of dumb characters, naked women, and some nice on screen violence. I don't think Roth's films are amazing, but neither were a lot of the 80's American fare either. I am just jaded because I grew up on this stuff. A lot of this is been there, done that. That is why the same type of films being made today do not get away with their flaws like how they used to with me.

I am happy to see some of these "newer" ventures like the Decent. Violent, a sense of despair, and smarter characters like the women in this film who fought back. You actually respect them and route for them. While I am attracted to the women in Hostel physically, I am also attracted to the women in the Decent as characters. These women fought back to survive, not because the film wanted to make an exaggerated point about Grrl Power and have a feminine super hero.

I think we are in a favorable position nowadays. We can watch the more intelligent, more technically proficient horror films. Or, check out the goofy, eye candy (in terms of gore and women) kind of films like in the 80's.

Remakes? Unfortunately, we here do not make up the marketplace majority. A lot of people who checked out Prom Night 2008 were probably too young to know or care of the original. At least I can say I stayed away from the likes of it or the Wicker Man or the Fog remake. I will not help the horror genre go down in flames.

[Paff]

You know, I love these "horror peaked in the xx's" comments. In this short thread alone, we've already heard that the best era for horror was either the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s, and everything's been downhill since then.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: There's always something good when you separate the good films from the crud, and 20 years from now people will be talking about how great these current films are compared to whatever is in release then. It's always harder to see what's good when you're in the middle of it. Every film comes at you with "scariest movie ever" taglines, when it's just another tepid remake. A few years removed, and you can just look back at the best of the genre, and judge it accordingly.

About every decade has it's positives. The 90s are admittedly the weakest, due to the early part of the decade being dedicated to thrillers, and the last half to self-aware tongue-in-cheek teen fests.

That all said, I do think it's a good time for horror films. A lot of people give the "torture porn" films short shrift, but they have a lot going for them. They're a bit unsettling and brutal, yet the same was often said about the 80s slashers. The influx of films from Asia has offered some new concepts, although they're a bit on the repetitive side.

For the immediate future, I think we'll see the remake trend die a bit. It's a fad, and fads never last. Hopefully we'll get a little more originality out of Asian horror. And finally, I'd like to see the digital revolution open up a new avenue of QUALITY low-budget stuff.

If you throw out the lackluster remakes, you'll see that there have been some genuinely good and original films made the last several years.

[dwatts]

The Descent is highly derivative. So calls for it to be a saviour are severely ill-founded. Fun? Yes. A saviour? Nah. Stange ancestors never previously discovered? Fast cutting so you can't see what's going on? If that's the future, we're in trouble.

[thrashard76]

Decade of remakes. That says it all.


Yep.

[Mattapooh]

There's been some good stuff in the last eight years that I'd put up against a lot of classics, but there's also a lot of crap. I think every decade's been like that for the most part. Most 80's stuff is awful, but it's got the cheese and nostalgia factors to make it enjoyable.

Personally, I think the 70's are pretty much impossible to top in terms of the number of great directors and films that were made in that decade, but I think there'll be loads of great flicks to come out in the future.

If more independent filmmakers keep popping up and doing stuff outside the studio system (like the previously mentioned French guys), we'll get more quality movies.

[Paff]

Maybe this is a topic for a different thread, but when does everyone consider a decade to start? And I don't mean the obvious January 1 2000 (for the current decade, for example), I'm talking more about movie-wise. The film or films that usher in the new direction.

A few off the top of my head:
The 70s started in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead and possibly Rosemary's Baby. The former led to the "gritty" style of 70s horror, and the latter was one of the first religious-based films that were also popular in the early 70s.

The 80s started in 1978 with Halloween or possibly two years later with Friday the 13th.

The 90s were right on time with Silence of the Lambs in 1990.

For the current decade, I'd either say 1999 for The Blair Witch Project (leading to the more nihilistic style in the "torture porn" even though BWP is not as graphic), OR, 2002 for the remake of The Ring

[X-human]

I was thinking more like 1998 for starting things up; which is interesting because '58 (Horror of Dracula), '68 (NotLD), '78 (Halloween) and '98 (Ringu) are all big years for jump starting a decade.

I'm not too sure what dwatts is smoking because the 40's and 50's are pretty much the joke decades of horror. The 40's are what drove the Universal Classics into the ground and the 50's is when horror became know for z-grade movies.

I pretty much like horror from all decades, the 90's were a bit of a bore but hell we're already knocking on 2010's door. Speaking of which, what '08 horror flick has the best chance of defining the next decade? Something already well known or under the radar?

[Paff]

Well, while we tend to look at decades 'cause they're nice and neat, it's not unheard of for there to be two or more major horror trends within a 10 year span.

The 80s began with the teen slasher glut, but that really ended around 84. The second half of the decade was more of a franchise resurrection, as Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees were literally raised from the dead to create more movies. I view those differently than most of the early 80s slashers, as the killers in those movies were almost the heroes.

The 90s had two major faces as well. The beginning of the decade was those psychological thrillers, inspired by Silence of the Lambs. A lot of "xxxxx from hell" movies...babysitter from hell, roomate from hell, nanny from hell, etc. Second half was the Scream genre, which did go well past 2000

[x666x]

I also think the new interference of the MPAA in the late 80's had a hand in messing things up for the 90's. A lot of studios did not know how to handle it and viola, a decade of thrillers to follow. Mind you, slashers died on their own by then anyway. I think. But the MPAA definately did not help them find a new way to keep horror graphic. Does that make sense? Just thought of it.

On the Sleepaway Camp 3 disc, the deleted scenes were explained as a result of the, then new, MPAA. Not as if Sleepaway 1 did not have its edits, but the MPAA was an official organization in place to protect the large studios from the threat of the independents, I mean, to help preserve decency in film.

[dwatts]

I'm not too sure what dwatts is smoking because the 40's and 50's are pretty much the joke decades of horror. The 40's are what drove the Universal Classics into the ground and the 50's is when horror became know for z-grade movies.

I happen to love Poverty Row, and I happen to love the sci-fi/big monster cycle. The 40's was indeed a tough time for Horror (well for the world, there was a pesky war going on), but some good came out of it, and I enjoy a lot of cinema from that era. Name me a decade that didn't have both good and bad. ;)

Back to my Tod Slaughter........

[allmessedup]

I think this decade has been pretty strong--there's generally been at least one movie each year that's stood up pretty well and that I can see myself watching years from now.

Much better than the 90s, and IMO better than the 80s, mainly because slasher films aren't really my thing.

[Erick H.]

Every decade has it's standouts certainly.There are always pearls amongst the swine.I was no fan of the 90's overall (the ''thriller" glut of serial killer movies,the quick burnout of the "ironic" slasher,a brief,VERY brief flirtation with gothics and the homemade shakycam cycle).Saying that,the last eight years ,at least in American films,has been less than ambitious to say the least.Reams of 70's and 80's remakes,often neutered to get a PG-13.The instantly burned out torture flicks.The DTV style low budgeters that give ''indie horror" a bad name.The pathological need to remake EVERY Asian horror hit,good bad or indifferent.Not exactly covering the decade in glory.Sadder still,a lot of the better stuff is either given bare minimum releases (THE MACHINIST,SESSION 9,MAY) or is mysteriously ignored by the public ( THE MIST comes to mind).There ARE good films coming out but you either have to look really hard to find them or catch them fast because anything with any meat or backbone is apt to get elbowed off the screen in a few days to make room for a safe bet retread that will make 95% of it's gross opening week before word leaks out as to how lame it is.It should alarm us all that one of the biggest horror hits of the year is a tepid rehash of PROM NIGHT that hardly anyone will admit to actually liking.Hollywood will provide us with what they THINK we want,and if they think we want crap....

[eric_angelus]

I agree with those who have said that the stuff of the past always seems better with age...I remember when the "real horror fans" HATED Friday the 13th, Fulci films, and pretty much anything else that was coming out in the early to mid-80s. It's always funny to go back and read the old fan letters in back issues of Fangoria...and critical reviews in just about any horror reference book from the era.
However, one thing that in my opinion proves that the 70s-80s were a better time is simply the fact that pretty much every movie that comes out clearly states it is trying to "recapture that 70s-80s feel." Everyone wants to make movies like they used to...the remakes and the career of Rob Zombie pretty much proves this point. You did not see this nearly as much in the 70s and 80s. Very few films were every marketed as "old fashioned," in fact I can only think of a few...Fright Night, An American Werewolf in London, the smattering of remakes, etc.
I think there have been alot of valid, interesting horror movies in the past 8 years (virtually all of them have been independent or from countries other than the USA)...but really feel like the best of them are not even in the same ballpark as the best stuff from 20-30 years ago. At least Hollywood was giving us stuff like Alien, The Shining, etc back then. Now we get much more crappy product out of the majors.

[Reverenddave]

I really expect this era (mid-90's to Current) will go down as one of the golden ages of horror films. There have been so many good movies in recent years. Plenty of films from this era will become iconic horror classics.

I wouldn't have any problem coming up with a list of 100+ great horror movies from the past 10 years. In fact, if you were to compare lists of the 100 best films from each decade, the past ten years could probably compete for the top spot.

[rxfiend]

I actually like a lot of films that have come out this "decade", though the past year and a half, it's been kind of dry. 2002 / 2003 had a lot of horror, to the point that B.O. always had a horror film in the top 5 positions. Not so much right now. Too many CGI / Family films that have been coming out as of late. As for the remake trend, I've come to accept it. I don't think it's as bad as some make it out to be. It just seems when something gets announced, remake wise, it seems to cloud over all the other horror related news. A lot of original stuff is being made and released, you just got to look for it.

[Ash28M]

I actually like a lot of films that have come out this "decade", though the past year and a half, it's been kind of dry. .

I actually think the last year has and a half has been pretty great.

The Orphanage (2007)
Grindhouse (2007)
[Rec] (2007)
The Mist (2007)
The Girl Next Door (2007)
28 Weeks Later (2007)
The Strangers (2008)
Inside (2007)
1408 (2007)
Rogue (2007)
30 Days of Night (2007)
Funny Games U.S. (2007)
The Ruins (2008)
Vacancy (2007)
Frontiers (2007)
ect...

[speanroc]

ASH i've seen u start multiple threads like this praising the 2000 decade's horror films....

face it the 2000s r your favorite decade for horror...that's pretty obvious...

me personally, the 2000s were complete and utter crap for horror....

[Ash28M]

ASH i've seen u start multiple threads like this praising the 2000 decade's horror films....

face it the 2000s r your favorite decade for horror...that's pretty obvious...

me personally, the 2000s were complete and utter crap for horror....

Actually the 70's is my favorite decade but yeah this decade has been underappreciated.

[Yowie]

I could do without the countless remakes and Saw type torture stuff, but French horror is better than Italian horror today, I find that interesting.

[Criswell]

All decades are filled with more weeds than flowers.

My only peev is the stupid, repetitive and pointless amatuerish overuse of gore or as the media call it Gorenography. I like my guts and blood as much as anyone, but some of these films like Saw, EXIST for the gore, not using the gore as an effect.

[Grim]

I think there have been a lot of truly entertaining horror flicks released in this decade. I also gotta love this decade because at the beginning of it (late 2000 or early 2001) is when I discovered foreign horror. I was 13 going on 14 years old and Anchor Bay and Media Blasters were hammering these things out on VHS and DVD like nobody's business.

Here are some of my favorites of this decade so far:

Haute Tension
28 Days Later
Cabin Fever
House of 1,000 Corpses
Land of the Dead
Devil's Rejects
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Hostel
28 Weeks Later
Hostel 2
Shaun of the Dead
The Descent
The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

There's no doubt a bunch more but those are the first ones that come to mind.

[Max Yokell]

Hey guys having been slightly busy over the last few years, I haven't been watching much in the way of movies and when I have I have usually been with kids so the Horror aspect has been severely lacking over the last 5 years or so..

Now I used to really like the Italian stuff but I have seen several people mention French horror and quite honestly only two movies come to mind for me when I think of French Horror and they are Zombie Lake (Bad Bad movie) and I think it was call Rest Stop? Which is a fairly recent French movie that was very violent and gory (My kind of movie) but a little out there story wise, so what French Horror movies are people talking about that are so good.

I have mainly been slumming it with very main stream horror for the last few years. :)

BTW I like 2001 Maniacs which was a nice little praise of HGL.

Max

[Max Yokell]

All decades are filled with more weeds than flowers.

My only peev is the stupid, repetitive and pointless amatuerish overuse of gore or as the media call it Gorenography. I like my guts and blood as much as anyone, but some of these films like Saw, EXIST for the gore, not using the gore as an effect.


There is nothing wrong with Gore for Gore's sake, I say the more the merrier and lets take it over the top rather then the PC shit we got in the 90's. I wish every movie would go as over the top as Dead Alive. :)

Max

[Mutilated Prey]

I think it's better now than it was in the 90's. The whole Scream I Know Wht You Did Last Summer Urban Legand stuff was crap. At least now we have Hostel, Hills Have Eyes and Halloween remakes, Turistas, Wrong Turn, Wolf Creek, Devil's Rejects, Hatchet and such. I like the Saws too, but they gotta slow down - seems like they're rushing out sequels.

[MrVess]

Remakes of sequels and prequels to remakes of sequels, that's this decade.

[thrashard76]

Remakes of sequels and prequels to remakes of sequels, that's this decade.

...pretty much.

[boycrieswolf]

One aspect that I don't think has been touched on here is the fact that these days it is a LOT harder to shock or disturb audiences with the common horror film. If you closely examine the history of horror cinema you'll notice that there has been a natural progression to top what has come before. Independent filmmakers were really pushing the envelope in the 70's with low budget horror/shock/exploitation. This seemed to continue into the 80's where it became slightly more mainstream with the arrival of franchise icons such as Freddy, Jason, Myers, etc. In the 90's it seemed like there was a revival in psychological thriller type films. Nowadays you've got guys like Eli Roth and Rob Zombie who are essentially trying to recreate a 70's grindhouse vibe with their stuff. Technology and special effects have come a long way since the classic horror of yesterday, the problem is how this technology is applied to todays films. The problem with this genre is that 90% of what you see, you've seen before. With rare exceptions, there is nothing new or exciting within this genre of film because we, as hardcore fans, have literally seen it all. This makes it increasingly difficult to praise new works and raise them to classic status when the older stuff has more sentimental value. I guess what I'm trying to say is this, I enjoy some of the newer stuff coming out and applaud an effort to do something new, for example, The Ruins, which I thought was great. I'll buy it and it will become a part of my collection. But will my memory of seeing The Ruins at the theater ever trump my memories of seeing The Thing, or The Evil Dead for the first time? Never. Why? Because the classic stuff was so groundbreaking and ahead of it's time. Most of us, especially if we were younger when we first saw them, were so blown away by what we were seeing that those films were destined to be classics in our eyes. Will Saw or Hostel ever be considered a classic to the die-hard horror community? I'm guessing probably not. Why? I'm guessing, because we've seen it all before. The pursuit of newer genre titles that make you giddy like the classics do is what I'm all about, but I seriously don't think anything new in the horror genre is ever going to 'scare' me the way stuff like the Excorcist did. In my opinion, very little of what's coming out nowadays is breaking any new ground. The evidence of this, obviously, is the grossly out-of-hand wave of remakes. Sorry for the overly long post!

[Paff]

Will Saw or Hostel ever be considered a classic to the die-hard horror community? I'm guessing probably not.

Disagree. One thing that has to be considered is time and context. We're gonna look back at these films, and put them in context with the sudden appearance of violent images from the Middle East, where beheadings and real torture are seen on a daily basis. A lot of the harsh things from the 70s horror were totally tied in with the Vietnam War, people just didn't put it together at the time. I think Saw and Hostel will be seen as a definite mark of the early 20th century culture, and will actually GROW in relevance.

Sorry for the overly long post!

Hey, it's all good. Try some paragraph breaks next time though! :D

[boycrieswolf]

You've got a good point Paff, Saw and Hostel are definitely a product of our times, but one could argue that those film are simply capitalizing on America's current state of affairs, an exploitive reaction to today's political climate. In that sense it's almost offensive. Though those films don't bother me, there is nothing to them that excites me in the way that classic horror cinema does, (or at least did, once upon a time.)

[Matt89]

I happen to love Poverty Row, and I happen to love the sci-fi/big monster cycle. The 40's was indeed a tough time for Horror (well for the world, there was a pesky war going on), but some good came out of it, and I enjoy a lot of cinema from that era. Name me a decade that didn't have both good and bad. ;)

Back to my Tod Slaughter........

I get what you're saying there. '30s-'50s was the golden era for cinema. I pretty much PREFER films from that era. Even the bad stuff from back then is better than the worst stuff of today. But with my horror films, it's all about the '60s/'70s.

Personally, I have a hard time watching anything post-1985/86, with very few, very rare exceptions. In my opinion, the last great horror effort that was a definite success was Hellraiser. Other than that, there was the Dawn of the Dead remake. Brilliant. Then The Descent, The Ruins and the directing style of The Strangers. Unfortunately, its narrative structure is just awful. I think The Strangers had the potential to be one of the great horror films of this decade but sadly it falls short in that department. It worked wonderfully as a horror film. It relied on suspense rather than gore and I believe it is far more effecetive than leaving the audience/spectator repulsed with violence. There were so many moments when you were left literally on the edge of your seat beacuse of the way the film was directed. It ends up being a strange little film, though. Is it a great horror movie? No. Is is a bad one? No. It seems to be in-between, more like lost potential. But, does it function well as a horror movie, and does it accomplish what it sets out to do? Yes, and I believe with great success.

However, the best era for horror films I believe is the late '60s into the late '70s/early '80s. (No later than 1981/82.) Some of the greatest horror films of all-time came out in that era. Night of the Living Dead, Black Christmas, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Carrie, Repulsion, The Last House on the Left, Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, The Fury, Halloween...the list goes on. I personally think that was one of the most influential decades for the horror genre. It brought horror into everyday life. It was no longer monsters from another planet, but horror as a raw, gritty reality.

Now, it seems as if horror films are made specifically to gross out the spectator. Like, "oh let's see how far we can go THIS time!" With mindless garbage like Hostel, Saw and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remakes (TCM: The Beginning is one of the most depraved pieces of shit I've ever seen.) I think horror today is at an all-time low. With remakes left, right and centre it's hard to imagine if the genre can actually get worse. I sometimes doubt myself as to what is ACTUALLY good. Like The Descent or The Ruins...was it actually good? Or, was it good only compared to the relentless garbage that floods the cinema today. As for myself, I'm perfectly happy with the horror films that have been made in the past. It can't be re-created...why? Because the '60s and '70s are over. It can't be recreated or retreived because the past is irretrievable.

~Matt

[x666x]

I pretty well agree with that. Even an original film today is an homage to something that was made in the late 70's. Rob Zombie's whole career is based on that. And all zombies films have NOTLD to thank.

I do think that if I went back to 1985, and I rented the Descent on Beta, I think I would still really like it, though. It is hard to measure if the genre just ran out of gas or am I (we?) just jaded growing up in the 80's and watching horror. Both?

[KGBRadioMoskow]

errant post deleted

[KGBRadioMoskow]

Well, while we tend to look at decades 'cause they're nice and neat, it's not unheard of for there to be two or more major horror trends within a 10 year span.

The 80s began with the teen slasher glut, but that really ended around 84. The second half of the decade was more of a franchise resurrection, as Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees were literally raised from the dead to create more movies. I view those differently than most of the early 80s slashers, as the killers in those movies were almost the heroes.

If I was to carve up the 80s into major horror trends, it wouldn't be two different flavors of slasher flicks. Slasher flicks - of any variant - would be one camp. The resurgance of the Gothic style tale starring monsters from science would be the other - starting with Alien in 79 and progressing through films like Scanners (81), The Thing (82), Videodrome (83), Re-Animator (85), The Fly (86), Prince of Darkness (87), The Blob (88), etc.

Not to mention a host of lesser, but often entertaining, knock offs like Xtro (83), Life Force (85), Galaxy of Terror (81), and many more often best forgetten.

Hellraiser (87) is sort of an odd duck, standing with a foot in each genre, but it also is clearly a product of the two main trends. Basically it was the "slashers and space monsters" that dominated the 80s in horror. If you wanted to put 80's horror in a nutshell, Jason shouldn't have taken his machette after Freddy, he should have shared screen time with the Predator.

Creepshow (82) might qualify as a third (comparitively minor) trend that had its kick start in the 80s. That of the EC inspired horror anthology that popped up repeatedly on screen through the following decade. Only to finally land in various TV based incarnations by decades end, such as Tales From the Darkside (83), Hitchhiker (83), Tales From the Crypt (89), a retread of Twilight Zone (85). Then latter on another Twilight Zone, the Outer Limits retread, and arguably even up to modern psuedo anthologies like Masters of Horror. Not that the anthology idea ever died out prior to Creepshow, with some notables in the 70s, but this was when the resurgance really kicked in.

Dead Zone (83), The Brood (79), Jacob's Ladder (90), Misery (90), and a few notable others were evidence that psychological horror wasn't going away, but more just evidence that some good ideas never die. In terms of dominant genres the decade clearly belonged to the likes of "Chucky" Lee Ray and Crawford Tillinghast.

[DVD-fanatic-9]

This is undeniably the decade of remakes. Overall this decade of horror lacks an identity and sense of style.
I completely agree. Although, I would slit my own throat before I ever said this decade was an improvement over the '90s.


The Descent is highly derivative. So calls for it to be a saviour are severely ill-founded. Fun? Yes. A saviour? Nah. Stange ancestors never previously discovered? Fast cutting so you can't see what's going on? If that's the future, we're in trouble.
You know, that's actually the main reason I've gone out of my way to avoid seeing The Descent.


The 90s had two major faces as well. The beginning of the decade was those psychological thrillers, inspired by Silence of the Lambs. A lot of "xxxxx from hell" movies...babysitter from hell, roomate from hell, nanny from hell, etc. Second half was the Scream genre, which did go well past 2000
I think you forgot a sub-genre. Sci-Fi horror hybrids. Tremors, Arachnophobia, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, The Tommyknockers, Jurassic Park (if you count Jaws as a horror film, you have to count Jurassic Park - if you don't count Jaws as a horror film, disregard this note), etc.

Plus, as the genre reached a midway, there were quite a few anthology horror films. Tales from the Hood, Campfire Tales, Body Bags, Grim Prairie Tales.

Plus, there was a glut of sort of fantasy horror films. Such as Wes Craven's New Nightmare and In the Mouth of Madness. Then there was techno-horror such as Ghost in the Machine, Brainscan, Lawnmower Man. And yet more sci-fi horror into the mid-decade - Sphere, Event Horizon, Deep Rising, Alien3, Alien: Resurrection, and more I imagine.



For me personally, this decade (starting in '99) has been almost complete and utter shit. The 90s kick the living crap out of this worthless decade. And I say I agree with Dwatts, but I want to extent what he's saying about one movie and apply to almost everything I've seen so far this decade - it's all derivative. It's all rip-off or remake or copy. I'm not impressed with almost anything that's come out.

I'll make my list short and sweet, these are (in my book) the best (non-Asian) horror films I've seen this decade:

Ginger Snaps - the only (non-Asian) masterpiece this decade has produced
May
28 Days Later
American Psycho
Hostel
Dahmer
Final Destination - it actually shocked and disturbed me, and I'm pretty damn jaded
Open Water
Jeepers Creepers
and some of Masters of Horror first season films/episodes

I think that's about it. My list for best of the '90s is probably twice that length.

I don't think the filmmakers are trying hard enough to make good, all-around films. What we end up with is so much novelty and fanboy stuff and completely derivative films. The Saw films are of a completely bent and ill-conceived morality, are plodding, and insult the intelligence of the audience. Cabin Fever was a joke with no characters worth giving a damn about, so it undermined its' own message about relating to what they have to do. Films like Slither and The Mist decide they have to rely on CGI to make their creatures, and CGI completely ruins most filmgoing experiences for me. Grindhouse and The Devil's Rejects are desperate to try to revive the exploitation / grindhouse styles but don't give us anything new or exciting. Most of the characters in these movies are all the same. I don't see much of any kind of difference between the young people in Wrong Turn from Cabin Fever from House of Wax from When a Stranger Calls. None of the characters in most of today's horror films are the slightest bit interesting. The music scores all sound exactly the same. Most of the torture films all look exactly the same. There is little to no variety in any of the themes of the films. They all want to have the same speedy camera moves as 28 Days Later.

And then, of course, there are the remakes. Which I don't even want to get started on.

And I don't see many independent films being that different from the majors. But as harsh as my words are here, I haven't completely given up on the genre. I keep watching. I just don't see anyone doing anything different. Unless it's like Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, which I haven't seen yet but it looks extremely different.

[maskull]

I'll make my list short and sweet, these are (in my book) the best (non-Asian) horror films I've seen this decade:

So.....why non-asian?