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.

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.

Originally Posted by The Chaostar

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