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Scary Movies Standards Over Time


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I was just thinking, when I was watching the Excorcist, how my mom said that she had high schooler friends who were so scared after seeing that, they had to sleep with their parents. I did not think it was that scary. I have seen scarier. I saw it with a friend, who also agreed. I have asked other friends about it, and they all seem to agree.

Speculate on why this is.

I don't know, but it could have something to do with life in general being scarier in this day in age. What, with terrorist attacks, and constant fear of terrorists in buildings, or gunmen in the schools. A kid can't even go trick-or-treating on halloween without hearing their parents tell them about nutcases that poison the candy. Since we are now brought into that an an earlier age, we are kind of desensified to scary movies.

Whats your opinion?

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Films don't scare me, period. So I wouldn't really know what is scary and what isn't. I can, however, tell if something comes off a bit original and innovative in its premise. The slasher, gore, and suspense films from the late 60s, 70s, and early 80s were perhaps the best ever made in the genre. You won't be able to find films like that anymore - most directors won't even venture to make such things again if it is really controversial and taboo. Something like Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox, Ilsa: She Wolf Of The SS, Beyond Darkness, and Emanuelle In America will never be made again because their subject matter is way too taboo for to-day's society to handle. We can look back on those films as a form of archive of what they did back then, but to film stuff like that again will be tantamount to career suicide... because some people can get scared with subject matter alone.

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Oh no,,XXX, I don't think I've even come CLOSE to seeing/knowing all there is to horror flicks ! :: And you've got the wrong guy about CGFX. My limited collection of what I call the 'good stuff' is a few sets of Hammer horrors and classic Universals. :P I do enjoy reading your posts and learning alot about the genre, however.

:beatnik: ::

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Haha! :jack: That be the guy and, YES, he's the Dracula I grew up watching instead of Bela Lugosi :beatnik: There's also the 1979 Dracula movie; that one was decent too. Not as stylish as Coppola's version, but at least it didn't have Keanu Reeves in it (Reeves! :jester: ).

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Well, I think we have liking the genre in common ,XXX, as well as having Lee being 'the Man' as kids. I'm with 'ya on Keanu (what kind of dork name is that for starters ?) ruining what, otherwise was a refreshing take on the story -- and ,maybe, closest to Stoker-- minus the love story?

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I don't know, but it could have something to do with life in general being scarier in this day in age. What, with terrorist attacks, and constant fear of terrorists in buildings, or gunmen in the schools. A kid can't even go trick-or-treating on halloween without hearing their parents tell them about nutcases that poison the candy. Since we are now brought into that an an earlier age, we are kind of desensified to scary movies.

Whats your opinion?

Life shouldn't seem to be scarier than it was ten or twenty years ago, at least not in the U.S. Actually, the homicide rate has declined to levels last seen in the in the late 60's. But then again, seeing Michael Moore's face is pretty damn scary ::.

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It's the same fears people had 20 to 30 years ago with the idea that the Soviet Union could launch nuclear missiles and wipe out the entire planet into another ice age. I guess Dr Strangelove, Red Dawn, and Wargames seem so far off now, but those were real fears people had back then...

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As for nuclear holocaust , I'm even more concearned now. Damn Yeltsin ! There's no one in charge of the asylum now.. though Putin's trying to round up the looneys. "Gorby, Gorby, ... what has become of you ? Dosen't anyone else out there feel the way I do ? " :guitar: Yep, checks and balances, think you Yanks are onto something there !

:thumbsup:

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Horror movies seem to be getting more 'real' lately. No longer are they about invisible horrors, vampires, ogres and ghosts - it's serial killers, murderers, human torture and real-life horrors. Just thinking about one particular movie - SAW. I haven't seen it and I absolutely refuse to!

"SAW is a gripping horror film about a deranged, sadistic serial killer who abducts morally wayward people and forces them to play horrific games for their own survival. He places them in horrific life-threatening situations where they are forced to brutally murder the other victim for their own survival. The film is a scary and mostly satisfying serial killer thriller that starts out strong and builds with nailbiting suspense."

"The murder-game scenarios are so revoltingly awful that they'd be unbearable if it weren't for a stream of black wit running through the whole film, not to mention the script's striking inventiveness. There are several moments in which we simply cannot believe that a filmmaker would take us to this point. Then Wan and Whannell push us even further."

I have to keep asking, what for????

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I haven't seen it either, but knowing the sick and twisted crap I'm used to watching it won't be long until it ends up on my NetFlix queue :: That's the exception to the rule in to-day's horror movies. Seriously, how many horror films nowadays get banned from countries altogether? For those that think they've been desensitized by the violence and horror, try Pier Paolo Passolini's Salo (IF you can still find it in print :beatnik: ).

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I'm with you earth-angel. Don't really wan't to see a simulation of life's real horrors/ or ideas for(by) psychos on the screen. Give me creatures/scenarios etc. that frighten me, but let me smile after hoping that none of us will run into them anytime soon ! When it gets TOO real (or possibly real) , count me out. :rockon:

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Oh my goodness - my friend saw Oldboy and he has warned me: it's worse than SAW.

"A protracted attempt to tunnel out of a cell using a single chopstick; ant hallucinations; distinctive dumplings; an octopus swallowed live; Oedipal underpinnings; one of the most perversely symmetrical acts of revenge ever imagined; a character who cuts out his own tongue (à la 'Ichi the Killer'); a man's struggle to remember his past depicted as his pursuit of his younger self through an Escher-like maze of staircases and hallways; and the spectacle of Oh, armed only with a hammer, taking on a vast gang in the confines of a very narrow corridor."

"It Needs: To be seen to be believed."

Yes, I'm just rushing to see this one....

::

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I'm with you earth-angel. Don't really wan't to see a simulation of life's real horrors/ or ideas for(by) psychos on the screen. Give me creatures/scenarios etc. that frighten me, but let me smile after hoping that none of us will run into them anytime soon ! When it gets TOO real (or possibly real) , count me out. :rockon:

You'd probably hate Michael Haneke's work :beatnik: Benny's Video (in itself a pseudo-social commentary) and Funny Games take horror on a different level...

Thing is, without Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Powell, and even before them, guys like Fritz Lang, we wouldn't have the progression we have in horror films now. I think they're still as effective now as they were back then. The Shining and The Changeling came out over 20 years ago and I wouldn't say The Sixth Sense and The Others are better and scarier... just the same with the violent fare we have nowadays. Depending on what you compare it to, we can see that to-day's horror movies aren't more violent or more realistic. It's just that some got more media attention and were advertised better ;)

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Without disputing any of your eloquent points, XXX, I simply have to hold to the line that I don't go for the point-of-view that horror means "no limits". I confess to being a little hypocritical here, though, as I'm willing to stick my head in and check out what's new, but 'tut-tuting' others after looking back from the curtain.

I do believe, however, that a number of film-makers and others are a bit too cynical and believe in 'pushing the envelope' in order, not necessarily to make a better horror film, but to one-up the competition in the gross-out/' I can't believe he did that ' factor. ::

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What would you say to a war film like Saving Private Ryan or a historical film about an event during a war like Schindler's List? At least we can take something like Ichi The Killer and Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer as bona fide pulp fiction, but the other two are based on real events and take the extra step of showing the audience very graphic and violent things. How do we make the distinction then between the violence based on fictional events and the violence based on historical ones (besides the obvious better cinematography and artistic value)?

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I would say F--k, beats me. Having got into the wine cellar now , I'm not likely to give you satisfaction on these very good points ! But, and if you won't hold me to it, war movies have , I think, a different propaganda purpose , at times, to make everyone gush and goo about how great it is to fight the enemy and die for the flag-- regardless of the horrrors involved and that's what temporarily makes those who sign up feel better than those who didn't. Also, chicks dig it too !

:thumbsup: :angel:

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I was just thinking, when I was watching the Excorcist, how my mom said that she had high schooler friends who were so scared after seeing that, they had to sleep with their parents. I did not think it was that scary. I have seen scarier. I saw it with a friend, who also agreed. I have asked other friends about it, and they all seem to agree.

Speculate on why this is.

I don't know, but it could have something to do with life in general being scarier in this day in age. What, with terrorist attacks, and constant fear of terrorists in buildings, or gunmen in the schools. A kid can't even go trick-or-treating on halloween without hearing their parents tell them about nutcases that poison the candy. Since we are now brought into that an an earlier age, we are kind of desensified to scary movies.

Whats your opinion?

I agree with you Batman. Desensitized we are becoming more and more. In these days of knowing of the Tate and Labianca murders, Helter Skelter was freaky to me, I was really starting into the Beatles music then, reading that book and seeing that movie (kudo's to Railsback, should've been nominated for oscar) this scarred me more than ANY slasher film.

Then there is Jeffery Dalmer, this dude was wicked (in the worst way). Yikes! Then in my neck of the woods we got the Green River murderer, or even remember Ted Bundy?! How about Columbine? These are real people commiting hainous acts against people, children -- very disturbing!

So films that have ghosts (no proof real), aliens (no proof real) and then slasher films that you know aren't real, but you know there are people out there planning or unconciously withering in an insane or irrational freak who will kill for little or no reason.

I think the big cities are crowded, you go to the rural areas and it's less tense, less time-bombs ticking. If you look at most serial killers there in the cities not the small towns. More people die of stress in big cities than small towns.

Like Jim Morrison wrote... "his brain is squirmin' like a toad"

Well that's my opinion, and then some.

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