Hollywood Horror
Sadly the horror movies that spawn from Hollywood are very rarely my perception of horror. The likes of Friday The13th, Nightmare On Elm Street, and Halloween all headed to Hollywood for funding to be released, but never originated from Hollywood. The reality of the point being that few movies actually originate in Hollywood, having literally turned up there for funding. Hollywood does not have a partially good history when it comes to horror, for Hollywood is all about the money and nothing else, Horror movies generally have a higher certificate and render the movies potential earnings considerably less. So Hollywood tend more to lean on the side of psychological thrillers.
Wes Craven's Scream was the first example of a good Hollywood horror, and in reality since then they have been few and far between. Hostel, Saw, 30 Days Of Night are not Hollywood horror, neither was The Exorcist.
American Horror
While in America there are movies that push the limits, the aforementioned Hostel, Saw and 30 Days Of Night all being prime examples, America is majorly behind the times, Italy was delivering these sort of scares 30 years ago, Spain 25 years ago, while Japan was delivering this sort of horror 15 years ago. America like the United Kingdom are far behind the rest of the world.
As for the context of the story, these aspects of horror have been around for as long as horror. Heads have always rolled all the way back to the 1920's, and organs have always been severed. Look back to the 1960's at the scenes of brain devourment from George Romero's Night Of The Living Dead, this is every bit as graphic and disturbing as today's horror. Think back to the original Sweeney Todd movie from the 1930's, your talking victims being brutally murdered, chopped up, then turned into pies? Are we really challenging horror as far as it can go? We are addressing nothing now that we were not the best part of 80 years ago.
There is a big void between horror and a psychological thriller, and the trouble being is that to some there is no void, some do not realise the difference and that is where things really start to fall down. What Saw and Hostel do, is almost create a synergy of the two
genres, fooling the audience; think about it really, what category do these movies really fall into?
American horror can go a long way yet, 30 Days Of Night is a classic example of where horror writers should be looking, gone are the days when a man in greased hair and a cape can terrify an audience. Today's horror fans need more, we love to be thrilled, we love to be appalled, we love to feel scared. As the world changes and more and more real horror is brought to us our culture needs to react, you can watch the news and be more horrified than any movie that you might stumble upon, think about Daniel Pearl, think about Ken Bigley, think about September the 11th, think about the 7th of July; there are things far more frightening in the real world than you'll ever see in a movie.
I will make a slight exception here as to what has gone too far, anyone who has had the misfortune to see any of the August Underground "features" or the movie Scrapbook will understand what too far is, but to the best rationale to my mind these are not "movies" per say, any more than hardcore pornography is.
The person that asks the question have horror movies gone too far? Is exactly the same person that tries to wrap us in cotton wool and stop us from seeing the world as it is, while the world is beautiful it is also very dark. Horror movies do not increase madness, if someone has evil in them it stems from their very soul, not because they watched a horror movie.
It's time that these "deeper thinking" people accepted the difference between visual entertainment in the form of scares, and the excuses they blame for minority actions. The average man or woman know the difference, but our nanny states try to make us believe what we watch is part of the cause.
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