So I've been trying to figure out both the thread title and the actual question that I wanted to ask for a while, and this is what I landed on, for better or worse.
Horror has been my favorite genre of movies since I was a little kid who snuck downstairs after everyone went to sleep on weekends to watch USA Up All Night and Saturday Night Dead on my local NBC affiliate. I've seen pretty much every permutation of the genre over my 40 years, and I still come back for the thrills, chills, and laughs (even if they are unintentional).
To this day, and even in the time of COVID, there are tons of horror releases of every variety and quality - so much so that is pretty much impossible to keep up with them unless you have nothing else to do and are a glutten for punishment. I say this because there are definitely stinkers out there. A lot of them.
But what makes a horror movie a bad horror movie?
Is it budget? Horror movies have always been the champions of the low budget affair. During the time of their respective releases, Halloween and The Blair Witch Project were among the most profitable movies ever made compared to their budget. And beyond financial success, horror has pushed filmmakers to do more with less, and in the process create different ways of telling stories that scare the shit out of us.
That being said, a lot of horror ends up looking cheap, either in film or production quality. Now this doesn't necessarily mean an automatic "bad" rating, but it does take away from the experience. During the 80's and 90's, a lot of direct to video stuff was shot on video instead of film, and the results were unkind. Even today, many features are shot on digital video, which can be great if your lighting and set teams are good and your post production team knows how to make it look nice. Unfortunately, with the budget constraints that come with horror, this seems to be where a lot of money is not spent, and the final work suffers.
I read and watch a lot of interviews with horror filmmakers (and sometimes follow them on social media), and most of them have a lot of love and respect for the genre. However, that doesn't necessarily translate to abilities when it comes to making a solid film. A lot of times, the concept is fine, but the execution falls short by any number of degrees. Either the pacing is off or the framing is not right or any number of things that can be traced back to the actual takes that were used and the edits finalized.
Then of course there is derision. The last 15-20 years have been a endless hoard of zombies, found footage, scary black-haired girls, and exorcisms, among other things. It's not a surprise that many highly regarded movies during the time have been those that have stayed as far away from those archetypes as possible (like Midsommar, The Babadook, The Lighthouse etc). Is the sameness that was once a comfort now oversaturation?
Or maybe it's the acting. A-Listers don't really jump into horror at the top of their games (certain exclusions apply, naturally) and horror worlds are usually populated by unknowns and "that one guy/girl from that one thing a few years back" who is used as a draw. Fear is typically not an easy emotion to convey in the absence of something scaring you. A lot of times, performances lack the urgency of people who are scared that they will be harmed. I imagine that the less training you have, the less likely you will be to pull it off.
There's a lot of other possibilities too. What do you think it is that separates the good from the bad when it comes to horror movies?
I would lean towards the film quality and production end myself. Nothing takes me out of a movie more than it not looking good or having to squint through bad lighting and color. Horror is one of those genres where atmosphere and mood are everything, and that starts with how the images on the screen look.
Horror has been my favorite genre of movies since I was a little kid who snuck downstairs after everyone went to sleep on weekends to watch USA Up All Night and Saturday Night Dead on my local NBC affiliate. I've seen pretty much every permutation of the genre over my 40 years, and I still come back for the thrills, chills, and laughs (even if they are unintentional).
To this day, and even in the time of COVID, there are tons of horror releases of every variety and quality - so much so that is pretty much impossible to keep up with them unless you have nothing else to do and are a glutten for punishment. I say this because there are definitely stinkers out there. A lot of them.
But what makes a horror movie a bad horror movie?
Is it budget? Horror movies have always been the champions of the low budget affair. During the time of their respective releases, Halloween and The Blair Witch Project were among the most profitable movies ever made compared to their budget. And beyond financial success, horror has pushed filmmakers to do more with less, and in the process create different ways of telling stories that scare the shit out of us.
That being said, a lot of horror ends up looking cheap, either in film or production quality. Now this doesn't necessarily mean an automatic "bad" rating, but it does take away from the experience. During the 80's and 90's, a lot of direct to video stuff was shot on video instead of film, and the results were unkind. Even today, many features are shot on digital video, which can be great if your lighting and set teams are good and your post production team knows how to make it look nice. Unfortunately, with the budget constraints that come with horror, this seems to be where a lot of money is not spent, and the final work suffers.
I read and watch a lot of interviews with horror filmmakers (and sometimes follow them on social media), and most of them have a lot of love and respect for the genre. However, that doesn't necessarily translate to abilities when it comes to making a solid film. A lot of times, the concept is fine, but the execution falls short by any number of degrees. Either the pacing is off or the framing is not right or any number of things that can be traced back to the actual takes that were used and the edits finalized.
Then of course there is derision. The last 15-20 years have been a endless hoard of zombies, found footage, scary black-haired girls, and exorcisms, among other things. It's not a surprise that many highly regarded movies during the time have been those that have stayed as far away from those archetypes as possible (like Midsommar, The Babadook, The Lighthouse etc). Is the sameness that was once a comfort now oversaturation?
Or maybe it's the acting. A-Listers don't really jump into horror at the top of their games (certain exclusions apply, naturally) and horror worlds are usually populated by unknowns and "that one guy/girl from that one thing a few years back" who is used as a draw. Fear is typically not an easy emotion to convey in the absence of something scaring you. A lot of times, performances lack the urgency of people who are scared that they will be harmed. I imagine that the less training you have, the less likely you will be to pull it off.
There's a lot of other possibilities too. What do you think it is that separates the good from the bad when it comes to horror movies?
I would lean towards the film quality and production end myself. Nothing takes me out of a movie more than it not looking good or having to squint through bad lighting and color. Horror is one of those genres where atmosphere and mood are everything, and that starts with how the images on the screen look.
