resurgence in horror films?

what's up all? Fellow horror fanatic here bordering on an obsession!

I have been pondering this for a few days and would like to hear what you, the experts, think. I'm thinking dvd has everything to do with the new found interest in the horror genre here in the states. Since foriegn horror has become so popular and mass distributed hollywood has finally caught on! Edgy, gore horror is what the people want! I love a classic horror movie like the others or signs but it'll be nice to see a movie like house of a thousand corpses and hopefully many more like it being released.

hey elmie, thanks....

Good points you make about the obscure titles and also the success of indy films. I've only been lurking these forums for a couple of weeks so i don't know what the general concensus was around here about TBWP but i liked it as well. I think it had to be taken for what it was, like you said a very low budget, indy film, and it that regard it was an incredible film. instead of effects or cinematography they used the audio to create the tension and fear. If TBWP isn't watched with digital audio cranked you miss the point of the movie.

2 of my fav directors right now are indy, fessenden and aronofsky. With dvd being the cash cow that it is i think studios are more willing to take a chance with something other than a blockbuster, hollywoodified horror movie.

i never contributed 9/11 to any of it but i'll have to read that article it sounds like an interesting take on it.

Requium was a brutal, dead on movie, I loved it. PI is a classic as well, have you guys checked that out?

Here's something I posted a couple of weeks ago in my video gaming community message board.

I got into gore horror about a year ago. I got into because of some posts on IGN actually. The DVD forum was relatively good and has a lot of excellent posters on it. They kept talking about Argento's Susperia. After reading the posts and then picking it up at Best Buy, I sat down and was amazed at how incredible it was. I have always loved american horror but at this point good, new titles are few and far between, except for the recent outpouring of pretty good Hollywood horror. Aside from those it was all been there done that. Susperia introduced me to one of the most artful horror movies I have ever seen. I ate up the rest of Argentos collection and then wanted to check out a different Italian director. Take one step down the ladder from Argento and there is Fulci. Argento uses plenty of gore but it somehow seems tasteful. In Fulci's world. Art and direction take a definite backseat to all out gorefests. Then I spread out to Japanese and French horror. Audition is the best Japanese horror films I've ever seen. The direction of Audition makes me think of a Japanese Argento. French is a whole different flavor and I highly recommend the Brittish film Dog Soldiers.

Why is it we get so desensitized to fright and goriness that we just crave bloodier and gruesomer films with more and more "good kills". Take Jason X one of the special features is an automatic jump to each kill scene. If you hear about a movie with a sweet eye piercing scene in slow motion, guts being stuffed back into a guys stomach so he can try to run away, the ever present decapitation or any other kind of horrific and demented method of death. What is it in the human psyche that is satisfied with this kind of decadence and immorality. Are we just evil in our roots?

Just a question I think about every now and then while I'm anticipating the next great horror movie, which in this case is House of a Thousand Corpses by Rob Zombie. This is a big budget, over-the-top, gor-a-thon.

Other recent horror films I like alot were Frailty, The Others and Session 9. Resident Evil kicked ass too!

All of you have some excellent insights and I think it all has something to do with it. I do agree that scream had alot to do with it seeing as how succesful it was, i liked the first alot, but i don't think directors really understood what kind of horror the masses wanted until the foreign/import dvd scene got hot with the likes of Anchor Bay, all hail, Lions Gate and Synapse at the helm. I also don't think I was alone in seeing an Argento film first then getting immediately hooked. I think it's great whatever the catalysts. I think us horror fanatics are in for some good stuff!

Hey, what was wrong with Resident Evil? Personally, I felt it had some genuinly scary moments and the action of it all was very intense. Of course, it could have taken the zombie genre a bit more seriously but it sure is a much higher caliber picture than many zombie flicks in my collection! Not to mention it is based on a video game! I think it would have been a helluva lot better had they not fired Romero but it still turned out ok just different than it would have been.

I haven't seen the American version of The Ring yet but I picked up the VCD of the original off of ebay awhile ago and I thought it was pretty boring and didn't live up to the hype at all for me.

As far as horror I think I love it so much because fear is my favorite emotion. Nothing gets my adrenline pumping more than a great horror movie or a frightening real life experience. I think fear is the most powerful of all human emotions and alot of people don't like the helpless, disorienting, incapacitated way true fear makes you feel. I'm not in film school but i do aspire to get into indy filmaking someday and when i do horror will be my genre. I think art and horror need to merge more and i long for the days of the classic horror movie. The Others was a fantastic movie imo but I feel it could have been taken to a much more horrifying level than it was while still maintaining the classic feel of it. That is the kind of movie that inspires me, of course, the occasional eye piercing, decapitation, entrail dragging scene and so on will always have a place in my heart.