The Un-Scary 90's

It's telling that 4 out of your 5 movies are from the first two years of the decade with the fifth (BWP) coming out at the tail end. That's a big gap of crap in between.

I actually found Seven much more unsettling than Lambs, but that's just me.

An obvious film that was left off your list, Scream, kind of says a lot about the success or interest in horror by movie studios and audiences during that time.

There's a ton of great horror each decade, for those who actually can remember past last weekend.

How about Ringu, Candyman, Audition, Exorcist III, The Sixth Sense, The Frighteners, Sleepy Hollow, and on and on...?

It's not the strongest decade, but it's not to be totally dismissed either.

Lambs set the tone for the decade (grisly procedurals) until Scream, which set the shitty tone for the rest of the shitty decade.

Misery is so overrated. It's straightest, least inspired adaptation of King I can think of. Of course, knowing the median quality of King adaptations, I'm sure there are several examples of less inspired, more straight adaptations.

It's the decade that made me a true horror fan, due to working in video stores throughout then. But mostly because of older titles. I love ARMY OF DARKNESS, but its 80s predecessors were the scary ones.

SCREAM is fine on its own, but what came after almost makes it unforgivable. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID, and the rest of the knock-offs. Too slick. Too wannabe. Too winky.

INDEPENDENCE DAY is the ultimate 90's horror film. We were laughing at the apocalypse.

The 90s are not a great decade for horror. But I can say nice things about FROM DUSK TIL DAWN, IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS and, to a lesser extent, THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE.

Save Tony Todd's performance, the score, and Virginia Madsen's rack, Candyman is terrible.

I like Scream. It was something new. It lit a fire and was the first major motion picture horror wise that was not some half assed sequel

Scream is a well-made slasher film, but it's nothing more than that...and nowhere near as smart (or "new") as it thinks it is. I still think it's a damn fine film though.

If we're measuring winking meta 90s horror, Texas Chain Saw 4 is transgressive as hell compared to Scream, until it becomes incomprehensible in the last ten minutes.

Maybe the 90's lacked the tensions and anxieties of the 2000's, 80's and 70's?

That's my bet, and why Dre is right on the money about Independence Day.

I wouldn't say that the '90s had no great horror movies but very few of them felt personal, for lack of a better word. There was too much imitation and unfortunate amounts of completely bullshit irony and 'clever' genre deconstruction for my tastes. Behind The Mask even though it has been brought down a bit as time passed on is smarter than the whole of the Scream franchise and its ilk combined.

And since I believe that horror is extremely affected by the social climate I agree with Cylon and Patrick. The '90s just weren't fertile ground.

Is Chainsaw 4 meta? I don't remember it being very meta. Of course, I don't remember much other than being amused that all of Matthew McConaughey's best roles (Chainsaw and Dazed) involve him being creepy predators, as opposed to his normal laid-back heartthrob routine.

I think what makes Scream so good is that it works as a film on it's own, on top of all the meta shit that hasn't aged well at all. I'm a fan, I think it's Craven's last gasp of quality before going under forever.

I think far too many people hate Scream for the gaggle of films and sequels that followed. Taken on its own, it's a really fun film. Barely a horror though.

Maybe "self-aware" is a better term. It's certainly an intentionally funnier horror movie than Scream. It ain't no fuckin' biggie.

The Scream backlash is uncalled for. It may have sparked rip-offs, but before it's release there was no other horror trend to speak of. It didn't ruin anything.

I wonder if the trend toward BIGGER MORE MORE MORE in popular films had anything to do with it. Most of the best horror movies were scruffy, low budget affairs. In a decade when indy films were becoming blockbuster films it's easy to see how this red-headed stepchild of a genre got squeezed out.
Or we can just blame CGI.

What about John Carpenter's In The Mouth of Madness? It had some scary imagery and Lovecraft touches.

"What about this? What about that? That one was decent."

Of course there were a few good ones scattered throughout the decade. But on the whole it was a barren era.

You’re so wrong it hurts. But I’m madly in love with that film, so I’m hardly objective.

SLEEPY HOLLOW is an unusual case. Because it’s a film that I like, but I recognise it’s deeply flawed and one of the main failings of the film is an inability to understand what it wanted to be. The 90s are really plagued by this indecision when it comes to Horror. With Horror films seemingly being afraid to be horror films.

If I was doing a quick list of my favourite 90s horrors it’d end up being a hell of a curates egg. Off the top of my head it would be

CANDYMAN
TESIS
SCREAM
RINGU
DUST DEVIL
SE7EN
BRAINDEAD/DEAD ALIVE
CRONOS

The majority of those are incredibly messy and I’d question if CRONOS, SE7EN, and DUST DEVIL even count as horror films in the traditional sense.

Yeah, not a great decade. But it did give us the advent of Gasper Noe with Carne. And Shinya Tskumato did some of his best work during the 90s.

CANDYMAN is a great horror film. It works on many levels and gets better with every viewing. The sequels not so much.

Aside from a few bright spots, the 90's was an awful time for film in general.

They did suck, didn't they? I'm so pleased they're over.

The hundreds of films we drafted and discussed in the recently-finished 90's draft would tend to disagree with this statement. There was a surprising range of really good films released in the 90s.

I really need to see Dust Devil one of these days soon.

Yes! See Dust Devil ASAP! It's one of those beautiful failures that crop up every now and then. Realize that much of the film DOESN'T work going in. But it really cool to watch the ambition on display.

Kind of how I feel about EVENT HORIZON ...

Waiting for an explanation as to how the 2000s were any stronger for horror movies. At least I can come up with a 10 best list for the 90s.

Not yet mentioned: Abel Ferrara's THE ADDICTION.

I dunno, Malmordo. The 2000s were a strong decade for international horror at the very least. And there was some goodness Stateside as well.

The issue here is we're talking about very subjective things. Not everything scares everyone. I had a friend who thought Rosemary's Baby was the stupidest thing he'd ever seen and ditto The Exorcist (though he liked the FX). Guess it had to do with nurture not nature.

SCREAM has the rare distinction of both saving and killing the genre in many respects. Quite the feat. I think SCREAM is a good film, but it unfortunately changed the way horror films were made (for the worse), definitely ushering in the era of glossy, overly-studio-backed films starring pretty young actors from The WB TV shows.

You're fired. This is a wonderful horror film. It is goddamn baroque.

As for the 90's: there are plenty of gems scattered throughout the decade, but that is a given. I'd say 2010 has been a shit year for movies, but that doesn't mean there haven't been plenty of good ones too; it's just an overall assessment. And I'd say a year or decade is really defined by the quality of its mediocre films, not a handful of great ones. The big problem was that up until the very end, the post-SCREAM years, the 90's lacked a "thing." Phil is right about LAMBS setting a tone, but when you follow a studio A-picture there is only going to be so much repetition. The 90's needed a low-budget trend to run into the ground to really stand out and be defined by, like the 80's had first the Slasher glut and then the gonzo period. So the issue isn't so much on quality - as Judson said, it is subjective - but this absence of a "thing" left the 90's with no real legacy. It is thus somewhat unmemorable.

Cylon Baby is right on the money! But I give the aughts the edge simply for bringing back subtextual anxiety. Shit torture porn got a write up in The Believer for fucks sake. Don't see that happening for the Scream movies.

Came to post about that one as well. The last good Carpenter.

And Audition. Not the best decade, but still, some great classics, like Peter Jackson's Braindead and Frighteners.

Mind you, Cylon was right. something lacked in the 90's, and Scream came over and filled the void with garbage.

The last draft proved this wrong, as much as I would have agreed with you before it.

The 2000s were especially strong for horror.

A few off the top of my head:

Ginger Snaps
Let the Right One In
Frailty
Drag Me to Hell
The Host
Trick ‘r Treat
The Mist
Dog Soldiers
Haute Tension
The Descent
Ju-on
Gin gwai (The Eye)
Honogurai mizu no soko kara (Dark Water)
Janghwa, Hongryeon (A Tale of Two Sisters)
Identity
The Hills Have Eyes
Three...Extremes
May
1408
Dawn of the Dead
Jeepers Creepers
Paranormal Activity
The Others
Dagon
The Orphanage

Martyrs
Inside
I Stand Alone (I count it as horror)

The 2000s were pretty strong. In France especially.

Interesting. So the 90s have now become the 80s in that everyone just takes it as written that it was a decade of trash cinema with a few bright spots. I wonder when that paradigm shift happened, because I remember the 80s being universally shat on up until a few years ago.

Also the aughts have SHAUN OF THE DEAD, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE, A TALE OF TWO SISTERS, THE HOST, L'INTERIOR, THE MIST, DEVIL'S REJECTS, etc.

I think denying it was a good decade for horror cinema is a little odd, it seems there was a genuine resurgence in the genre.

Also I'm surprised no one has commented on BLAIR WITCH in Elvis' original list. I love that film, as much for the mythos built around it as the film itself, but it's an odd choice for someone so dismissive of other zeitgeisty films like SCREAM.

Let's also not forget we got a new EVIL DEAD film in the 90s. Of course, it's the jokey one with Harryhausen skeletons and mini Bruce Campbells brandishing cutlery. But still ...

Interesting thread. I think after the horror explosion in the '80s, it's not surprising that the genre suffered from a lack of movement in the '90s. Not only was the genre out of new compelling ideas (Seven, Silence of the Lambs aside) the Clinton years were generally not horrifying to the social psyche. I think most pop art suffered during these years but horror films were the most blatant casualty.

One great '90s horror film not mentioned yet, but not part of any trend either (like Scream.): AUDITION.

By whom? That's not meant to be a snarky question. I'm just curious what you mean. I've never gotten that impression. I recall DURING the 90's people being like, "What the fuck happened? Where'd all the horror movies go?" Though I will say people were starting to bemoan the slow death of horror by the end of the 80's. In sense, like rock music, the 80's pushed horror so far is sorta broke. But the 90's never seemed to come up with the grunge/alternative equivalent of horror.

AUDITION has been mentioned at least twice already. Plus there was this ...

Which followed this ...

Do people actually read the threads here anymore, or do they just skim them?

I was talking about in general, rather than just about horror.

We're talking about horror, genius.

Yeah, that was all posted while I was on the Post Reply page. Sorry, I'm at work and these things happen. Jeez.

I was referring to these two posts, Dougie boy, which sort of jibes with other things I'd read/heard recently.

But hey, you continue to be a cantankerous fucker.

Everybody getting all bitchy up in here!

Well, just recalling what I can from my vast collection of Fangorias from the period it seemed like the whole genre had hit a fallow period for the majoirty of the 90s. The big franchises had more or less folded, studios were playing it safer than ever after taking some blows from the MPAA (God how times have changed there) and the occasional original release like Candyman were few and far between. So the 90s were kinda a shit decade for horror in general.

The 80s were a shit decade for film in genereal but the horror genre had a little blossoming of classics. That's just MO.

The one thing the 90s had was lots of halfhearted attempts at franchise creation. What with Wishmaster, The Relic, Urban Legends, the Candyman sequels. It seems studios were desperate for something, anything, to stick with an audience.

There is still a lot of that but now it's branched out into just about everything else. I'm looking at you comic book movies!
ETA: I think that's what killed horror dead a sa hammer for a bit in the 90s. Good point, sir.