Old Horror VS New Horror

I get what you're saying and I agree to a point. The difference is the quality of the script. Look at a movie like Day of the Dead which has alot of dialogue. Well that's what makes it such a great movie to me. It was written well. I think dialogue is important to a movie but it takes a very talented writer to make it work. You take a movie like Darkness Falls and the dialogue is one of its downfalls.

So basically I think you're right in that there is a difference between old horror and new horror and that is who's behind it. Perhaps you don't realize there is alot of dialogue in John Carpenter films becasue he writes it so well.

Welcome to the board midknight, I hear what you are saying, but I'd like to interject a few things ...

First, I think that during the glory days of horror ( 70's thru early 80s ), horror filmmakers could make films that were mean-spirited and disturbing because there was less pressure to reach a broad audience and less focus on political-correctness ... Horror was horror, there were no excuses, and much like the early days of heavy metal or punk music, the fanbase was extremely dedicated .....

Take a look at the original TV spot for a film like MANIAC , and something like that would never be put on television these days ... It's just too grim and scary .......

The homogenizing of horror has killed much of the feel of what it is all about ....... So many of the "horror" films of today don't look or feel any different than films from other genres: the actors are all 8x10 glossy ready, the cinematography looks straight out of MTV, etc etc ... it's all cookie-cutter perfect for the local family multi-plex ....



On the other hand


There are exceptions, and I believe some of these films are absolutely brilliant ... But most of these films are made outside the USA .....

Some truly great films have been made in the last decade, most of which have no connection to the sterile eye of Hollywood ....... SEE THE SEA, TALE OF TWO SISTERS and KAIRO are all excellent horror films .....


While I agree that the inane rambling and unnecessary dialog that plagues many films of today is tedious, many film of the past suffer this problem too ........ John Carpenter's early films did have some great dialog, however, he did show his influences ..... In HALLOWEEN , there were old horror films clearly shown on the TV in the kid's home ( was it the original THING ??? ... can't believe I'm not sure ... note to self: watch HALLOWEEN soon ) ........... also, if you've ever seen WAIT UNTIL DARK or BLACK CHRISTMAS, you know where JC got much of his inspiration for HALLOWEEN ...

I keep hearing about See the Sea. It's all that eh?

It was The Thing, Carpenter is a huge Howard Hawks fan, in fact in an original review of Halloween, a critic commends Carpenter and Co. for creating the scariest movie monster since James Arness' hideous behemoth; and it is difficult to not see the similarities. Also, Sam Loomis (Pleasence) is named for the P.I. in Psycho, and lest we forget that other Psycho connection.

In response to the original poster, the interjection of irony plagues modern films as a whole. Now that we have a film revolution to look back on, a good number of filmmakers want to do nothing but "pay homage to" and pick apart the past.
Tarantino has built a career on his "homage" films, which is fine for him, it's not like he asked people to jump off the bridge w/ him, yet it is the reason that I can't really enjoy his films in the absolute.

It's not a new phenomenon, as Boys has stated, Carpenter did it, DePalma sure as fuck does it, Lynch did it with Lost Highway (Vertigo homage) and Wild at Heart (Wizard of Oz), etc.

It's bunch of studio politics, Washington politics, and just plain hack work, that prevents interesting new things from taking place in film. It's the same shit that keeps us fans going in mad circles till we collapse, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, we need to purify thought before pop culture irretrievably rears it's head into it's own ass.

I really liked it ... It's simple and short ( about 60 min ), and very bleak ...

I caught it last year on the Sundance Channel, and I had no prior knowledge of it ... It really caught me by surprise ... The acting is superb, and it was refreshing to see some truly grim horror again ...

The night I watched it, SUNDANCE showed THE ISLE immediately afterwards ...


It took me about 2 weeks to shake that experience