Is this genre fan just TOO jaded or what?

Courage, Comrade. Courage!

I can definitely see where you're coming from. So much schlock gets churned out every year. For example, I went to the After Dark Films Horrorfest & saw all 8 movies, and all but 2 of them kind of sucked, IMO. The 2 that I did like were good, but far from classic. I'm planning on buying these 2, more for the rush of nostalgia I'll get from watching them than for the films themselves. I thoroughly enjoyed the 'fest, but more for the idea of it and the experience of being in a theatre full of like minded maniacs enjoying our beloved genre. And that's a damn shame.

I don't, however, think I'm quite at the point where nothing excites me anymore. I'm kind of new to these boards, and in just that short time I have been clued in to a great deal of stuff I want to check out. I'm sure I don't have to tell you Al and Brian's reviews are a key source of info.

I think this genre continues to evolve. Re-tellings of the Old World legends, like "Dracula" and "The Wolf Man" from the 40's aren't fashionable anymore, for the most part. And rarely is the dark castle the setting these days. We also don't see as many giant nuclear insects as we did in the 50's. Someday soon Hollywood will perceive that the moviegoing public is tired of zombie flicks, slasher films will continue their evolution from "Psycho" thru "Halloween" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" to "Saw" & "Hostel" and on to who knows what else. The Japanese will eventually start to realize creepy drowned kids don't hold anyone's interest anymore, and move on to newer fields, that we can remake in our own image. I wouldn't even attempt to predict where the genre's going, but it's always been going somewhere. I have faith it will always continue to go new & exciting places in the future, as well (eventually).

Cold comfort, I know, but my advice would be to ride out the current wave of "been there, done that", appreciate what IS available as best you can as (hopefully) decent examples of whatever they are (a decent slasher flick, a good vampire story, a halfway passable J-horror or zombie gore fest) as only a true connosseuer can. I know I just misspelled that, but I don't have a dictionary handy. Anyway, ride out the current blahs, and jump all over the next evolutionary step when it appears. And it will.

I am right there with ya because they are only getting worse. The trend I'm sick of is the Hostel violence porn bullshit. A demonstration of gory effects is NOT scary.

What I want to see is more monster movies. I love Slither, Feast was a bit overrated, but kinda fun.

Let's see some genre blending unlike anything we've ever seen before. I have a great idea for a Vampire flick set in the wild west. Think of The Magnificent Seven with vampires.

You know, speaking as someone who watches a new horror movie almost every night, it really does get hard at times to keep going.

There is just so much shit out there.

Some days I just look at the movies I'm getting in the mail and groan. I've turned a lot of films off after 20 minutes because I just can't sit through horrible movies anymore. But as with anything else (and yeah, I'm just repeating myself from the horror book thread) there's always quality stuff out there if you look for it. I just don't want to waste the time subjecting myself to garbage.

J-Horror's already been done to death. Even the original Asian horror films coming out these days are simply lesser quality ripoffs of the ones who started it.

But I am a fan of the new generation of horror filmmakers (the splat pack if you like groan-worthy labels.) I really love Hostel and Slither and The Devil's Rejects. They're horror movies created by horror fans, and although everyone these days who makes a horror film claims to be a fan, not too many know what makes a good movie. There's a difference between taking the past and molding it into your own to make a film that you yourself would like seeing, and taking everything you've seen before and throwing it together.

Iggy, if you're looking for a retelling of the vampire film I suggest you check out the movie Dawn. I got excited when the guy took my quote and used it on his site ("Dawn is a breath of fresh air in the crappy, gothic sludge that the vampire genre has become.") because I love it when I find a film that truly stands out from everything else that's being done. It's very hard some times to keep watching, but I'm loving that it's possible for me to help point people in the right direction on some stuff.

My POV...

I don't get discouraged because I see so many horror flicks, there's always a gem to uncover.

Plus, there's plenty of oldies I haven't seen before and Netflix is helping me discover some horror classics (and more obscure stuff) that are finally hitting dvd. If the latest new flick I see sucks, I just move up something I can count on in my queue to cleanse my pallette. Hanging out around these boards gets me a few recommendations I might not know about otherwise. We gotta have each other's backs, ya know?

My problem: there isn't enough time in the day to see it all. Not with TV boxsets monopolizing a good chunk of it. Thankfully horror flicks are shorter in length and I can double-feature them in a sitting.

I don't really consider movies like Hostel or Saw to even be Horror films. I'm not sure why, couldn't even explain my reasoning if I tried. Last great Horror flick I've seen was The Descent. Which kicked all sorts of ass and was one of the few worthy picks on Stephen "get off my lawn" King's top ten.

And I was completely underwhelmed by Slither. I know most people loved it, and I can kind of tell why. But for me it was just a take on the vastly superior Night of the Creeps. And all those Shaun of the Dead comparisons didn't help. Set the bar a bit high methinks.

I don't remember a better 12 months for Monster flicks in quite some time:
Slither, The Descent, Feast, The Host
and (don't kill me) Underworld 2...

Godzilla: Final Wars, the Great Yokai War, and even Kong and Dead Man's Chest had some impressive creatures.

I like a good revenge flick/thriller (Chan-wook Park trilogy= YES!), but the other torture porn can kiss off.

See? I told you to have faith. Like David Keith said in 'Platoon":

"Keep your pecker hard and your powder dry, and the worm will turn."

Umm. . . I just thought that was a cool line, BTW. I really don't want to literally advise you in that realm. We're still just talkin' horror movies here.

That is a great line. I join the chorus of horror fans just totally discouraged by the horror offerings of late. Too many carbon copies of what sells. This is a pattern that tends to repeat itself in movies, not just the horror genre. A slight injection of genuine inspiration followed by heaps of second, third and fourth generation derivative pedestrian crap. The Descent was good but it didn't renew my faith or anything. I think the last great horror flick I saw was 28 Days Later.

I just saw this last night, and I gotta say I, too expected more. It certainly had some things going for it, like:

A) The part where the tentacle disemboweled that dude was REALY cool to see;

B) Grant's Hot wife. In a chemise.

But it had some things working against it, as well:

A) There wasn't more stuff like the guy gettting disemboweled, and

B) Grant's wife never got OUT of the chemise.

The best thing about that movie, IMO, was the police chief's dry sense of humor. He had me grinning thru the whole thing.

In my case, the fact there are still many, many classics left to see keeps me interested.
But yes- new horror is a bit thin on the ground. The last few years have had Slither, Silent Hill (which wasn't top-class, by any means, but I feel people were a bit hards on), Dead Birds (interesting horror-western that got overlooked), The Call of Cthulhu, Hard Candy, and The Descent.
The whole Saw/Hostel bunch just aren't quite my cup of tea. I prefer subtlety and atmosphere with my gore.

However, we do have Third Mother and the theatrical rtelease of Behind the Mask on the horizon.

Hard Candy? Horror?

More of a revenge/torture flick... it dealt with some horrific subject matter and had some squirmy moments. Slightly comparable to the revenge/torture stuff of Takashi Miike or Chan-wook Park.

Well, it's more 'overrated' than 'horror', but it can fall under that banner.

Guess I'd just be mightily surprised if I found it sitting next to "Society" in my local DVD store's Horror section. And yes... overrated is right.

It didn't live up to some of its reviews, but I thought it was a decent enough little film.