Horror Movies Becoming too Formulaic
It’s a Saturday night and you are seeing the latest horror flick with a group of friends. There were plenty of jump scares and loud noises that startle you and your friends but you all just laugh it off. It was a good time with your buddies but you feel like something is missing; at no point did the movie actually scare you, nothing stuck with you and it was all just quick spooks that you get over in a couple of seconds.
Horror films are pretty popular and have brought good times to a lot of people, but it has been argued that they are starting to lose their charm because of them becoming “less scary.” It’s often said that the genre has become repetitive and more formulaic by using cheap tactics to scare the audience. However, this way of writing horror flicks attracts more viewers, which opens to more film makers creating a shallow film with nothing that truly left their audience in terror.
“Good horror films have a great sense of pacing, knowing when to erase the audience into a sense of false security, then ripping it from underneath their feet,” junior Tanner Bass said. “When you just fool the audience by having random and unnecessary jump scares, it doesn’t have the lasting effect as a good build up.”
“Good horror films have a great sense of pacing, knowing when to erase the audience into a sense of false security, then ripping it from underneath their feet “
— Tanner Bass, Junior
Bass said some of the best horror films of the century have come out in the past few years. He thinks movies like “Get Out” allow for filmmakers to give a new perspective on political issues while other movies like “a Quiet Place” are simple concepts executed well. However, for every Jordan Peele Spellbinder, there’s films, mostly produced by Blumhouse, like “Truth or Dare” or “Annabelle” that dilute those great films.
“What can be appreciated with modern horror is not the overdone tropes you can find in excessively advertised movies like the conjuring,” junior Trenton Brown said. “Sure if you only look at what is directly in front of your face you’d think modern horror is garbage, but if you actively search for lesser known movies you can really surprise yourself.”
Loading ...Brown argues that with a horror movie, it qualifies as good if you don’t immediately forget about what happened after you exit the theater. Given, he also believes that this is something not exclusive to horror movies, but with horror you need to feel scared. If you feel paranoid after finishing a horror movie on the couch, then they did it right he proclaims.
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