When I tell people I like horror movies, I mean horror movies. I want the horrific, the macabre, and the downright disturbing.
What I don’t want is gore so graphic that it borders on kinky. Too often, the blood and guts seem like they’re there purely for shock value, rather than genuine audience terror.
The same goes for jump scares. They’re a lazy way of scaring the audience that just makes for an unmemorable kind of adrenaline. I want to feel emotionally uncomfortable, not just as if my roommate snuck up on me in the kitchen.
These tired-ass tropes hardly constitute a horror movie. At best, they’re barely bearable, and the movie will only be remembered for odd torture porn. At worst, they make a movie tedious and nauseating to watch. Few horror movies know the right ways to build tension and fear, and the films that fail at this also fail to separate themselves from the cheap scares you could find across the Internet.
Written by Winona Young, Peak Associate “Why Are We Ashamed to Call ‘Get Out’ and ‘The Shape of Water’ Horror Films?” – Jason Zinoman, The New York Times Journalist for the The New York Times, Jason Zinoman, isn’t afraid to inform the general public that Jordan Peele’s Get Out and…
By: Ana Staskevich, Staff Writer Midsommar, directed by Ari Aster who also directed the 2018 horror Hereditary, wastes no time throwing its audience into the seemingly idyllic fields of Hälsingland, Sweden. Filled with flowers, gorgeous scenery, and psychedelic drugs, the film appears to be set in complete paradise — that…
By: Olivia Visser, Opinions Editor Content warning: mentions of violence, anti-Black racism, and ableism People like horror for different reasons. Some enjoy the genre’s focus on dark topics and pressing social issues, while others watch for creative villains that push expectations. Whatever your reasoning is for enjoying horror, discriminatory media…
