It's been a while since I've seen a really good horror movie and the ones I have seen are so bad and just plain disgusting that I think I've been turned off the genre forever...The rise of "torture porn" (and maybe it's just me who thinks this, but hopefully not) has not been a good thing. The poster for one of the "Saw" movies is probably the least threatening-looking and tamest of the lot...the ones for both "Hostel" films being SO bad they can't even be posted here without possibly traumatizing an innocent reader.
Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer the illusion of scary, not the scary itself...gore has quickly become a replacement for what should be atmospheric and implied scares. Last year I tried to watch both "Hostel" flicks...and couldn't make it through either. The premise alone (Americans traveling to a small town in Eastern Europe where they pay for the "opportunity" to brutalize and kill kidnapped tourists) is a morally difficult one to grasp, even for those of who have long been a fan of the genre (horror, that is, not torture.)
I turned the second off at least halfway through, but not before the damage had been done...a scene with two women, one enjoying killing the other one in almost orgasmic delight (basking in her blood), made me so sick i thought i was going to vomit. There was a point in my life when I could handle some of the "Saw" movies, but I've since grown tired of them and am not in that "dark" place anymore where I need a shocking jolt to distract me from life's problems.
For truly great cinema thrills, you can't beat something like "The Others" or "The Turn of The Screw." I think I'm officially through with the hardcore stuff (unless, of course, there are zombies involved.)
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