The Death of Modern Day Horror
Since I was very young, I've always been fascinated with the supernatural. Even though I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, I would routinely take out the scariest ghost books (preferably the ones with pictures!) that my elementary school library had to offer. I guess I don’t really know whether ghosts really exist, but I do know that the supernatural, in movies and television, has lost its past true terror and has come to be portrayed only as violence, bloody killers, and loud noises. In short, I believe that the whole genre of horror has nearly died in the United States.
Before the visual effect of movies, people were able to get a good scare from scary radio shows or from reading stories from books. With the advent of movies, the industry sought increasingly to outperform the last scary movie. In time, bloody murders, ugly monsters, and loud noises came to be the norm in the effort to entertain the audience. Although I'm also a big fan of these movies, I sometimes wonder what happened to the real horror stories in which the scariness was subtle, yet extremely scary. I've thought a lot about why ghosts and the supernatural are so scary and I see that the true thrill comes from the unknown.
The 20th century is a period in which things are rapidly losing their air of mysteriousness and elusiveness. In a period when we take apart our heroes and nothing is left to the imagination, its natural that the supernatural is picked apart and represented, in the media, for pure shock value. I still believe that there is something essential in leaving some things, particularly the supernatural, left to the unknown. Also, its more fun.
This is the reason why the genre of horror is in its current state in the United States. I emphasize the U.S. because Hollywood has created the groundwork for media's portrayal of the supernatural around the world. Currently, other countries have much scarier supernatural movies that will surprise you in their purity and lack of pretense. As American movie-goers become more jaded, I feel that we're on the cusp of a new period in which pure horror is revived. This can be seen in more current movies like "The Sixth Sense" and "The Blair Witch Project."
All in all, the watering down of Hollywood horror movies results from years of outdoing the past. This has lead to extreme gore, explosive sound effects, and overdone shock. In a culture of shock value, extreme television, and belittled stars, I feel that the audience is craving the purity of the unknown. In short, I feel that a little mystery in our lives would sure make things less boring and mundane than they already are. Do we really know what ghosts are? They might be explainable....but then again......they might not. In the mean time, I’m quite content on seeing things in a more mysterious light. Maybe I don't really want to know. This might be scarier, but a lot more exciting!