Horror & the 15 certificate

[nekromantik]

Originally Posted by Daemonia

Night of the Living Dead is now a 15 ecrt, so how does that fit in with your views?

Personally, I totally disagree with you. Most of the Hammer films are now downgraded to 15 and even 12 (and The Mummy's Shroud is a PG!), and they deal with vampires, zombies, werewolves - so they're definitely horror films. Most of the new horror coming out now I wouldn't personally class as horror. For instance, to me, the Saw series are gory psychological thrillers. Yes, they're horrific at times, but so are gangster films, but they're not horror films.

The term 'horror' is a very broad term and can take in any number of things thematically and is littered with all kinds of sub-genres. To avoid a film because it has a 15 rating seems a bit daft to me, but I certainly can understand the mentality, I used to be like that myself. Today's 15 is the equivalent of yesteryear's 18. The rating should be inconsequential - it's whether it's a good film or not that matters.

+1
but like I said before each to their own.

[pedromonkey]

after giving it some thought i have decided that i am absolutely wrong, i am admitting it because looking through my horror collection, a vast amount of titles hold a 15 certificate. Even some of the Friday 13th movies are rated 15, and Daemonia, you are right, rating should be of no concern if the film is any good.

[nekromantik]

Originally Posted by pedromonkey

after giving it some thought i have decided that i am absolutely wrong, i am admitting it because looking through my horror collection, a vast amount of titles hold a 15 certificate. Even some of the Friday 13th movies are rated 15, and Daemonia, you are right, rating should be of no concern if the film is any good.

well done
glad to see your seen the light

[Daemonia]

As Nekro says, each to their own. I think we all probably have differing ideas as to what constitutes 'horror'. Like I said, it's a very broad term - what is horrific to one person is laughable to another. So it's very hard to get an exact definition IMO. The modern horror films tries to gross people out - but is that really horror? Or is that simply repulsion? I don't think films like the Saw films actually horrify anyone, but they certainly inspire repulsion.

It's an interesting debate. And there's probably some films I class as horror that others wouldn't and vice versa. The beauty of the horror genre is that it's so wide and all-encompassing, you can transplant horror into all kinds of other genres - sci-fi horror, war-horror (The Bunker, Outpost), comedy-horror, gangster-horror (Innocent Blood) etc. Horror, like no other genre, has invaded almost all known cinematic genres at one time or another. Even the recent Twilight saga shows horror invading the romantic drama genre!

[nekromantik]

Originally Posted by Daemonia

As Nekro says, each to their own. I think we all probably have differing ideas as to what constitutes 'horror'. Like I said, it's a very broad term - what is horrific to one person is laughable to another. So it's very hard to get an exact definition IMO. The modern horror films tries to gross people out - but is that really horror? Or is that simply repulsion? I don't think films like the Saw films actually horrify anyone, but they certainly inspire repulsion.

It's an interesting debate. And there's probably some films I class as horror that others wouldn't and vice versa. The beauty of the horror genre is that it's so wide and all-encompassing, you can transplant horror into all kinds of other genres - sci-fi horror, war-horror (The Bunker, Outpost), comedy-horror, gangster-horror (Innocent Blood) etc. Horror, like no other genre, has invaded almost all known cinematic genres at one time or another. Even the recent Twilight saga shows horror invading the romantic drama genre!

spot on
I dont really see Saw as people horror though as they suck
anyway being serious for a sec, in my mind there are 2 main branches of horror. Psychological and "In your Face" so to speak. Both can be scary so in that regards they are both horror. Horror used to be about scary movies but now its about gore etc. Main reason I think is cause not many horror films actually scare people anymore. Only exception in the modern cinema is Paranormal Activity but I didnt find it scary at all but I know lots of people that could not sleep and I can understand why.

[Daemonia]

Maybe the fact that horror seems to solely rely on gore these days is a lack of skilful filmmakers..? To make something that really messes with your head and can actually scare you takes a lot of skill. I just don't think modern filmmakers are capable of this, so they just invent gruesome on-screen skills and throw buckets of the red stuff around and think that this will scare people. It doesn't, it's just repugnant, really. Now, don't get me wrong, I love gore films as much as the next man, but there is such a thing as overkill - and, to be honest, I'm really looking for something that will scare me, as films used to years ago when I was younger and films seemed more magical. It's unlikely I'll ever recapture that, but I do keep looking.

Strange as it seems, but these days I'm more likely to chuck on an old gothic horror than I am a new horror movie. I'm getting a bit tired of the glut of new ultra-gory horror films. Let's be honest, most of the people dispatched in the Saw films are highly unlikeable people anyway, so where's the horror in that? The power of a true horror film is when the innocent suffer, isn't it..? Not a bunch of nasty, selfish people - who, as wrong as it is, you don't really mind seeing being offed in various gruesome ways. If they were good people, we'd be rooting for them to survive, but in the Saw films they're ugly, horrible people and so we don't have that instinct to will them to escape their ordeal. The opposite is true, in fact. There's not a single character we can get behind or connect with - it's all very nihilistic and depressing.

[thundercrack]

Originally Posted by Daemonia

Maybe the fact that horror seems to solely rely on gore these days is a lack of skilful filmmakers..? To make something that really messes with your head and can actually scare you takes a lot of skill. I just don't think modern filmmakers are capable of this, so they just invent gruesome on-screen skills and throw buckets of the red stuff around and think that this will scare people. It doesn't, it's just repugnant, really. Now, don't get me wrong, I love gore films as much as the next man, but there is such a thing as overkill - and, to be honest, I'm really looking for something that will scare me, as films used to years ago when I was younger and films seemed more magical. It's unlikely I'll ever recapture that, but I do keep looking.

Strange as it seems, but these days I'm more likely to chuck on an old gothic horror than I am a new horror movie. I'm getting a bit tired of the glut of new ultra-gory horror films. Let's be honest, most of the people dispatched in the Saw films are highly unlikeable people anyway, so where's the horror in that? The power of a true horror film is when the innocent suffer, isn't it..? Not a bunch of nasty, selfish people - who, as wrong as it is, you don't really mind seeing being offed in various gruesome ways. If they were good people, we'd be rooting for them to survive, but in the Saw films they're ugly, horrible people and so we don't have that instinct to will them to escape their ordeal. The opposite is true, in fact. There's not a single character we can get behind or connect with - it's all very nihilistic and depressing.

Why don't you try some world cinema horror films Like Let the Right One in (Which is being Remade as let me in, which kills the Morrissey Refrence) as they are so much better than most of the shitty crap that masquerades as a good well made horror.

[Daemonia]

Originally Posted by thundercrack

Why don't you try some world cinema horror films Like Let the Right One in (Which is being Remade as let me in, which kills the Morrissey Refrence) as they are so much better than most of the shitty crap that masquerades as a good well made horror.

I do and I have seen Let the Right One In, Dead Snow, Cold Prey etc. They're not bad films and better than most of what comes out of Hollywood - which seems fixated on gore and little else at the moment, when it comes to horror.

[nekromantik]

Originally Posted by thundercrack

Why don't you try some world cinema horror films Like Let the Right One in (Which is being Remade as let me in, which kills the Morrissey Refrence) as they are so much better than most of the shitty crap that masquerades as a good well made horror.

LTROI is a masterpiece of film making.
Let Me In will be a knock off and all Americanized. Makes me sick just thinking about it.

[Peter Neal]

For one reason or another I can't see myself getting tired of the more recent "gore focussed" brand of horror and I would strongly suggest that the modern likes of "Wolf Creek", the first "Saw" (which actually DOES feature characters the audience could care about), the first "Hostel" (to some fair degree), "The Collector", most of the French "gore epics", "The Descent", "Eden Lake" etc DO have their fair share of spooky, scary, unsettling scenes..
I respect your view, deamonia, but your verdict on modern horror movies focussing too much on the gore instead of the scares reminds me of tons of reviews I read about the 70's/80's wave of "splatter movies", which we consider to be classics these days....