'Tis the season! I thought it’d be fun to start a thread discussing the current state of all things horror: tropes, favorite types of horror movies, recent (or classic) horror movies we’ve seen and can recommend, etc. I’ll get things started!
Criminally overused horror tropes that need to be retired:
- Character closes door of bathroom medicine cabinet. Eeeeek– there’s a scary thing in the mirror right behind character! They turn around and nothing’s there.
- Main character has something horrible happen to them by the Scary Thing early on in the movie. Wow, that’s a twist! But psych! It was just a nightmare. This is such a hoary old trope that the ‘double nightmare’ fakeout where they seemingly wake up, but it’s still a nightmare, is also a trope.
- Jump scare turns out to just be a cat. ROWRRR!
Favorite types of horror movies:
I much prefer the creepy psychological horror movies to blood and guts slashers, though I’ll watch an occasional slasher movie. I have a nostalgic sweet spot for rewatching the 80s slashers.
I like the occasional horror-comedy; it’s very difficult to successfully combine those two genres; If it’s a failure you have a movie that’s neither scary nor funny. But when it is successful it can work very well, especially if the humor is in the form of social satire.
Recent horror movies:
I’ve only seen 5 movies from the below AVClub list of The best horror movies of 2023, but I’ve seen a few more of these on our streaming subscriptions, or as DVD rentals at the library, which I want to watch. The 5 I have seen are:
- M3GAN - A horror-comedy with elements of social satire I thought worked very well, and I enjoyed.
- No One Will Save You - An odd alien invasion movie with virtually zero dialogue. A strange stylistic choice. Still not sure if I liked it or not.
- The Boogeyman - Just watched this one last weekend. Well-made, but pretty derivative of several other horror movies, I thought.
- Knock At The Cabin - OK for an M. Night Shyamalan movie (I realize that’s a low bar).
- The Pope’s Exorcist - I saw this on library DVD rental or streaming several months ago. I was surprised it was a 2023 movie. I seem to remember enjoying it at the time, but I remember virtually nothing about it now, for whatever that means.