Good, but not great. The bit with the elevator is very effective, but the love story’s kind of sappy. The last fifteen minutes comes completely out of the blue and packs a wallop.
The general point is still true, though. Horror has been distilled into two primary subgenres: action (example, which will suck) and slasher. Movies of the first type appeal to males up to thirty years old; movies of the second type, oddly, are intended as date flicks. Occasionally somebody tries to do something new with it, but usually it comes off as a pastiche. (Though that example gives the lie to the “supernatural monster” rule.)
I think what people are forgetting is that horror should horrify. That doesn’t mean startle, or nauseate; anybody can jump out from behind a door and throw guts at you. Deliberately and specificially attacking one’s comfortable assumptions and illusions, and planting a seed of doubt and discomfort that stays with you for the next few days or weeks, is actually really difficult.
And besides, most people don’t enjoy this. Think about the movies that really do try to get under your skin and leave scars; they tend to be rejected by the mainstream and get labeled boring and/or stupid (e.g., Kubrick’s The Shining). Most folks prefer something disposable like Ghost Ship or whatever; rather than subverting one’s view of the world, it tends to reinforce it and, perversely, provide comfort to the audience. In a bizarre way, the modern “horror” movie does for its viewer just what the romantic comedy does. The true horror movie is rejected by the mainstream audience just as much as the romantic comedy with a sad ending, and the studios, seeking the almighty dollar of said mainstream, no longer make that kind of movie.
That’s not to say nobody makes movies that are capable of horrifying us. Audition, offered by lissener, is very successful at freaking us out, even though the movie may be criticized on other grounds. I’d also suggest the neo-noir King of the Ants as the most horrifying movie I’ve seen this year; it has no monsters other than humans, but it’s got fear and dread like nobody’s business. Basically it’s a revenge tale among a group of lowlife criminal goons, and an innocent who gets swept up in their scheme but eventually seeks to outdo all of them. It’s loaded with violence, as is any horror movie these days, but the thing is, it’s not easy violence; it’s truly cringe-inducing. There’s a scene of torture that’s the sadistic equal of anything in Audition, and is all the more horrifying for the apparent amusement the torturers feel at their acts. And for this reason, you aren’t going to see the film released in your local megaplex. It may pop up in a rare arthouse, but basically it’s headed for the cult shelf of a handful of obscure independent video shops.
I guess what I’m saying is that true horror is no longer the province of the “horror movie.” To find the same emotional qualities, you have to go pretty far afield. Every now and then something comes along that looks promising, but more often than not it just turns out to be unredeemable shit.