Wish I Was Scared

We went and saw Dreamworks' The Haunting the other night, and the one question everyone was left with was what the hell ever happened to scary movies?

The horror movie has been on a fast downward spiral for several years now, with a few rare exceptions, but for some strange reason, truly frightening movies are more of a rarity now than ever before.

This caused me to start turning the question over and over in my head. What happened? Where did all the scary movies go? Whatever happened to the genuine shocks represented by a film like Alien or Halloween or even the original Nightmare on Elm Street?

One problem (which is ever so brilliantly illustrated in The Haunting) is the overuse of special effects, and now, digital effects. Literally seeing everything happen in front of our eyes has taken half the fun out of horror flicks. At the same time, due to the increased sophistication of theater sound systems, the films could be that much scarier. You see, the first half of The Haunting has some of the most disturbing sound effects I have yet to hear in a film. It's not until they break out the computer graphics that the film falls apart.

At the same time as The Haunting was scaring up big business with people hoping to be scared (and walking away disappointed - watch next weekend's box office tallies for proof), a little tiny independent film is getting ready to make a huge roar by scaring the shit out of people (The Blair Witch Project). Blair Witch has already cashed in to the tune of $5 million, and considering the budget was less than $100,000, that isn't too bad of a return on their investment. Once BW hits 1,000 or so screens this Friday (it's been playing on anywhere from 20-30 screens over the last few weeks), expect it do some VERY big business. Why is Blair Witch so scary? Because they don't show you ANYTHING except the reactions of the actors, and your imagination fills in the details.

If you don't believe me about the fear factor in Blair Witch, download the trailer (it's available on our home page) and watch it. It's easily one of the most tense trailers I have yet to see...and once again, it shows you NOTHING.

Imagine combining the psychological fear factor of something like The Blair Witch Project with the sound design in The Haunting. You'd have people dying in the aisles they'd be so scared.

In honor of Blair Witch's rightful place in horror movie history, I thought I'd rattle off a few of my favorite scary movies. If you haven't seen a film on the list and you like scary movies, by all means rent the film.

John Carpenter's The Thing - a movie which was almost universally hated at the time of its release, watch it now and revel in its absolute terror. Its effect is a bit diminished by the release of an X-Files episode which essentially lifted its plot, though.

David Fincher's Seven - another film which shows just how frightening words can be. After watching this movie, you'll swear you saw some of the freakiest things you can possibly imagine, and that's because you did imagine them.

Wes Craven's Nightmare on Elm Street - the sequels degraded into schlocky comedy-horror (but were still fun for some strange reason), but the first film left Freddy in the dark, and he's much scarier that way.

Nosferatu - just look at the box. That guy is FREAKY!

Poltergeist I and III - The first film had some cheesy effects (like that stupid kid-eating tree), but it also had some terrifying moments. The third film's use of mirrors is incredibly unsettling. The second film sucked, unfortunately - but that old guy is scary.

Creepshow I and II - The Creepshow flicks not only made you laugh, but made you scream as well. Both had moments of high tension mixed nicely with comic relief.

These few films are just a sampling of some of the genuinely scary films out there. Got a suggestion for a scary film? Send it in ... I'll post some reader comments on horror flicks in next week's issue.

My repeated calls for a title for this column seem to have paid off. Ben Menix sent in a suggestion for a title, and I've thought about it for a week and I still like it. So, from this point forth, this weekly editorial shall be know as (drum roll, please): Front Row, Sofa. It's a nice play on words, and it suits the theme of the column well. Thanks, Ben!

Ben also guessed the quote of the week correctly (as did several others), but the person who got their guess in first was Sean DeWitt. Apparently I made last week's quote too easy, because about a billion people got it right. By another strange twist of coincidence, it was from a horror film, Halloween H20.

This week's quote is from a classic horror film (maybe it's listed above, maybe it's not), and I'm thinking this quote will be fairly easy for real horror movie buffs. I've kept it short, but it should still be recognizable.

"I'm your God now!"