Do You Like Scary Movies?

I have never been a fan of horror movies as a genre. I spent most of my life telling people that horror movies were cheap and lacked substance, most of them just serving as an excuse to gross people out with excessive amounts of gore and to this day I still maintain that that is mostly true. However, the main reason I don’t like horror movies is that they are scary and frankly I don’t like to be scared. This changed last week when the cover of Entertainment Weekly featured a story on Scream 4 and after reading their article I decided to go back and give the original Scream a try. I did this mostly because I realized after reading the article that the Scream movies were not just horror films, but were also murder mysteries, a genre that I love. I was pleasantly surprised when after completing the first Scream movie I immediately barreled through the entire trilogy in two days. I felt that these movies spoke to the film fan in me and featured a cast of characters that were savvy to pop culture, they acted the way I would if caught in a scary movie situation . . . albeit with a little less crying in the fetal position. After having my scary movie marathon, I realized a couple of things:

The first is that the murder mystery genre is sadly lacking in both movies and television. I love a good mystery, the act of following the plot and trying to figure out whodunit before the dramatic reveal is something I find very rewarding both when I figure it out and when I am completely surprised. Now I know what you are going to say, “But Ryan crime procedurals are the single largest grouping of shows currently airing and aren’t they basically just mysteries?” Well my answer to this is yes and no. Yes, the slew of crime dramas on TV are basically hour long mysteries and that is just the flaw. One hour is not enough time to build all the components of a good mystery. Sometimes TV pulls this one off, but most of the time there is not suspense and development to lure the audience down the twists and red herrings to make the reveal at the end truly dramatic. That is something that can only be accomplished with the long form of a feature film or a series. The last good murder mystery that I saw prior to Scream was a one season show called Harper’s Island. The premise of the show was very slasher-film like in that every episode at least one character would be killed by the murderer until the final episode when the big reveal occurred. This was an amazing series that allowed the necessary time to invest in the characters and explore those characters enough that everyone became a suspect and the ending was a truly epic reveal. This was how I felt about Scream as well. I thought the film did a great job making every character that we met seem like they could be the murderer, even if just for a second. In novels and plays, mysteries make up one of the largest share of all genres, but in TV and movies mysteries seem to be downplayed and I cannot even tell you the last major blockbuster that was billed as a “mystery” film as opposed to a horror or thriller. So get in the game Hollywood and bring mysteries back as a genre. I know it might actually require some good writing for a change but seriously it’s about time that came back too.

The second thing that came out of my foray into the Scream trilogy was some contemplation on horror as a genre. I understand that many people enjoy being scared and even if I do not count myself among them I can appreciate the fact that many people pay to experience haunted houses at amusement parks and to see scary movies. I have never really liked to be scared and anytime I watch a horror movie I view the fear as a cost of doing business. I really liked the murder mystery aspect and feeling the sinking feeling in my stomach when Ghostface pops out from a closet was just a way to keep the tension up and prevent things from getting boring as I tried to figure out who was the killer behind the mask. However, a couple of days later I was still on edge from watching the movie. Every time my house would creak or my dog would open the door to my room I would have a little moment of surprise before I realized that it was a normal occurrence that would not have caused me to even react the previous week. I get the same way when I play FPS games for too long and feel the need to react quickly to things that occur in my peripheral vision. So in the days after my horror movie marathon when I was still very jumpy I began to realize just how cool a situation that it was. How many times does a movie have an effect on you after you leave the theatre? I think most movies are like water in a pool, when you are in the pool and actively experiencing it you are aware of it, but the moment you step out all the water runs off you and very little about a film tends to stick for long. A comedy might make you laugh and a heartfelt movie might even move you tears while you are watching it, but for the most part as soon as you leave the theatre the movies ability to effect you vanishes, except in the case of horror movies. Even a mediocre horror film will leave you with a pit in your stomach and your nerves on edge for some time after the film is over. I believe the job of a good film is to create a reaction in its audience. This could be to cause the audience to think, to laugh, or cry, or even scream and even though I may not like horror movies as a whole I cannot deny that they create a powerful reaction within their audience.

I am looking forward to the latest installment in the Scream franchise and hope that it will bring back what I loved about the original film and that this in turn might lead to a better class of scary movie and chase away the torture porn that made me turn away from horror as a genre during my formative film watching years.

I want to hear what you think so hit me up in the comments. What do you think, is horror a genre worth having or just a quick way for studios to make a buck? What do you think of Scream 4 and of course what’s your favorite scary movie?