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PakLFC

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I love horror films. Tell me your favourite horror films be they American, British, Bolly or even Lollywood. My favourite one is the original "The Omen" with Gregory Peck. Looking for some great horrror films that I may not have seen as yet.
 
Who amongst you remembers the Exorcist?
 
MenInG said:
Who amongst you remembers the Exorcist?
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Yes Indeed! it was the most scariest horror film I have watched.

Other than that i will rate Evil Dead even more scary movie.

I got goosebumps because I am home alone this time, and we are talking about horror movies. :ROFLMAO:
 
Almost all horror movies are not realistic, thus I dont find them scary.

Apart from Shark movies, such as Jaws, deep blue sea , 47 metres down. Great movies.

Poltergeist series is great to watch.
 
I've only ever watched modern horror movies, the best ones I've seen are Conjuring 1 & 2. I never had any interest in horror before watching them.

Hereditary is up there too, but it's more disturbing and unnerving than scary. Great movie though.
 
One lesser known but very good horror movie is The skeleton key . Those who have not seen it , I would recomend it.
 
Firebat said:
I've only ever watched modern horror movies, the best ones I've seen are Conjuring 1 & 2. I never had any interest in horror before watching them.

Hereditary is up there too, but it's more disturbing and unnerving than scary. Great movie though.
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Such great movies, especially the second one with VALAK!! :O

Anyone watched THE NUN 2? Can't seem to find courage to watch it in cinemas :p
 
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Stewie said:
The Ring
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That was one of those that broke the mould. Absolutely unique premise at the time, and done really well. You can always tell the good ones when you see similar figures popping up in other films, by which I mean the girl with the long black hair hanging in front of her face climbing out of the screen. Seen that look being aped in quite a few others.

The Omen will always be one of my favourites, I wasn't old enough to watch it so it scared the crap out of me.
 
Looking forward to watching Saw X and the new Exorcist film.
 
i think turkish horror movies are too good.

I watched Siccin and trust me it stood out as the best horror movie I have ever seen.
 
Wasted 2 hours of my life recently watching The Exorcist: Believer

I was really looking forward to it, but overall it was really disappointing with a terrible storyline and above all, not scary.
 
KingKhanWC said:
Almost all horror movies are not realistic, thus I dont find them scary.

Apart from Shark movies, such as Jaws, deep blue sea , 47 metres down. Great movies.

Poltergeist series is great to watch.
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the thing that seemed sort of odd to me was the setting. This haunted house was literally in a street with normal homes around it. It took away the horror part of it. Maybe they could have set it in a more secluded setting. In the end, the house just collapses and all the houses around it are fine and the family just drives in the car to safety.
 
MenInG said:
Who amongst you remembers the Exorcist?
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The series based on the events of exorcist is pretty solid horror as well. at least till they give the demons roaming around Chicago casually and doing meetings.
 
In the mouth of madness
Prince of Darkness - a weird little film. John Carpenter is awesome with surreal horror.
1408 - A great little film with just a solitary character.
Dead End - A pretty decent caught in the loop horror
House - Loved it (has sort of a humorous tone to it as well)
Creepshow. Love the anthology films.
Dead Silence - gets a lot of flak but I enjoyed it a lot when it came out.
It Follows - Twisted and unsettling.
Trick r Treat - Fun
 
Two more movies forgotten to add…

1) The Entity (1982) - based on real incident …. A woman was repeatedly sxxxxxx assaulted by invisible demon

2) Shutter 2005
 
KingKhanWC said:
Almost all horror movies are not realistic, thus I dont find them scary.

Apart from Shark movies, such as Jaws, deep blue sea , 47 metres down. Great movies.

Poltergeist series is great to watch.
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Well if you want realism, you could always spend a night alone in a graveyard :rabada2
 
pillionrider said:
Well if you want realism, you could always spend a night alone in a graveyard :rabada2
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Been there , done that. Shantinagar graveyard after 10th Board exams, albeit not alone :P .

On topic, the Exorcist still holds up for me as one of the best in the genre as I discovered when I re-watched recently.
 
Nikhil_cric said:
Been there , done that. Shantinagar graveyard after 10th Board exams, albeit not alone :p .

On topic, the Exorcist still holds up for me as one of the best in the genre as I discovered when I re-watched recently.
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This is the Hosur road graveyard right. Hahaha. One late drunken night, a friend got off outside it to take a leak. Drove off and we had fun watching him run for about 400 m behind us :)

I've sat alone in the KR Puram graveyard for about an hour when I was 18-19. I was deep into extreme metal and thought I was some dark guy :rolleyes:
 
pillionrider said:
This is the Hosur road graveyard right. Hahaha. One late drunken night, a friend got off outside it to take a leak. Drove off and we had fun watching him run for about 400 m behind us :)

I've sat alone in the KR Puram graveyard for about an hour when I was 18-19. I was deep into extreme metal and thought I was some dark guy :rolleyes:
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Lol. Totally relate. Still into metal but maybe not the extreme black metal stuff . There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, for that matter - extreme versions of metal which use a lot of atonal, dissonant progressions are pretty much the musical equivalent of horror films.
 
My fav is the original SAW. My fav movie series ever I’ve seen them all multiple times. And SAW X was a faithful addition to the series. Another one of my favs is the original exorcist, nothing has ever come close as an exorcism film, levels above any other.
 
Justcrazy said:
You can say that , but the ending was very good.
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Yes, it was a good movie but for me it wasn't horror. Fallen (1998 Denzel Washington's) is another similar movie you should try. Fallen is actually even better than The Skeleton Key.
 
'The Conjuring' and 'The Nun' from the same universe, personally the nun takes creepiness to a whole new level.
 
@shaz619 I was so excited to see Weapons, the latest film from the director of Barbarian Zack Cregger, but the goddamn censor board in Islamabad pulled the movie before it even hit the screens. Meanwhile it is playing in Lahore, Karachi and other cities because the censor boards in those provinces didn't have an issue. Hopefully it gets cleared soon because I cannot wait to see it.

Like Barbarian they have done a fantastic job of not revealing anything significant about the movie or the plot. And from what I've heard it's the kind of movie where you need to go in with the least amount of information possible. My only hope is that some ******* on the internet doesn't spoil it for me till then. Do check it out on the big-screen, if you haven't already. You're lucky to live in a country where you can watch movies in cinemas in peace.
 
RedwoodOriginal said:
@shaz619 I was so excited to see Weapons, the latest film from the director of Barbarian Zack Cregger, but the goddamn censor board in Islamabad pulled the movie before it even hit the screens. Meanwhile it is playing in Lahore, Karachi and other cities because the censor boards in those provinces didn't have an issue. Hopefully it gets cleared soon because I cannot wait to see it.

Like Barbarian they have done a fantastic job of not revealing anything significant about the movie or the plot. And from what I've heard it's the kind of movie where you need to go in with the least amount of information possible. My only hope is that some ******* on the internet doesn't spoil it for me. Do check it out on the big-screen, if you haven't already. You're lucky to live in a country where you can watch movies in cinemas in peace.
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Loved the barbarian , will check this out esp after an underwhelming F4
 
JaDed said:
Loved the barbarian , will check this out esp after an underwhelming F4
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I liked Barbarian, didn't love it. But I really admired the craft and creativity behind it. It was a very different horror film. Especially the way in which completely threw a traditional narrative structure out the window. Very unpredictable.

Among horror films from recent years, I really liked Longlegs and Hereditary.
 
My top 5 horror films of all-time:

  1. The Vanishing (1988)
  2. Tenebrae (1982)
  3. The Thing (1982)
  4. The Shining (1980)
  5. Rosemary's Baby (1968)
 
RedwoodOriginal said:
I liked Barbarian, didn't love it. But I really admired the craft and creativity behind it. It was a very different horror film. Especially the way in which completely threw a traditional narrative structure out the window. Very unpredictable.

Among horror films from recent years, I really liked Longlegs and Hereditary.
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I liked Smile as well, slightly above Barbarian.

Hereditary except climax and one scene was a little underwhelming for me, story was good though.

Didn’t see longlegs.

Barbarian second half comes out of nowhere , and that made me absolutely love the movie, Oldboy had such random narration and editing too.
 
Saw 2 was pretty scary. LOL!

I watched it as a kid and I was scared a lot after watching it. I became scared to go to toilet or watch TV in darkness.

Anyway, I no longer watch any horror movie. Not my type. :inti
 
JaDed said:
I liked Smile as well, slightly above Barbarian.

Hereditary except climax and one scene was a little underwhelming for me, story was good though.

Didn’t see longlegs.

Barbarian second half comes out of nowhere , and that made me absolutely love the movie, Oldboy had such random narration and editing too.
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I agree. I have a special respect for films and filmmakers who can just come around and do something completely different and unlike anything you have seen before. I also feel that unpredictability is something sorely lacking is horror films these days. They feel too predictable and riddled with cliches. Which is precisely why Barbarian felt like such a breath of fresh air. I hope this filmmaker Zach Cregger gets to make more movies because he certainly seems like a filmmaker with a unique and original voice.
 
sweep_shot said:
Saw 2 was pretty scary. LOL!

I watched it as a kid and I was scared a lot after watching it. I became scared to go to toilet or watch TV in darkness.

Anyway, I no longer watch any horror movie. Not my type. :inti
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I enjoy some of the SAW movies. For what it's worth, I think SAW 2 is probably the best one in the series. But these movies veer too much towards torture porn,rather than horror for me. Some of the later ones in that franchise are really bad, and just feel like excuses to do elaborate kill sequences.
 
RedwoodOriginal said:
I enjoy some of the SAW movies. For what it's worth, I think SAW 2 is probably the best one in the series. But these movies veer too much towards torture porn,rather than horror for me. Some of the later ones in that franchise are really bad, and just feel like excuses to do elaborate death sequences.
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I see.

That was the only SAW movie I watched. Since I was a kid, it messed me up for a few days. LOL.

I haven't watched a horror movie in over 12 years. My favorite genres are comedy, action, thriller, and war movies.
 
I'm not a horror fan but if I had to pick one I'll go with the exorcist.
 
Always found the found footage genre the creepiest and scariest. The Paranormal Activity films were always an intense watch.
 
RedwoodOriginal said:
@shaz619 I was so excited to see Weapons, the latest film from the director of Barbarian Zack Cregger, but the goddamn censor board in Islamabad pulled the movie before it even hit the screens. Meanwhile it is playing in Lahore, Karachi and other cities because the censor boards in those provinces didn't have an issue. Hopefully it gets cleared soon because I cannot wait to see it.

Like Barbarian they have done a fantastic job of not revealing anything significant about the movie or the plot. And from what I've heard it's the kind of movie where you need to go in with the least amount of information possible. My only hope is that some ******* on the internet doesn't spoil it for me till then. Do check it out on the big-screen, if you haven't already. You're lucky to live in a country where you can watch movies in cinemas in peace.
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It’s on my list mate, I’ve been so eager to watch it, I saw Bring Her Back recently and honestly I was so disgusted by what I witnessed that I still have no words, I’ve never been muted like this for days about it, it got close to Predestination levels.

Avoid social media if you can until the idiot censor monkey approves it, or stick to the ‘following’ section of X, all the crap shows up in the ‘for you’ section and I always get caught out. I loved Barbarian, such a beautiful set-up for the swerve, I know someone who wrote a story which got commissioned by the same director and talk to them every now & then on X, it’s a very unique approach to the haunted house genre, but it seems the director lost interest in it for now because the Weapons story was more personal & something he wrote himself as well I believe
 
My top 10 Horror movies .....

The Shining
The Exorcist
The Entity
The Conjuring
Devil
The Ring
The house next door
The cabin in the wood
Hereditary
Bhoot
 
shaz619 said:
It’s on my list mate, I’ve been so eager to watch it, I saw Bring Her Back recently and honestly I was so disgusted by what I witnessed that I still have no words, I’ve never been muted like this for days about it, it got close to Predestination levels.

Avoid social media if you can until the idiot censor monkey approves it, or stick to the ‘following’ section of X, all the crap shows up in the ‘for you’ section and I always get caught out. I loved Barbarian, such a beautiful set-up for the swerve, I know someone who wrote a story which got commissioned by the same director and talk to them every now & then on X, it’s a very unique approach to the haunted house genre, but it seems the director lost interest in it for now because the Weapons story was more personal & something he wrote himself as well I believe
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I have read a bit about Bring Her Back. I don't think I will be seeing it. Not my kind of a thing.

Yeah. I love movies that break rules and come up with new and interesting ways of telling stories. Barbarian was a fantastic example in that and just constantly playing with the audience's perception of what the movie is going to be. As I mentioned in an earlier post it was really unpredictable too.

That's interesting. I have become a fan of this guy Zach Cregger real quick so I hope he makes that movie, and many more. Because he seems like someone with a unique and original voice.
 
@shaz619 Side note: I’ve been getting pretty deep into the world of Italian giallo films lately. Imagine if slasher movies were complex, intelligent, and exquisitely crafted, you'd get a giallo film. If a slasher movie is a dented Honda City, a giallo is a Rolls-Royce. There was a big movement in Italy from the 1970s–90s, and some truly great films came out of it. Best of all, most of them were shot English (later dubbed in Italian too for local audiences).

Two films I absolutely have to recommend are Deep Red (1975) and Tenebre (1983). I can’t recommend them enough, and I think you’ll really enjoy them. For me they are some of the greatest horror films ever made. Both are directed by Dario Argento, who is widely regarded as the master of Italian horror (he also directed Suspiria). Everything about these two films is incredible; Hitchcockian in style, yet uniquely intricate in plotting and brilliantly directed. And don’t even get me started on the music...the original score by Goblin is unlike anything you’ve ever heard. It feels like a character on its own in these movies.

The good news is you can find both on YouTube. But if I were you, I’d try to track down a version with a high bitrate. These films deserve to be experienced in all their visual glory.
 
RedwoodOriginal said:
I have read a bit about Bring Her Back. I don't think I will be seeing it. Not my kind of a thing.

Yeah. I love movies that break rules and come up with new and interesting ways of telling stories. Barbarian was a fantastic example in that and just constantly playing with the audience's perception of what the movie is going to be. As I mentioned in an earlier post it was really unpredictable too.

That's interesting. I have become a fan of this guy Zach Cregger real quick so I hope he makes that movie, and many more. Because he seems like someone with a unique and original voice.
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I would still say Bring Her Back is worth watching for their unique execution of a known trope in the genre, I kind of went in blind & was expecting something else.

That was the best thing about Barbarian, it was almost a parody of the movies which recycle the same rubbish to begin with, a very interesting way to deceive the audience.

I don’t know if it will ever get made, but part one of the story can be found on reddit; The House That Came To Birth Street, I think it was going to be 3 or 4 parts long before it was commission during auction, have a read & let me know what you think, unlike anything you would expect just based on the set-up, they don’t go any further.
 
RedwoodOriginal said:
@shaz619 Side note: I’ve been getting pretty deep into the world of Italian giallo films lately. Imagine if slasher movies were complex, intelligent, and exquisitely crafted, you'd get a giallo film. If a slasher movie is a dented Honda City, a giallo is a Rolls-Royce. There was a big movement in Italy from the 1970s–90s, and some truly great films came out of it. Best of all, most of them were shot English (later dubbed in Italian too for local audiences).

Two films I absolutely have to recommend are Deep Red (1975) and Tenebre (1983). I can’t recommend them enough, and I think you’ll really enjoy them. For me they are some of the greatest horror films ever made. Both are directed by Dario Argento, who is widely regarded as the master of Italian horror (he also directed Suspiria). Everything about these two films is incredible; Hitchcockian in style, yet uniquely intricate in plotting and brilliantly directed. And don’t even get me started on the music...the original score by Goblin is unlike anything you’ve ever heard. It feels like a character on its own in these movies.

The good news is you can find both on YouTube. But if I were you, I’d try to track down a version with a high bitrate. These films deserve to be experienced in all their visual glory.
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Thanks for the suggestions, reading your post I know for certain I will love them, it’s just a damn shame what’s happened to Italian film these days, I don’t follow their scene now admittedly but they created magic back in the day. We’ve dumbed the slasher genre down a bit too much, although I do enjoy some of the independent offerings from the west. But when the foreign scene is on song, no one does it better and some of the best movies to come out of Hollywood have been adaptations from Europe. I think you suggested another horror a while back I think from Denmark which is still on my list as one of the scariest movies you’ve ever seen.
 
I really enjoyed Weapons, it was written in the ilk of a creepy pasta and I am a sucker for that style, it’s quiet popular on various subreddits. The direction played with the POV from different characters which kept adding pieces to the jigsaw puzzle. The movie didn’t spend too long telling us the why which kind of added to the bleak mystery.

@RedwoodOriginal is it be showing on your wide as of yet?
 
shaz619 said:
I really enjoyed Weapons, it was written in the ilk of a creepy pasta and I am a sucker for that style, it’s quiet popular on various subreddits. The direction played with the POV from different characters which kept adding pieces to the jigsaw puzzle. The movie didn’t spend too long telling us the why which kind of added to the bleak mystery.

@RedwoodOriginal is it be showing on your wide as of yet?
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Nah bro, the censor monkey won out.

But it's fine. It's supposed to release digitally any day now, and me and a friend are planning to watch on his big-screen TV over the weekend. It ain't the cinema but it'll have to do. Will get a nice bowl of microwave popcorn and some snacks to go along with it. Will report back with my thoughts when I see it.
 
It’s been a good year for horror movies. Bring Her Back and Weapons are both great.

I would also recommend The Dark And The Wicked, Caveat, Oddity, Speak No Evil (not the Hollywood remake), Hell House LLC series, Gonjiam, V/H/S series, Creep 1 & 2, Lake Mungo, Noroi, Smile 2, Cure, The Wailing, Under The Shadow, Hereditary, Midsommar, The Witch, Pulse, Daddy’s Head, Relic, It Follows, Soft & Quite, A Tale Of Two Sisters, Sleep, Martyrs (not the Hollywood remake), Inside, The Black Phone, Host,REC 1 & 2, The Ritual, Borderlands…
 
@shaz619 Weapons was one of the most original and interesting horror films I've seen in a long time. 9/10. I really liked the structure of the film. I can see why people have compared it to Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia because it has a similar structure. But story-wise I wouldn't compare this film to anything because it's completely original and very well-made. Performances from Josh Brolin and Julia Garner were very good too.
 
RedwoodOriginal said:
@shaz619 Weapons was one of the most original and interesting horror films I've seen in a long time. 9/10. I really liked the structure of the film. I can see why people have compared it to Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia because it has a similar structure. But story-wise I wouldn't compare this film to anything because it's completely original and very well-made. Performances from Josh Brolin and Julia Garner were very good too.
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That was equally my favourite bit of the movie, watching events unfold with that structure was a lot of fun, the dark comedy was great and a trademark of his and the casting was excellent.

If you get the chance, also watch The Long Walk; if you love characterisation, this was a fantastic adaptation of the novel no other director dared to film until now!
 
RedwoodOriginal said:
I liked Barbarian, didn't love it. But I really admired the craft and creativity behind it. It was a very different horror film. Especially the way in which completely threw a traditional narrative structure out the window. Very unpredictable.

Among horror films from recent years, I really liked Longlegs and Hereditary.
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Heriditary was good. I used to be a fan of horror movies but I've gone off them now because I just keep coming across so many bad ones. I will probably give Barbarians a whirl as well since I have also heard good things about the director.

I am fed up with C-grade horror movies, and let's be honest, 50% of them are, and 40% barely scrape B-movie status. It's a shame because a horror movie in the hands of a skilled director is still a good watch.
 
Cpt. Rishwat said:
Heriditary was good. I used to be a fan of horror movies but I've gone off them now because I just keep coming across so many bad ones. I will probably give Barbarians a whirl as well since I have also heard good things about the director.

I am fed up with C-grade horror movies, and let's be honest, 50% of them are, and 40% barely scrape B-movie status. It's a shame because a horror movie in the hands of a skilled director is still a good watch.
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It's a really easy return on investment for Hollywood studios which is why they keep finding so much crap. They cost nothing to make, have an easy hook when it comes to getting audiences in cinemas and the studios end up making massive profits. The found footage genre and the latest 'screen-recording' genre are by far the worst and most laziest.
 
RedwoodOriginal said:
It's a really easy return on investment for Hollywood studios which is why they keep finding so much crap. They cost nothing to make, have an easy hook when it comes to getting audiences in cinemas and the studios end up making massive profits. The found footage genre and the latest 'screen-recording' genre are by far the worst and most laziest.
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Talking about found footage, I watched Blair Witch which I presume was the sequel to the original Blair Witch Project, which actually was a groundbreaking movie in it's day. This follow up wasn't awful, but it was a long way short of the original in quality. Amazon Prime seems to have an endless supply of horror movies, I'm pretty sure they have no idea what even makes up the content of the vast majority.
 
Cpt. Rishwat said:
Talking about found footage, I watched Blair Witch which I presume was the sequel to the original Blair Witch Project, which actually was a groundbreaking movie in it's day. This follow up wasn't awful, but it was a long way short of the original in quality. Amazon Prime seems to have an endless supply of horror movies, I'm pretty sure they have no idea what even makes up the content of the vast majority.
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Blair Witch Project is the worst thing that ever happened to the horror genre. Because it gave studios the excuse to make cheap and lazy movies purely for the purpose of making an easy buck. The film itself is ofcourse groundbreaking and may actually be the most profitable film in history based on what those students spent to make it, and how much it made at the box-office, but the damage it has done to the horror genre is irreparable. This new 'screen-recording' trend where the entire movie takes place on a computer screen is even worse. I think it began with the movie 'Unfriended.' I feel the best way the audience can respond is by not spending money to watch these movies. But most people don't seem to be that aware about cinema..
 
Cpt. Rishwat said:
Heriditary was good. I used to be a fan of horror movies but I've gone off them now because I just keep coming across so many bad ones. I will probably give Barbarians a whirl as well since I have also heard good things about the director.

I am fed up with C-grade horror movies, and let's be honest, 50% of them are, and 40% barely scrape B-movie status. It's a shame because a horror movie in the hands of a skilled director is still a good watch.
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We’ve been in a mini golden era for Horror since the mid 2010’s tbh, it’s just that some of the truly diabolical releases swarm the good stuff.

Just last year we got Long Legs (a modern Se7en) & Nosferatu (best adaptation of Dracula ever & visually one of the most stunning horror movies you will ever see, maybe since The Shining).

And you’re probably familiar with Mike Flanagan’s work who has great TV & movie releases.

I can’t believe The Wailing came out just under 10 years ago, one of the most atmospheric horror movies ever made.

Others to check out:

The Witch
Midsommar
The Lighthouse
Under The Shadow
The Babadook
Talk To Me
28 years later
His House (British / Immigrants)
Relic (British haunted house, messed up take but so good)
The Menu
 
RedwoodOriginal said:
Blair Witch Project is the worst thing that ever happened to the horror genre. Because it gave studios the excuse to make cheap and lazy movies purely for the purpose of making an easy buck. The film itself is ofcourse groundbreaking and may actually be the most profitable film in history based on what those students spent to make it, and how much it made at the box-office, but the damage it has done to the horror genre is irreparable. This new 'screen-recording' trend where the entire movie takes place on a computer screen is even worse. I think it began with the movie 'Unfriended.' I feel the best way the audience can respond is by not spending money to watch these movies. But most people don't seem to be that aware about cinema..
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To say The Blair Witch Project is “the worst thing that ever happened to horror” is an exaggeration. If anything, it showed how flexible and inventive the genre can be. Horror has always thrived on low budgets…examples are classics like Night of the Living Dead or Halloween. Those weren’t big studio projects either, but they reshaped the landscape.

What Blair Witch Project did was prove that atmosphere and ambiguity are more effective than elaborate effects. I agree that a wave of found-footage copycats followed, and many are cash grabs- but the same happens after almost any breakout success. Slashers after Halloween, torture-porn after Saw, possession movies after The Exorcist—that cycle is part of the genre’s history. The weak ones fade, but the strong ones stay. The likes of REC 1 & 2 and Hell House LLC are very good found footage horror movies..the list of great horror movies in this genre is long.

As for the screen recorded movies like Unfriended and Searching- they’re not lazy at all. I recently watched Host on Amazon..a very effective and creepy 60min film shot in this format. The already mentioned Searching is a tout thriller.

Dismissing whole subgenres as “irreparable damage” seems like overlooking the creative risks and cultural relevance they bring.

Horror is one of the few genres that constantly reinvents itself…and even the experiments people don’t like help push the boundaries for what comes next. Not every horror movie needs to be big budget or shot in a traditional way. Some of the recent so called horror movies like The Nun movies are not found footage..are absolutely rubbish, blatant cash grabs.
 
@RedwoodOriginal Its like writing 10 greatest batters , you write names like Bradman , tendulkar , Hobbs , etc and then finish that off with someone like devang gandhi .
 
SherWaqar said:
To say The Blair Witch Project is “the worst thing that ever happened to horror” is an exaggeration. If anything, it showed how flexible and inventive the genre can be. Horror has always thrived on low budgets…examples are classics like Night of the Living Dead or Halloween. Those weren’t big studio projects either, but they reshaped the landscape.

What Blair Witch Project did was prove that atmosphere and ambiguity are more effective than elaborate effects. I agree that a wave of found-footage copycats followed, and many are cash grabs- but the same happens after almost any breakout success. Slashers after Halloween, torture-porn after Saw, possession movies after The Exorcist—that cycle is part of the genre’s history. The weak ones fade, but the strong ones stay. The likes of REC 1 & 2 and Hell House LLC are very good found footage horror movies..the list of great horror movies in this genre is long.

As for the screen recorded movies like Unfriended and Searching- they’re not lazy at all. I recently watched Host on Amazon..a very effective and creepy 60min film shot in this format. The already mentioned Searching is a tout thriller.

Dismissing whole subgenres as “irreparable damage” seems like overlooking the creative risks and cultural relevance they bring.

Horror is one of the few genres that constantly reinvents itself…and even the experiments people don’t like help push the boundaries for what comes next. Not every horror movie needs to be big budget or shot in a traditional way. Some of the recent so called horror movies like The Nun movies are not found footage..are absolutely rubbish, blatant cash grabs.
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Sorry but The Blair Witch Project is trash and nothing you say can convince me otherwise. It was a gimmick that worked because people hadn’t seen it before. Take the unique idea away and you’re basically left with 80 minutes of shaky cam and a bunch of kids running around in the woods. That’s not cinema, that’s a film student's college homework. And the fact that, that movie was so profitable ended up being one of the worst things that happened to horror because it started a trend that still continues to this day. It basically gave studios carte blanche to greenlight these crappy, cheaply-made movies with zero craft that were practically impossible to generate a loss on. And the fact that we have barely gotten any good and original horror movies in the past 25 or so years shows that studios care more about greenlighting this crap rather than they do about original movies made by real filmmakers like Hereditary, Longlegs or Weapons.

I’ve seen great horror. The Exorcist. The Thing. Don’t Look Now. Rosemary’s Baby. Argento’s Deep Red and Tenebre. Slashers that actually knew what suspense was. International stuff like The Vanishing that stays with you long after you've seen it. This found-footage trash is just that: trash.

Infact, any horror movie that relies on jump scares can't be taken seriously. Because it just tells you that the people making them aren’t smart enough to come up with something original or creative, and have to do these cheap jump scares to illicit a reaction from the audience. I have seen the REC and Hell House movies BTW. Even crap like VHS and the first Paranormal Activity, and I can't take any of these movie seriously, because I have no respect for the lazy filmmakers and risk-averse studios who made them.

If shaky cam, crying actors, and cheap jump-scares are what you call horror, then fine, enjoy your garbage. But don’t try to pass it off as good cinema, because some of us actually know what good horror looks like.

Side-note: one thing you are conveniently ignoring about Halloween and Night of the Living Dead is that they were original ideas from great filmmakers---John Carpenter and George Romero---whose names are remembered to this day. None of these found-footage or screen-recording movies (besides the ones who started this trend) are doing anything original and none of them are made by any great filmmaker. They are just recycling the same template over and over again. At this point, they could basically ask ChatGPT to write the script because that's how original these movies are.
 
shaz619 said:
We’ve been in a mini golden era for Horror since the mid 2010’s tbh, it’s just that some of the truly diabolical releases swarm the good stuff.

Just last year we got Long Legs (a modern Se7en) & Nosferatu (best adaptation of Dracula ever & visually one of the most stunning horror movies you will ever see, maybe since The Shining).

And you’re probably familiar with Mike Flanagan’s work who has great TV & movie releases.

I can’t believe The Wailing came out just under 10 years ago, one of the most atmospheric horror movies ever made.

Others to check out:

The Witch
Midsommar
The Lighthouse
Under The Shadow
The Babadook
Talk To Me
28 years later
His House (British / Immigrants)
Relic (British haunted house, messed up take but so good)
The Menu
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Good list. I don't love all these movies but I can definitely appreciate them for trying to do something different and unique. Talk to Me is another movie with a very unique premise. We need more stuff like this rather than endless number of these Conjuring movies and other cheap crap like these screen-recording movies.

The Wailing is a fantastic shout. South Korean cinema doesn't get enough credit IMO. Since the 2000s they have produced some incredible films, and some really good horror films too.

One thing that makes me optimistic about the future of horror cinema amid all this franchise and found-footage stuff is that for the first time since maybe the 1980s we have a decent crop of horror filmmakers: Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar), Zach Cregger (Barbarian, Weapons), Robert Eggers (Nosferatu, The Witch) and the Philippou brothers (Talk to Me, Bring Her Back). I really hope that these guys get to make more films because the future of horror cinema is basically in their hands. Nobody needs to see Conjuring 9 or Insidious 6. We want to see original films made by filmmakers who actually understand what horror is.
 
RedwoodOriginal said:
Sorry but The Blair Witch Project is trash and nothing you say can convince me otherwise. It was a gimmick that worked because people hadn’t seen it before. Take the unique idea away and you’re basically left with 80 minutes of shaky cam and a bunch of kids running around in the woods. That’s not cinema, that’s a film student's college homework. And the fact that, that movie was so profitable ended up being one of the worst things that happened to horror because it started a trend that still continues to this day. It basically gave studios carte blanche to greenlight these crappy, cheaply-made movies with zero craft that were practically impossible to generate a loss on. And the fact that we have barely gotten any good and original horror movies in the past 25 or so years shows that studios care more about greenlighting this crap rather than they do about original movies made by real filmmakers like Hereditary, Longlegs or Weapons.

I’ve seen great horror. The Exorcist. The Thing. Don’t Look Now. Rosemary’s Baby. Argento’s Deep Red and Tenebre. Slashers that actually knew what suspense was. International stuff like The Vanishing that stays with you long after you've seen it. This found-footage trash is just that: trash.

Infact, any horror movie that relies on jump scares can't be taken seriously. Because it just tells you that the people making them aren’t smart enough to come up with something original or creative, and have to do these cheap jump scares to illicit a reaction from the audience. I have seen the REC and Hell House movies BTW. Even crap like VHS and the first Paranormal Activity, and I can't take any of these movie seriously, because I have no respect for the lazy filmmakers and risk-averse studios who made them.

If shaky cam, crying actors, and cheap jump-scares are what you call horror, then fine, enjoy your garbage. But don’t try to pass it off as good cinema, because some of us actually know what good horror looks like.

Side-note: one thing you are conveniently ignoring about Halloween and Night of the Living Dead is that they were original ideas from great filmmakers---John Carpenter and George Romero---whose names are remembered to this day. None of these found-footage or screen-recording movies (besides the ones who started this trend) are doing anything original and none of them are made by any great filmmaker. They are just recycling the same template over and over again. At this point, they could basically ask ChatGPT to write the script because that's how original these movies are.
Click to expand...

I have still not seen TBWP lol some of these found footage movies turn me off, like I couldn’t get into Creep but Cloverfield had me hooked
 
shaz619 said:
I have still not seen TBWP lol some of these found footage movies turn me off, like I couldn’t get into Creep but Cloverfield had me hooked
Click to expand...
Creep was a weird movie but I'll give it some props because it wasn't like your typical found-footage movie. There was some coherent camerwork at play. Cloverfield didn't do it for me. I think the success of that movie was it's marketing campaign which did the good job of obscuring what the movie was about. These days it feels like you see the entire movie in jus the trailer.

Have you seen 10 Cloverfield Lane btw? Not exactly horror I guess but a really good film that was a spin-off of the original Cloverfield I guess, or connected to that same world.
 
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