Horror: An Endangered Species

What the ever-loving monkey-flung dung happened to classic, maniac slasher, frightening phantom, and utter mind-fuck horror?!  You know, the actual good and entertaining kind?  Horror these days has been twisted into such esoteric drivel in a mission to find something "fresh" and "new" that I don't even recognize it anymore.  Like a hideously botched facelift on an aging golden era that hardly resembles the origin from which it was born.  There was no need to "fix it".  It was fine.  It was reliable and recognizable.

"Horror" films, such as "Babadook", "It Follows", and "Honeymoon" have been getting a lot of buzz from members in the film industry and a few sheep-people that graze in their Hollywood bleached assholes, but when it comes to us, the real fans, we are let down and abandoned by an institution many of us called home.  These kinds of highly praised instalments of horror are so obtuse, obscure, convoluted, and shoved so far up its own ass that it loses sight of the fundamental goal: to scare the audience.

I want something actually tangible to be afraid of.  Something real.  I'm tired of this whole "she's running from the killer, but the killer is actually a representation of society's unobtainable standards of beauty and her own emotional conflict".  Bitch, if I wanted emotional conflict, I'd watch "Steel Magnolias".  I want HORROR!  Something that shouldn't require a bachelor's degree in film studies to decipher what the hell is really going on!

I want to turn off everything except my raw exposed nerves of fear, and I want the film to cut them out and play with them!  I want sheer, unbridled terror that latches on to my soul's very loins in a vice grip that won't let me sleep because of the things that go bump in the night.  I want to feel so violated and vulnerable that my only hope of survival depends on staying under the covers and praying for the light of day!  This is NOT too much to ask, but it quickly seems to be headed that way.

This doesn't even require gore!  You can have a great scary movie without a single drop of crimson in the entire thing!  As for the direct to DVD movies that amass in bargain bins, bless their hearts for trying.  Some actually do try to recapture the truest essence of a fright flick, but lack the funding for substantial actors, writers, and special effects.  They get an 'E' for effort, the poor things, but sometimes they leave me feeling even more so that this genre is seriously in danger of being wiped out.

This is why I have started to write my own stories.  I'm not ever saying that my talent is on par with some of the greats (and even not-so-greats), but that's the self-flagellating author in me that will always see room for improvement within my own creations.  I just want to try and fan the flame of fear out of concern of it being extinguished completely.