Introduction

I wanted to just delve right into tearing apart horror movies and then squishing their entrails between my fingers...but I figured I should take a brief stop and tell you, the reader, what this is all about.

Some background on me might be helpful. I am 21 years old and I live in beautiful Scottsdale, AZ. I am a law student due to graduate in December. I am also a part time modeller, always looking for new ideas. The first movie that I absolutely fell in love with was Hannibal. I was in seventh grade and my mom took me to see the Hannibal movie. And she took me to see it 3 or 4 more times in theatres. To this day, Hannibal is a beautiful example of Horror films in their finest. Ever since my first dip into the pool of the horror film victim's blood, I never looked back.

Most people view horror films as not as worthy as other films such as romances, comedies, or action movies. This is, in part, due to the origins of horror films. Early horror film-making was low budget. Over the last century, there have been waves of resurgent interest in horror films. I will look back only as far to the 1970s to summarise the trends.

In the early 1970's, horror films became more graphic and brutal with such movies as the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Many more good films came out during the 70's. But, horror films turned into smut as there were numerous low-budget sequels spawned to profit from the success of the earlier films. In the early 1990's, there was still some interest in the sequels that had been continually produced. But the horror genre took a big hit in the early 90s for two main reasons: People grew tired of the non-stop proliferation of slasher movies from the 80s. And the adolescent audience for the horror films grew up, with the new adolescents preferring to watch science fiction movies with the advent of good computer animated graphics in movies.

In the mid 90's, there was a small resurgence in interest in horror movies with the release of Wes Craven's Scream. This film mocked the cliques of previous horror films. I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend led to increased interest in slasher films. Going into the new century, horror films had been relatively quiet. But that changed dramatically with the remaking of Japanese horror films into American versions, known as J-Horror. There was also a return to the zombie sub-genre of horror films with Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later, and Land of the Dead.

But the most noticed trend in horror films is what critics call "torture porn." These movies depict extreme cruelty, gore, violence, and sex. The pink elephant in the room is the Saw franchise. Due to the popularity of the Saw movies, many other filmmakers have tried to copy their style. Some are hit and some are miss. Some examples of this genre are Hostel, The Devil's Rejects (depicted right), and Captivity.

Now that you've had your history lesson, I will clearly state what types of horror movies I enjoy more or less and try to factor this in for my critique of a film. I don't want my bias to trash a good film merely because I don't like ghost stories. So, being aware of my preferences can help me be more disinterested in the evaluation. I prefer ultra violent, gore fest movies, such as the Saw movies. Saw and Hostel are two of my favourite films. I also love zombie movies. But, I almost unanimously hate J-Horror. And I don't really care for supernatural horror films.

We shall swiftly begin our descent into hell, all just to find the best horror movie.