Hey everybody, yours truly is back in The New York Daily News on this happy Friday the 13th! Lookie-lookie!Journalist Joe Neumaier, feature writer at the Daily News and film expert himself, presents an article entitled "Return of the Living Dread", which examines the latest horror trend; the new crop of 1970s-like "savage" cinema horror movies suddenly finding mainstream popularity in the 21st century (titles like Hostel, HIgh Tension, Wolf Creek, The Devil's Rejects, etc.)
Anyway, here's a sample of the piece. Go check out the full article. It's good:
The trend started with the remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" in 2003, which had a $28 million debut. It continues this spring with a remake of "The Hills Have Eyes" (which is eyeballing an NC-17 rating for excessive violence) and an intense thriller called "Hard Candy," which, like "Hostel," has a fascination with surgical instruments.
It's a long way from the '80s heydays of Jason in "Friday the 13th" and Freddy Krueger in "A Nightmare on Elm Street."
"What happened is that the slasher films of the early 1980s eventually became self-parody, and weren't scaring anyone anymore," says John Kenneth Muir, author of "Horror Films of the 1970s" and "Eaten Alive at a Chainsaw Massacre: The Films of Tobe Hooper."
George:
ReplyDeleteAmen and ditto. I agree. I'm tired of PG-13 horros, and want my horror to actually be - well - DISTURBING.