Top Ten Things in Horror Movies that Aren't Scary Anymore
This list compiles the most noteworthy scare tactics in horror movies that have become so commonplace and clichéd that they are simply not frightening anymore (or, perhaps, never were to begin with).When a hand lands on someone's shoulder and you think "Oh no! The killer!" but it's just the best friend. Or when something is shuffling in the bushes and when the branches are pulled apart, out jumps... a cat.
It's so commonplace these days that it's completely un-frightening. This is especially true when there's no real scare moments afterward. When that happens, all the suspense is lost and the real scares that eventually happen are much less effective.
It could still work if not for the clumsy use of faux-suspense music that always precedes it.
Horror filmmakers went crazy over the "found footage" technique after 1999's 'The Blair Witch Project' became a pop culture phenomenon. It was cheap, easy, and money in the bank. So, naturally, a ton of horror movies made in the same style started to pop up everywhere. For a while, it was great. It gave horror movies a more naturalistic feel, which upped the movie's plausibility and made for an enhanced experience for horror movie audiences.
But, like any craze, it started to feel overdone and stale after a while. Nowadays, it's mostly been reduced to a lazy way to make empty jump scares. What was found should now be re-lost.
Michael Myers was supposed to be dead at the end of 1981's 'Halloween II'. I mean, he was lying face down, completely engulfed in flames (a close-up of his mask on fire is the film's final shot). However, because 'Halloween III' (with its completely different story) was so poorly received, they decided to bring the silent killer back for the fourth film. So, they made it so that he was just in a coma. The series continued for many installments, each displaying Michael's inability to be killed.
I hope you can guess what renders this idea frightening. If you can't, it's the fact that you know the killer will come back for the next movie. So, what's the point of giving us hope that the killer might actually be permanently dead? You'd think audiences would clue in and stop paying money to see the same thing happen again. I haven't - mainly because I find these movies to be more fun than frightening anyway.
From the beginning of horror filmmaking, children were always a showcase of purity. That was until movies like 'Village of the Damned' and 'The Shining' changed everything. Creepy kids have been a standard practice in horror movies ever since, and it's getting old.
What once was a shocking idea (think "The Exorcist") is now so commonplace that we're completely desensitized to it. I would argue that part of the reason why 'The Conjuring 2' packed a smaller punch than its predecessor was because of this very reason.
Again, it all started with one film. 'The Exorcist' paved the way for movies showcasing how demons binding to innocent people lead them to change color, contort their limbs, projectile vomit, crawl on ceilings, float in midair, throw furniture, curse profusely, and withstand normally fatal injuries. Yes, the thought of witnessing such things is terrifying unless we're watching it all happen to someone we don't care about.
That's the fatal flaw that most modern horror movies fall prey to. These days, nobody is willing to wait long enough for the characters to become interesting and likable. So, when the individual becomes possessed ten minutes in, we ultimately don't care, and there's no weight to the situation. Unless a dog's at risk or something, then we care.
It's hard to believe that when George A. Romero's 'Night of the Living Dead' was released in 1968, it was considered horrendously gory and explicit - as if it was that generation's 'Saw'. Well, it was all that and more, I'll tell you. But, boy, did it work wonders for the horror crowd.
As you must know, the zombie sub-genre remains one of the most popular commodities in pop culture today. They've featured in countless movies and are responsible for one of the most popular graphic novels-turned-television programs of all time ('The Walking Dead', of course). So, obviously, we still love zombies. But are we still scared of them?
I'd argue that our long-standing acquaintance with the grey-skinned brutes has left us unmoved by their nastiness. It's a pity, because nothing should scare us more than a hostile rotting corpse, you'd think.
If your adult memory goes back as far as the early 2000s, you'll recall how torture-porn horror movies were everywhere. There were the 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' remakes, the 'Saw' series, and countless others that have since faded from memory.
For me, that stuff was never "scary" to begin with. It just made me feel sick. But for others, the sight of someone losing a limb or being cut in half was as frightening as anything. While the concept of being disemboweled should be disturbing to anyone with a sense of self-preservation, it's just not frightening to watch anymore. Like I said, it's just gross.
You've seen this before, I'm sure. A guy's walking in a dark hallway when, all of a sudden, a monster jumps out of the darkness and terrifies the guy (and the audience with him). He wakes up in bed, realizing that it was all a bad dream. He goes to lay back down. As he rolls over in bed, he sees the monster laying right beside him and BOOM!
You have an extra, "unexpected" scare that takes advantage of the audience's false sense of safety and security. Well, like everything else on this list, it's becoming old hat now. Sometimes, if done cleverly enough, some forms of this tactic may still work. But most of the time, you can see it coming from a mile away.
Every time the movie's protagonist is shown running from the killer (or whatever it is that's after them), we see them stopping at a certain point because they feel confident that they've given the evil-doer the slip. Of course, we know that the big scare is right around the corner and that the villain is really behind the next door the hero opens (or something relative to that).
The only times this does not happen is when there's a "fake jump scare", and we've already covered that.
The Newcomers
Since there are two equally known versions of this scare, I decided that not crediting both in the item title would be wrong. Hence, this two-named list item. The premise is simple and predictable.
Someone is doing something in front of a mirror (e.g., brushing their teeth) and something happens that leads them to bend downward (e.g., spit out their toothpaste into the sink). The camera pans downward with the action, taking the mirror out of the shot completely. Once the person stands up again, facing the mirror directly, something awful happens (a scary face takes the place of the normal guy's in the mirror or said scary face is revealed to be standing directly behind him).
I'll let you figure out the "fridge door" variant of the scene for yourself, since it's pretty simple.