Horror.

To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. - Socrates

Essentially, how can you fear death without knowing it? It's just because of that, we don't know it. We fear the unknown. Looking into a cave and only seeing darkness, hearing a sound and thinking "What's that?". Two seconds later you realise it wasn't a bear, but you stood on a twig. But there is that moment where you wonder what it might be, and you fear for the worst.

So why has the bloody film industry forgot about this? I look back at classics such as "The Shining" and wonder what happened to real horror films.

Let's take a look at "The Shining". What made this film so great? Why is it so terrifying? No intestines fall out. Barely anyone dies. Neither does the whole 'horror' element of the film rely on shock value.

Might be minor plot spoilers in the next paragraphs, just F.Y.I.

This film draws its' suspense from completely different sources than guts and gore. Blood on its' own doesn't make a film scary, neither does showing the audience what could be described as 'barbaric'. They can all help make a film scary, but you can't rely on them. Yes I'm looking at you Hostel.

Instead we're looking at a father losing his mind. He is not there for revenge, not for some sadistic mentality. He's normal, but he's going crazy. Simply seeing the loving father slowly turn into this twisted psycho is.. thrilling.
Which leads me to the first point; there's personality to the antagonist. At first we don't think much of him, just an everyday father. But when his mind twists and his dreams start appearing we know something's happening.

We don't know what, but we know it's bad. We have on idea how far it'll go. Is he going to simply go on a rampage? Planning something more sinister? Or will he conquer his subconscious?

The thrill in watching "The Shining" is that you don't really know what's going on. The antagonist isn't pure 'evil', but he's slowly turning into a psychopath. Now we can connect with the character, as we didn't hate him from the start. At every 'dramatic' scene we have that small hope that he will regain his sanity. Once again become that loving father.

It remains this way throughout the film. Although in the end we lose that bit of hope, and instead just sit in suspense awaiting what will happen next. While we cringe a bit in the scene with the bathroom, in the labyrinth one it's a case of "Holy crap don't catch him". That he, the antagonist, would kill 'that character' seems unbelievable. Because we connected with all the characters at the start of the film.

Not to mention the end scene, which really just adds the icing to the cake. It leaves us in a bit of a dilemma and does what a perfect ending should do. It leaves us thinking about it even when the film has finished.

Now let's look at Hostel. A few teenagers are taken into the hostel and everything gets pretty fucked. That's pretty much it though. Sure, we can see everything that's happening. But what more is there to it? When I finished the movie my first words were "That was shit".
There is some suspense, of course, but it dies. Before anything's happened we'll fear the worst. Then the film delivers just that.

And after that.. The worst doesn't really matter. Because we saw it coming. I know there are people who puke when they see gore, but personally I don't mind it at all. Let's face it, however vile you might think it is, it's not scary. If it was being a surgeon would be quite a pain, wouldn't it?

At the end of the film (Hostel) I really just didn't care about who died and who didn't. I just thought "Good for him, but I don't give a shit". While the child died in "The Shining" it'd make be bit of a shock; "What? Did that really just happen?".

Today, we don't have this. Other than a few exceptions (Wolf's Creek and Blair Witch for example) horror today is about showing as realistic gore as possible. When the blood floods the hotel in "The Shining" we all get bit of a shock and then sit in a state of confusion. We don't have any idea how it just happened, but damn it's creepy.
In contrast we have the scene from "Hostel" where (one of) the antagonist(s) decides to make the pain a bit more personal. Fire to the girls eye, yellowish goo pouring out.. It could be considered 'sick', but it's definitely not scary.
To be honest with you, I laughed out loud when the goo came out.

I'm just getting annoyed at the sheer 'uncreepyness' in movies today. I'm not going to be afraid of a character dying if I don't care about him. If I know exactly what's going to happen in the next scene *surprise* it's not going to shock me. If you do manage to shock me, it's not going to work another two hundred times.

We need another era with films like "The Shining", "Psycho" and "The Birds". Could bring in a recent example and say "Blair Witch Project". It wasn't a perfect film per se, but it relied on atmosphere and suspension rather than blood and guts. It's a step back, but it's a step in the right direction. I'm not liking the way the horror genre is headed, not one bit.

I just hope I won't be seeing "Hostel: Part Nine" or "Saw VII" anytime in the future. Suppose we can only wait and see.