Did Comedy Ruin the Horror Genre?

Horror has been around for many generations from Frankenstein and Dracula in the 30’s to The Ring and The Grudge of the 2000’s. The question that arises though does anyone fear or feel threatened by Frankenstein or Dracula anymore? Many people would say no, they are not scary anymore. Why? I think the problem is that many horror topics that people originally feel scared of lose their power of freight because the monster or images are lost due to comedy. Frankenstein and Dracula can be seen as comical figures in cartoons today and even sometimes play roles in romantic ways such as vampires in Twilight. Using the monster or frightening image in a way to show comedy can ruin the effect it will have. Why should anyway be afraid of a Frankenstein, when he plays a goofball in the Saturday cartoon? No one should be afraid. I think that has been a major reason why the horror genre has to reinvent itself almost every decade to account for the lost of interest in previous horror due to comedy put on those previous horrors.

The movie, The Exorcist, was considered one of the most horrific films ever made. Some people that went and saw the movie could not sit through the whole movie because it was to horrifying for them to handle. Regan, a little girl, gets possessed by a demon in the movie and two priests try to draw the demon out of her. There is a scene were Regan is all cut up and pukes on the two priests. This scene of her puking, when first seen in theatres was horrifying and disgusting, but now is seen as comical. Why? The answer is because after the movie came out many films or parodies have been filmed where Regan pukes on the priest and she laughs. The whole scene becomes a joke. This exemplifies my point because now when an audience views the exorcist they are less likely to be scared of the original scene because of the comical scene. Another example that occurs in the film is that Regan contorts her body so that she can walk down the steps backwards, but her head is still face forward and not upside down. This scene was another scene that was horrifying when originally shown, but now that the scene has been redone as comical it has lost all of its effect. This ruins some of the classic films making them less effect in the horror genre.

I think that this is one of the major problems of the genre. The genre must reinvent itself every decade because it loses its effect due to being made into comedy. The genre will always be made into a joke, like that scene is predictable or one should not walk back into the place you saw the monster, etc., which means that the genre must invent new scares or new horrifying concepts to continue to make the genre successful. I don’t know if I would say that comedy has ruined the genre, but it has forced the genre to progress and has ruined the classic films of the genres for next generations. I personally don’t like that I can’t watch a classic Dracula film and be scared because in my psyche I have been trained to not be afraid of Dracula anymore.