Friday, May 29, 2009

Where is our Horror cycle?

Noel Carroll speaks of horror film cycles that have taken place through the years. We have recently not seen a horror cycle for quite some time. The last group of horror films was Signs and Halloween Resurrection. We still have some horror films, but not an actual cycle yet. Why haven't we had a new cycle?
My theory on this is that society has become desensitized to the past horrors that actually evoked fear in us. Technology advancements have shown us the truth about monsters and what is real and unreal. We are not easily fooled into believing that monsters could exist, which reduces our fear and disgust, and we are more prone to criticize the many tries. Technology has also made many advances in the movie industry. We have more explosions and better effects. It's truely an amazing revolution, but it leaves the audience looking for bigger and better things the next time. It makes it very hard to come up with new ideas with better effects.
There is also the fact that television shows society gruesome and disgusting events on a daily basis. The t.v. shows blood and guts all the time in movies and shows. Society is used to blood and gore. They also hear about murder and death and war every day, multiple times a day in the news. Our world is filled with disgusting things that we hear about and see on t.v. and just brush off. We are so used to these events that as a society we rarely even flinch or show emotion. Video games are also a huge part of the problem. We allow children at a pretty young age to start playing games that involve using guns and murdering zombies or mythical creatures. Kids are growing up with these games and never fear what they see.
The question now, what will our horror cycle be and when will we get it? This is not a something that I can truely answer, but I do think it is coming soon. I believe our cycle will be one of satanic horror and of things that happen everyday. The best example would be movies like the Strangers, where some kids attack a house just because they were home, and the newest movie Drag Me to Hell where a girl is cursed and has satanic creatures haunting her. These are movies that play on religious fears of being sent to hell and on the fear that the things we see on the news could happen to us. Our cycle will be more terrifying than years past and will remain in the top of the horror classics for years to come.

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