There has unequivocally been a great proliferation of texts produced by the cultural industries over the last twenty years. In cinema alone, the release of motion pictures a year increased by 250 theatrical releases from 1980 to 2004, according to figures posted by the Motion Picture Association of America. While this proliferation of films produced annually may elicit a positive public response (who wouldn’t want a greater variety of movies to pick from to see), consequently the quality of texts produced over the past 20 years has dropped. This is not to say that all contemporary films produced lack quality, for some of the best movies ever made have seen releases during the course of the last 20 years, with Pulp Fiction(1994), Schindler’s List(1993), and The Shawshank Redemption(1994) exemplifying a few. David Hesmondalgh rightfully asserts in his book The Cultural Industries, as a result of this proliferation, that “cultural industry corporations are faced with the task of finding new ways to capture and retain attention.” As a result, symbolic creators are increasingly relying more on shock tactics, this including great sexual explicitness, to accomplish this task. This trend has resulted in the production of generally lower quality texts, most notably in the horror movie genre of the film industry.
Producing a successful horror movie is not an easy task. Horror movies, by nature, engage their viewers in a way that other genres of films could only wish. They are unique in that in order to be successful they must not only provide a pleasurable viewing experience, but also one that is psychologically manipulative and leaves an individual terrified. People enjoy horror movies because they tend more to be like a ride, and they enjoy the exhilaration that coincides with the thrills these movies provide. Because the success of a horror movie depends so heavily on the thrills it provides, many contemporary movie producers (including directors and their associated crews) interested in turning a profit are becoming increasingly more dependent on the use of easy to execute and thus termed “cheap thrills,” predominantly through the use of extremely graphic imagery. They use this technique because it is easier to conceive than truly original content, and tends to be financially less strenuous. Consequently it seems torture in film has gone main stream. This has resulted in the creation of the “torture porn” subgenre within horror.
Many contemporary film makers have resorted to revisiting older classic horror films in hopes of producing successful movies in the forms of prequels, sequels, and remakes. Generally they have done so as means of capitalizing on formulas that have already proven successful and on what essentially can be deemed the brand name of whoever said revisited’ predecessor is. And while this approach theoretically should put the film’s producers at some kind of an advantage given technological advances within the industry, these movies typically prove worse than the movies they seek to mimic. The failure of these successor films are more often than not attributed to by the uncreative techniques their producers choose to implement in attempting to thrill and maintain the attention of their target audience. Viewing what critics have said about these remakes, will help to prove this point. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre(1974) is easily one of the best slasher films ever produced. Marcus Nispel chose to revisit this film with a remake titled The Texas Chainsaw Massacre(2003). This movie was nowhere as well as accepted by the general public as its predecessor. According to Dave Kehr of the “New York Times,” “the killings have little sociological or psychological resonance. This is a blunt and graphic gore film, replete with close-ups of splattered brain matter and twitching severed limbs.” Nispel chose to implement extremely graphic imagery as his predominant means of providing thrills, and consequently the quality of his movie suffers.
John Carpenter’s Halloween(1979) has proven itself as one of the best thriller movies of all time, a reputation which it gained through the use of Carpenter’s skilled cinematography (viz. through the use of foregrounds), mastery of creating suspense, and amazing storytelling abilities. Roger Ebert of the “Chicago Sun-Times” comments on it as being “an absolutely merciless thriller, a movie so violent and scary that, yes, [he] would compare it to “Psycho.” Rob Zombie decided to revisit this classic thriller with a remake/ prequel also titled Halloween(2007). Much like Nispel’s film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: the Beginning, Zombie’s successor film proved to be substantially worse than Carpenter’s classic. Todd Gilchrist of “IGN Entertainment” refers to Zombie’s remake as “poorly shot and edited, [with] no sense (and certainly no continuity) of character or storytelling rhythm, only the hackwork of a filmmaker determined to reduce the original’s classically-rendered tension to its most graphic and unintelligible.” He further asserts that all the female victims in the movie die in an “orgiastic synthesis of sex and violence that proves about a tenth as clever as the director thinks it is.” Zombie’s Halloween exemplifies exactly what happens when movie producers choose to implement shock tactics over conceiving truly original and creative approaches in production and content. Consequently, Zombie’s movie lacks substantial quality.
While comparing reviews of contemporary revisited versions of past films provides a means of proving the negative effect shock tactics have had on the recent declining quality of horror movies, new franchises cannot be neglected. Two new perfect examples of franchises that demonstrate the over implementation of shock tactics include “Saw” and “Hostel.” Both franchises include films which are driven by plots centered on torture. Undeniably these movies are nothing more than gory scene after gory scene of body dismembering and murder. Having seen every installment of both franchises I can assure everyone these movies offer very little more. And while some people have argued that these franchises offer at least some intellectual value, both franchises place such a great deal of emphasis on the gore they contain, that any intellectual value they do contain is made deemed wasteful. For example, the “Saw” franchise attempts to provide a unique, and I will agree interesting, insight on the human drive to survive. However, because it places a great emphasis on gore to provide this insight, the competence of such insight is relinquished to making way for this approach. Not only that, but each progressive installment in both franchises proves to be not only gorier and more sexually explicit, but consequently worse in terms of quality, detracting more and more from already weak reputations.
Ultimately, the great proliferation of movies over the last two decades has resulted in a declining quality of horror movies. According to a poll on the Internet Movie Database, a website which receives over 50 million hits a month, out of the top 50 user chosen “Top Rated Horror Movies,” 39 were produced before 1987. This decline in quality is directly attributed to by movie producers relying increasingly more on shock tactics, including sexual explicitness, in hopes of capturing and maintaining the attention of their target audience. Unfortunately, the implementation of these tactics has resulted in lower quality films, which are progressively detracting more and more from a genre of film which has spent a greater part of the last century building a reputation as one of the sectors of the movie industry which provides the best experience for the cost of an over-priced movie ticket.
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