What Do Horror Fans Want?

We dive off the deep end this week’s “What Do Horror Fans Want?” with That Ghoul Ava of Horror Extreme.


What does a horror fan want? I don’t know. But in true selfish fashion, I’ll tell you what I want.

I have never claimed to be a film critic, nor one who is educated in film. Nor do I pretend to be. I consider myself “Jane Fuck Average” and am perfectly content taking a movie at face value without over analyzing it. I don’t ask much from my horror other than “entertain me”.

However, one other thing I ask from my horror movies is “don’t insult my god damn limited intelligence”, and unfortunately, that appears to be asking too much.

I consider these dark days for horror. The reason the genres of 70s/80s/90s horror have such a following is because they had memorable, new, exciting movies. They brought something to the table. They had personality. They had style. I think that’s something I miss the most – STYLE. So when the question is posed: “What do we want, more intelligent horror or more Sloppy silly stuff?”, I would like to ask “Why can’t we have both?”

Yeah, that’s right. Both. Hell, I bet you could get REALLY nuts and do both in one movie! Holy SHIT – wouldn’t THAT be a mad, crazy, Merry-Go-Round Existence?

Lately, all we seem to get is insulted. Oh look! It’s a reboot of a remake in 3D that guts every perceivable characteristic of the original while adding absolutely nothing but a shit ton of gore and CGI! That’s TOTALLY worth my $15. If you don’t understand what makes a horror movie good, you probably shouldn’t be making a horror movie. Substituting 3D for the lack of substance isn’t acceptable either – if your movie sucks, making us pay more for it won’t win anyone over. Look – I’m not saying all remakes are bad. There’s been some good ones – “The Hills Have Eyes”, “The Thing”, “The Fly”, “The Ring”, “Dawn of the Dead”… hell, I’ll even throw out the controversial one and say Rob Zombie’s “Halloween”. They brought something new, something different, even something edgy. However, most of the remakes we see are watered down crap. There’s a reason the originals were classics – they had style, atmosphere, &/or character development. Take “Jaws”, for example; the atmosphere in that movie was intense. However, if it was remade today, I bet the star of the show would be a 40-foot, red eyed CGI great white in almost every scene. If you’re going to remake something, for fuck’s sake UNDERSTAND why it was so good first. Ideas don’t need to be shoved in our face to be good (I’m looking at YOU, “Nightmare on Elm Street” remake *spit*).

So what EXACTLY do I want? How about this? Stop taking a steaming shit on every movie any self respecting horror fan holds dear. Stop thinking that loud noises, huge budgets and copious amounts of CGI are what makes a movie good. Give us a story, give us characters that are believable or we give a shit about. Give us a movie with personality, be it a slapstick horror comedy or a truly dark horror film. We’ll take rubber masks over high budgeted CGI any day of the week if the movie is worth a damn. Or maybe pay some attention to the literally thousands of indie horror film makers out there with fresh ideas & visions.

So… yeah, that’s my selfish, uneducated vision. That’s what I want. That, and another beer.

Cheers.