Day Two or our series, “What do horror fans want?” and I dig into my grab bag of internet cronies to let Mr. Rocco Previtali drop some bombs on the horror world.


Recently, I was asked on Twitter what I want from horror movies being a horror fan. At first, it took me awhile to figure out what I truly wanted, then it hit me: I want to be scared shitless and not be able to sleep for weeks without tossing and turning in my bed having nightmares. Unfortunately, being a horror fan for so many years that has made it nearly impossible for that to happen. The last time I can remember being scared by a movie was probably “Insidious” (2011) and that didn’t exactly cause me to have nightmares.

In my opinion, a good horror movie can be a lot of things. Sometimes, it could be when the movie gets under your skin or it could be when you get scared and not too sure what’s gonna happen but the next minute, you’re laughing. A good example of the latter could be this year’s “The Cabin in the Woods”. It was able to keep you on the edge of your seat with unpredictability but at the same time make you laugh because of all the jabs at the horror genre itself. Some people don’t like their comedy and horror mixed together but I feel like if it’s done right, it can be a fun movie going experience.

When I go and watch the latest scary movie in theaters, I don’t want to know what’s going to happen. I want to be surprised by ghostly figures lurking unseen in the shadows. I want to be surprised by the outcome of the movie; not the same old type of characters living or dying. Give the stoners a chance to be the hero; kill off the “virgin/alleged final girl” fairly early in the movie. Horror movies need more unpredictability and not the same old, same old we get month in and month out. Recently, I saw “Paranormal Activity 4” and that movie couldn’t be any more repetitive. It’s like the writers just simply said, “Fuck it, we’ll make millions off this regardless” and shelled out the script in a day or two.

Here’s where the ranting begins: enough with the fucking “found footage” gimmick. It’s been beat into the ground and no found footage film is gonna somehow reinvent it because it’s all the same. Almost every movie I’ve with that gimmick lacks a real finale and it just pisses me off. Most of the movies are slow and boring, but once the action picks up (usually in the last 10 minutes or so) it just abruptly ends and that’s it. No real closure or anything. After four ‘Paranormal Activity’ movies, I’m waiting to find out who’s gathering all this footage together, edited it so precisely, and released it to the general public. Will we ever get an answer? Probably not and that’s what irks me. Studios know they can make these things for mere dollars and turn an enormous profit off it because people are so damn gullible.

So when it comes to what I want in horror movies it basically boils down to just being very unpredictable and leaving me with nightmares for weeks. What I don’t want in horror is the same shit we’ve been getting the past couple years which is a huge flow of PG-13 thrillers, found footage movies, watered down remakes, and another 10 installments of ‘Resident Evil’. I want more ballsy movies like ‘The Cabin in the Wood’ or outright insane movies like ‘Rubber’. Major Hollywood studios need to breakout of their shells and get back to making classics like they were in the ’80s. That is what this lifelong horror fan wants.