jimbow8 Wrote:Yeah, well "modern audiences" laughed at The Exorcist. Classic may be too much, but it is must see IMO for fans of horror/thrillers.
Horror is caught in perpetual 'can you top this' scenario. I frequently talk movies with the kids I encounter in the classroom and I am usually laughed at for considering
Jaws to be the scariest movie I've seen. I explain to them that it cost me an entire summer's worth of swimming due to the fear of sharks it created in me, but they don't seem impressed. It is because
Jaws spawned a bunch of sequels and imitators that prepared later audiences to gird themselves against that particular fright. Whereas when I saw
Jaws and other movies like
The Exorcist(definitely a classic) I had never before witnessed anything remotely resembling them and thus they were more easily able to fill me with dread.
I believe that Douglas Winter wrote an interesting article on the constantly evolving nature of horror; I have to see if I can locate it. He touches on the fact that people are generally replacing the fears they figure out with new ones based upon the society we live in. Can you say terrorism?