You know, I used to love Horror movies/TV

[leethet]

I just sampled Penny Dreadful. Cut because potential slight spoilers. I had medium hopes - most TV horror is ... well, like this.

When did Horror as a genre become just gore, vomit, excessive violence, close-ups of pus and maggots and innards, people fucking like dogs (as opposed to having sex) and lusting after children?


This is not horror. This is disgusting. Things that generate disgust in mankind are not horror. Close-ups of someone vomiting, or of someone's suppurating wounds, is disgusting. It is not, however, horror in the literary/artistic sense. Horror is psychological at its best. Graphic violence isn't horror just because it's extreme, or committed by vampires or something.

The show is dark for the sake of dark. Everyone is disgusting or freakish, which makes this kind of "horror" quite easy. You know, the only scene that struck me as effective horror was at the very beginning, when a woman on a toilet was snatched by ... god knows what. It happens in an instant, with only a hint of warning, and with no idea of why or what will happen to her. That is horror. The rest of it is just gore, just vomit-porn.

Comments

[gilda-elise.livejournal.com]

I think the scariest scene for me was in The Haunting, where Eleanor and Theo are in bed and they start hearing all sort of pounding and crying. I love that movie. You never see a thing, but it scares the hell out of me every time I watch it.

[leethet.livejournal.com]

At the risk of sounding like an old fuddy-duddy (which I am), they don't make them like that anymore. They do still make good movies, of course, but horror seems to have taken a turn for the absolute worst.