Scary movies are not what they used to be

Published by admin on Thu, 10/31/2019 - 12:28pm
By: 
Steve Lyon
Halloween is the one time of the
year that it makes sense to assess
the the horror movie genre
and what constitutes “scary.”
As far as pop culture goes, what people
find scary certainly has
changed over the years.
People actually thought
that dumb movie “The Blob”
released in 1958 was scary.
The plot was fairly simple. It
was oozing green slime that
was taking over a town.
How was that scary? The
slime moved as slow as a
snail. Hey, here comes the
slime. Get out of the way.
I had a college professor
who offered an interesting
analogy to that movie and the
Cold War of the 1950s. The
blob, he said, could be representational
of the fear of the spread of communism.
A decade later, the “cult classic” Night
of the Living Dead” came out in 1968.
Again, not scary. The movie had the
first zombies in it. They kind of lurched
around looking for victims.
“The Omega Man” released in 1971
and starring Charleton Heston
as “the last man on
earth” probably had more
realistic undead zombies.
Will Smith made a remake
of the movie, thinking
he could do a better version
than old Chuck Heston?
Sorry, dude, it didn’t do
much.
Although it looks dated,
“The Exorcist” released in
1973 was a bit unnerving.
Much of the film’s success
was due to the tremendous
performance of the possessed
by the teen actress Linda Blair.
That scene where her head spins completely
around and speaks in that deep,
demonic voice is still disturbing.
My mom thought “The Shining”
based on Stephen King’s novel was
scary. The movie starred Jack Nicholson
and was released in 1980.
Nicholson was certainly psychotic in
it, and it did build a certain suspense as
he began to lose it, but I didn’t think it
was really all that scary.
In 1978, the first “Halloween” movie
came out. I hated it and all 10 of the sequels
that have followed it in the “slasher”
genre.
They have no socially redeeming value
whatsover. They are pure sociopathic
violence berift of any plot worth following.
They don’t make movies about werewolves
or vampires anymore. I guess
they are not scary enough for today’s
audiences innurred to graphic violence.
Steve Lyon is the editor of the
Weiser Signal American. Contact him at

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