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Comment by ArtWomb | Hacker News Reader

It's seen as facile within the industry. Hence the reputation and lack of prestigious awards recognition. Easy to write, cheap to produce, and now in the digital era, the jump cut scare tricks and camera effects can be inserted by the dozen. See the trailer for Blumhouse's The Nun to get a sense.

But with the blockbuster success of films like It, Get Out, and A Quiet Place we will see something never witnessed before in cinema history: the coming of the big budget horror flick. I think The Conjuring 2 budget was upwards of $40M. And it looked terrific. The upcoming Venom and Shane Black's The Predator are no doubt deeply influenced by classic horror tropes.

But for the real deal. Still nothing compares to the classics. I finally got to screen David Cronenberg's Videodrome the other night. Holy Guacamole. They don't make anything quite like that anymore ;)

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Videodrome has faded from my memory. All I remeber is how I felt watching it. Like A Clockwork Orange, Dead Ringers, and Blue Velvet, I'm not sure I ever want to see it again.

A film I don't often see mentioned but that I still think is a good watch is Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Must not sleep. Must warn others.

Requiem for a Dream falls into that first category as well for me.

The are two types of people in this world: those who enjoy the music of RFAD, and those who have seen the movie.

Well, I guess I'm the third kind. I find the movie to be powerful in the depiction of the devastation caused by addiction. It does it's job excellently,it's also very gripping, but it's definitely not a joy to watch. I mostly become depressed after watching it. But I do watch it every 3 years or so :-)

Incidentally, I first heard the music when I watched the movie. The whole casting and TV selling and drug buying scene was framed by this music, and it felt very dirge-like. A foreshadowing of what was to come. And my mind associated it very strongly with those kind of tragic scenarios. But later I started seeing videos on Youtube about football or dogs with the same music.

That's interesting to me, as I found Videodrome very rewatchable, mostly due to the "OK let's try again to figure out wtf actually happened here..." effect.

On the other hand, I'm actively avoiding A Clockwork Orange...

I don't think It really counts as "elevated horror". The book is interesting; you might call it an elevation of pulp horror. But the movie is just a garden-variety spooky clown movie.

Big budget horror movies are nothing new; look at the Alien franchise.

"elevator horror" is a funny term but I definitely meant "elevated horror"; edited.

Jaws was the original blockbuster.

I would only really consider the first Alien to fit squarely within the horror genre.

If Prometheus and Alien Covenant aren't horror movies, there are other movies that are indisputably horror movies that are, uh, disputable.

Ah yes, I did forget about the more recent ones.

Yet, something happens as the budget tops $50M. They cease being scary. And turn into, you know, The Mummy ;)

I want to genuinely watch a $100M Excorcist or Carrie or The Omen. Something original by a master.

Another recommendation for the kids out there is John Landis' An American Werewolf In London from 1981. Still holds up. Maybe its time to return to analog effects!

I used to watch Moviedrome every week and I cannot find the Videodrome intro from Mark Cousins but everything from him was pretty great, for instance [1].

The way he introduced movies and in particular the horror ones made me never forget them.

[1] https://youtu.be/jRcOgZD5ffw

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