Amanda (Paris Hilton): Oh! My Ugg boots have Jennifer's stomach blood all over them!
Prescott (hot One Tree Hill type arrogant guy): Amanda, Jennifer was skinned alive by the Orange Peeler. Any one of us could be next. There's no way to tell!
Janine (short, busty brunette from a movie you saw once but can't remember): Well, obviously, Amanda, it will be you! You're the dumb blond bitch that people wish would die! I will be the last one standing.
Prescott: Whatever, let's have a threesome while we're hiding out in this random cabin we found in the woods.
Amanda: Sure.
Janine: Alright.
Cheap gore, naked boobs, guys with burlap bags over their heads and Paris Hilton. As far as contemporary filmmaking goes, there is one thing that combines all four of these: the horror genre. As a teen slasher film enthusiast, my favorite scary movies of all time are the first four in the Friday the 13th series. I also think the Scream trilogy is absolute genius and ""Stir of Echoes"" scares the living shit out of me. So what do these movies have that the other ones don't? I don't know. The ability to close a scene with something other than the brutal death of some wack, shallow character? But I guess that's how ""Friday the 13th"" does it—suspense, kill, repeat. However, unfortunately for movies like ""House of Wax"" and ""Stay Alive,"" ""Friday the 13th"" has the get out of jail free card. Why? BECAUSE IT WAS THE FIRST.
Now, I am a strong believer in judging a movie for the genre it's in. So when I watch a horror movie, I'm not looking for life-changing performances or anything. I expect to leave feeling that there may be something inside of or around me that I can't control. Nausea and an acute awareness of what I look like on the inside don't count. Neither does laughter. See, this is why I can watch ""Urban Legend"" by myself at night when TBS is having one of their marathons. Mostly I laugh at the fact that Rebecca Gayheart could kill or lift up anything. She is the size of a tea cup. Not scary.
Speaking of ""Urban Legend,"" I must pose the ultimate question: What happened to the horror genre? Audiences are getting harder to scare, and all writers can come up with are new ways to feed victims to their friends. Meanwhile, they rely on gallons of pre-packaged gore to thrill and chill their viewers. I know that some people find this stuff scary. I won't deny that a lot of these movies still reap heavily from the suspense crop, but the thing they truly lack is good tension release. In ""I Know What You Did Last Summer,"" the suspense is thick, but it always ends the same way: Whether they're killed by the Orange Peeler or Hook Hand guy, somebody dies. In ""What Lies Beneath,"" there are new, terrifying angles around every corner. First there's a dead lady's face in the mirror. The fingers creeping up over the edge of the tub. The film is like a fist opening and closing over and over again, always with something different inside. That's a good horror movie. Not just suspense, kill, suspense, kill. Not unless you're ""Friday the 13th."" Then, and only then, are you okay.
