Scream and say Cheese
I bet your thinking that I have finally lost it with that bizarre title. You’re half right, due to the amount of work I have got on at the moment. However, whilst plugging through six hours of research today an idea popped into my head, so I thought I’d relax by writing a blog. You know, because I’m mental like that.
We’re in October now, so tis the season to get spooky. Now the time is upon us, where we will be greeted with a new ‘scary’ movie each week. I thought I’d address an issue that has been cropping up over the recent years. That is the influx, of comedy-horror (or Cheese Horror) films as of late.
Films like Piranha 3d, Teeth, Shark Night 3d, Trick R Treat, Drag Me to Hell and the latest instalment of the Final Destination franchise, have all made it to our cinema screens in the last few years. These films navigate away from the suspense building psychological horror and head towards the surreal, buckets of ooze and over the top comedy that you may see from 60s C-Slasher flicks.
The question is, why have horror films changed? Well I think the answers quite simple. We have changed. With Cinema being over a Hundred years old we’ve seen every scare imaginable, from Zombies, to the Devil. If it exists in the imagination, we have seen it on screen.
So over the years, we’ve naturally become desensitized as an audience. No longer do the old things we’ve seen time and time again, shock us. This has caused the film industry to think on their feet and forcing horror films to change in order to survive.
One change is that they’ve actually got funny. In order, to seem relevant most of the horror today has turned to humour. The horror cheese of today makes fun of itself so the audience does too, thus emanating entertainment with more than just scares.
Also, with the audience too busy laughing at what’s going on, the scares come as a surprise. SO the laughs in this new generation of horror movies, acts as a cloak for where the real scares come.
As mentioned earlier it’s not just the laughs that have added to the cheese factor of these horror films. The scares have now become more overt and over the top. There less subtle moments of suspense and more set pieces of over the top carnage.
Ok, they may be a bit obvious in their style and definitely different to the classic Horror films such as The Shinning and Psycho, but it doesn’t mean that there bad films, does it?
Well no, in this humble writers opinion anyway. OK you have your good and your bad, like every genre of film, but I have to say I do enjoy the majority of this ever so cheesy sub genre of horror films.
Even though, it may seem like there they’ve been dumbed down, I don’t think that is the case. I just think the cheese horror films just have a new box is all.
The scares are still there, but they’re surrounded by blood and laughs more than a brooding score and a subtle scare. It’s not a bad thing, just a different thing. With a new generation of audience, we have a new generation of horror film.
What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Feel free to comment.
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Until next time, enjoy the show.
Daniel Morris
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