 They scare us as kids and they scare us now, but horror movies have changed how they deliver the scares to their audience and it's not always for good. I'm Matt Rogers and this is the problem with modern horror. I remember the first horror movie I ever watched. I picked up the scariest DVD cover I could find in the DVD rental store and at the time it was 2008's The Strangers. That menacing figure in the background piqued my interest and the amount that that movie scared me was how I got instantly addicted to the genre. Many horror families relate that once you crave that fear you get from these movies it's easy to become desensitized. You start ramping up to scarier and scarier movies until all of a sudden nothing takes you by surprise. Especially once you've subconsciously learned the formula for jump scares then you can see them from a mile away. But let's talk about jump scares for a little bit. So the formula for a cliche jump scares, scary room, rising music, the character sees something that scares them, which turns out to be harmless, music cuts, then... You're all scared. So many modern horror movies use this technique, which at this point adds nothing to the movie's tension as it's a cheap scare and it's easy to do. What I like to see is movies like Orphan where they know you know a jump scare is coming but don't give it to you. Everyone knows the typical shot where someone closes a door and there's someone behind it, but in Orphan nothing scary had happened up to that point and since there's no scare it actually manages to build further tension. It just goes to show if you build tension well you don't have to rely on any cliche formulas. You can have a scare come out of nowhere and the audience will sh** themselves. But let's now shift sub-genres to slashes. Probably most popular in the 80s and 90s, slashes are horrors that rely on violence to be scary and contrary to what I was saying earlier about tension I do love some pointless violence if done well. There's different categories that these movies fall into. There's the ones that take it seriously like Halloween which works because it's genuinely good. 2018's Halloween made me wish for the return of the slasher genre as it was the first good one I'd seen in a long time. But then there's movies that take themselves seriously but get it so so wrong. The movie that partly inspired me to make this video was Truth or Dare, which is a perfect example of the problem with horror that I'm talking about. The storyline is always the same as a bunch of teenagers that run into a demonic force and through some stupid turn of events they either figure out a nonsensical solution or are overcome by the evil that they were running from. Slender Man was another culprit of this. But in my opinion slashes are at their best when they're self-aware and know who their audience is. Perfect examples are 2017's The Babysitter and one of my favorite Christmas movies Better Watch Out. They're crazy violent but so much so that it's entertaining and the storylines have enough twists to hold your interest. That's how you pull off a slasher. Which is why the Chucky and Scream movies were so popular because those movies would seem ridiculous if there was no comic for relief. Taking it one step further we have the torture porn genre. Movies like Saw, The Human Centipede, I Spit on Your Grave. Movies that are obviously determined to get a reaction out of their audience. However I wouldn't consider this sub-genre as scary necessarily. However I do love the Saw series as it's just genuinely gruesome and some of the traps are creative. But as rare as a genuinely good scare is these days I have an undying respect for director James Wan. He just gets it. He works up to a good scare rather than relying on a bunch of small jump scares. Movies like Insidious and The Conjuring is exactly what I'm talking about. I won't go on about them though as I've already done a video on the worlds is created. It makes me realize that the only movies that really make my skin crawl these days are psychological thrillers. Again often was a good one but movies like Hereditary and Mother it's not necessarily the horrifying visuals it's more the horrific situations that make it so hard to watch in the best way possible. But in the end I think it all comes down to atmosphere. College kids playing beer pong and having them all murdered one by one will never be good no matter how many times it's retold. But what do you think what was the last movie to truly scare you and do you think horror is changing for good or bad? I'll be chatting with you guys in the comments. But until next time thanks so much for hanging out if you had a good time then spank that like button and if you subscribe during this video then walk them aboard. This is Matt Rogers and that is all.