 You know the feeling, a new horror movie comes up, you're super excited to see it, and then you watch it, and you're let down with a mediocre plot, bland characters, and an overall boring film. I would like to analyze why that is. What's up internet, my name is Glassfoot, I'm an amateur movie reviewer, a spying filmmaker, and just all around nerd. I enjoy talking about movies, TV shows, anything that falls within the preview of what is typically known as nerd culture, but I especially love discussing what makes films good, bad, and everything in between. So with that in mind, let's discuss why. Alright, so when I say that horror sucks, I'm not talking all of it, but necessarily even most. I'm more specifically talking about modern horror, because it exemplifies the tropes that I believe are what's wrong with horror. Theories of jumpscares, the poor writing, the bland characters, I think those are the three biggest hindrances to horror in general when it comes to writing good story. And honestly, I think that the slasher genre exemplifies this point the most, because with most of those, they're action films with horror elements. You have the unkillable murder machine, that is the villain, who you know is going to be defeated by the final person that's surviving in the end. The Friday the 13th weeks, for example. From two onward, they focus on Jason, the undead, unkillable murder machine that he is, who we know is going to be defeated every time. And they just kind of get dumber and dumber because you lose your ideas of what to put, of what situations to put these characters in. Jason X, the one where he's in space, I think that one is. That's probably the dumbest of all of them. Got to be honest, I don't actually know if that's the one. I can't remember. There were way too many sequels. Then the Halloween sequels are another example of this. And the first one, yes, Michael is the boogeyman and effectively an unkillable murder machine, but he pops up in places we don't expect him to. So you have these characters that are just doing stuff and then he's suddenly there, which yes, you could qualify as a jumpscare, but it's almost always in wide shots. He's never really thrown at the screen to show anything. And because he kind of just shows up, that builds tension, where's he going to be, who's he going to die next, and all that kind of thing. I think it builds overall a better story and a better narrative because you don't know where they can go. Back to the first part of the 13th movie, just as a quick example, the first one does a similar thing where, spoiler, the mother is the killer, but we don't know that until the very end. All we know is someone's killing the other counselors, and it leads it to be very hard with characters to trust the other characters in this situation, so it makes it overall harder for them to get out of it. That tension between who's the killer helps to amplify the tension that everyone's feeling within the scene, and it does a better job of making me scared for what's going to happen to these characters. Both of the franchises that I mentioned Friday specifically fall into this trap of the first one was great, so the sequels are going to make money no matter what, and we just get murder machines. And that's not, it's honestly boring. When there are murder machines, you have to rely on the jump scares, which just throws things at camera and doesn't actually make you feel any fear. If anything, it makes the fight or flight response. It was just an adrenaline rush. So they're not as entertaining because I know it's going to habit all the characters, and they're just not nearly as fun. Another problem that homies have is the poor storytelling. They don't seem, because of the whole jump scare thing that I mentioned a few minutes ago, they don't rely on good characters and storytelling to ruin the narrative, they rely on throwing things at the screen. So the narrative suffers overall. Truth or Dare is a prime example of this. The essence of story is that a group of teenagers on Spring Break go to an abandoned monastery where a spirit tricks them into playing Truth or Dare. While playing Truth or Dare, if they choose Dare, they have to do the Dare, or they will die. No questions asked. That's one of the dumbest plots I've ever seen. It also has an awful conclusion. With the main character recording a video and sending it out to the world, daring everyone to play, which forces all of them to play, so she never has to play again. That's not winning. That's just throwing the problem aside. That isn't a good conclusion to any movie, let alone a horror type film. What? I now hate the main character because she did something that screws over everyone else. I don't understand why they thought that was a good idea for the plot. Just, it wasn't. You can tell I really didn't like that movie. Like at all. And the final reason that I think that a lot of horror movies suffer and aren't as good is the bland characters. I don't care about them. If you make a character interesting, I will want to follow them. I will care what happens to them and I will care if they survive or go through the film. But when the characters are one dimensional and I don't have any reason to care about their well-being or their safety, I have no reason to watch them. I have no reason to care if they survive or not. So, I don't. I just, I find that an overall problem in any movie. I want to have an interesting character that I follow. The horror especially, you want someone that's going to keep your attention throughout the runtime so you don't get bored and turn the movie off. But when the characters are all bland and they're all one dimensional, there's nothing to keep me invested in watching the film. So, I typically end up turning the movie off or going to watch something else that I find more interesting. Now, like I said earlier, not all horror films are bad and there are some good ones that are coming out now. Get out in Halloween 2018 or two prime examples of this. They are really, really good at building the tension of what's happening to the characters and what they're going through overall throughout the film and not actually revealing what will happen till the end. And the movie that just came out, The Joker, is a perfect, perfect example of this. It is a slow burn horror type thriller film that delves into the mind of a disturbed human and it just follows his descent into madness. And the way that it's written, the way that it's shot is so good and it makes you feel so uneasy with the entire runtime because you don't know what's going to happen to anyone. And it was so well done and honestly gives me hope for the future of horror. Quick side note, I personally count thriller as a subgenre of horror, not necessarily its own thing. Just gonna put that out there. Feel free to yell at me and tell me that I'm wrong in the comments down below. But movies like that give me a hope for the future of the genre because I love old time horror. Alfred Hitchcock style movies like The Birds and Psycho, I very much enjoy and I would love to see horror get back to that if that is at all possible. Any time in the near future. All right guys, I hope that you enjoyed the video. I very much enjoyed making and discussing what I personally don't like a lot of modern horror films. But tell me in the comments down below, do you enjoy horror or am I right in what I believe or am I completely wrong? Please tell me, I would love to know your opinions. If you would like to follow me on Twitter or Instagram, links are going to be in the description down below as always. All right, I hope you have a great day my friends and as always, peace out.