Horror Films Have Become Predictable

I think we can all agree that there have been way more bad horror films these last few years than there have good ones. Uninspired premises, relying more on bad ghost effects than good story, and just in general a flatness to it all that has turned more people away. While you could argue that this is the case for most film genres, it seems that horror is the one that you really have to try hard for to get a good movie out of it. Maybe it's just because the horror film genre has become predictable.
After all, what's sort of the standard horror film set-up? Something bad has happened before and it's going to come back to bite someone in the butt. There's a false sense of security (that already doesn't exist because the trailers showed us some scares) immediately proceeded by someone dying or going missing. Hijinks ensue and then in the end we get the reveal of whatever it is that was scaring us and cut to credits. Films like Friday the 13th (including the awful remakes) have done this but maintained a strange cult popularity. This could be because of the misunderstanding some have with Jason Voorhees in relation to the first film, how many think he is the villain of the film.

okay so technically he's in the movie but...eh...

There have been some good deviations in recent memory, but, for the most part you know what you're going to get by the time you walk in. What makes it worse is the franchise element to it.

"But then why is Nightmare on Elm Street so popular?"

Ah, it is popular, but not all of the films are equal in quality. While they all remain "horror" movies, each movie does something new or adds some new spin to the mythos. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation had its own Leatherface, but it wasn't the same character that we were used to. And it was a terrible movie, but still a horror movie and you weren't really sure what was going to happen. 

Nowadays, though, everything has become about possession. From the Ouija franchise to the Paranormal Activity shenanigans, horror films are now more than ever about demonic possessions. So you kind of know already what's going to happen when you walk in. The Omen did this right and made a great film of it. The Exorcist and even, to some extent, Exorcist III did this right as well, because they made interesting plays within their films and were doing things you hadn't really seen before. Sure the ending of the third "Exorcist" film is sort of off-beat and only exists because you should probably have an exorcism in your "Exorcist" movie, but the stuff leading up to it was rather unique to the franchise. 

But what new things did Paranormal Activity IV bring to the big-screen? It was yet another found footage movie. Or how about the latest Blair Witch movie? Same thing! Blair Witch II: Book of Shadows was a horrendous movie and I won't say it's a good thing I didn't know what was going on because, well, I don't think the movie did, but at least it was different from the first one. In fact, it had an interesting premise of almost taking place in our real world, where the first Blair Witch Project was a real movie that inspired real people. That's cool! And having supernatural elements in a movie like that blurs the line between realities, which is also cool...but then the film just kept going and blegh. 

However, there are still some horror movies that have had some unique premises thankfully and have sort of taken a new spin on the genre to keep things lively. The Conjuring and Sinister were pretty scary movies that had a lot of atmosphere to them. It Follows was a pretty nice commentary on some tropes of the horror genre, and Unfriended was a very good piece on "what goes around comes around" regarding cyber-bullying and told the story in an interesting way. Granted these films do have elements to them that are predictable and stale, but, so do all genre movies. Sometimes they're just unavoidable. 

Let's examine Unfriended for now. The movie is told almost entirely, except for just a few quick seconds at the end, through a teenager's Skype chat. We see her scrolling through Spotify, checking her messages, messaging people, using Facebook, all of that. It's a very visual film with lots of suspense involved in just her using the screen. You can see her frantically typing away through her camera and when she misspells something on screen. The acting isn't the best but if you just watch the computer screen you can sort of see the story unfold before you. The premise of "something coming back to haunt you" isn't unique but you don't quite know what's going on. Is there a ghost, or is there something that they're all missing? 

The ending of the film, which I won't spoil, is pretty controversial in my eyes and I personally don't like it, but I can see where they wanted to go with it. The problem is that it's predictable as all hell, and the film would've ended on such a high note without it. It'd be a movie about karma and the (very, very exaggerated) negative effects of cyber-bullying with some possible supernatural elements to them. 

On the flip side of all of this, though, you have the 1960s suspense film The Haunting, or the 1980 classic The Shining. These movies revel in what you don't see. The subtlety of being trapped in a building for an indeterminate amount of time. They are films and stories that make you question whether or not our main character is slipping into some sort of madness, or if they're being influenced by some sort of outside force. In these movies, the outcome is incredibly unpredictable due to the nature of our characters. In The Shining, Jack is a man fresh out of alcoholism and has a shaky relationship with his family. He loves them dearly, but such a fragile mind might be susceptible to some persuasion. In The Haunting, Eleanor isn't mentally stable, and the Gothic atmosphere and unnatural feel of things in the house seems to get to her more and more as the film goes on, and as the characters remain closer together. 

Both of these films seem to revel more into the area of "terror," whereby suspense is played up far more than horror. Think Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, where the fear of Dr. Frankenstein comes from what he has done and what the monster might do to him. Many people forget that Frankenstein's monster outsmarted the good doctor because Dr. Frankenstein gave into his own fear, and we see this throughout the book. How does it end? Ah, not so predictable, is it? 

Nightmare on Elm Street relies less on terror and more on the horror side of things. Horror is more about what happens after the suspense, and the spooky monsters that jump out at you. The gore, the imagery, the doom and decay, blah blah blah. But it's not an entirely predictable movie, because it's done in such a way that you're sometimes unsure if our characters are dreaming or if they're awake. Freddy's appearances are a pretty tell-tale sign, but even then, how can they escape? Are they even really dreaming, has he escaped to the waking world? Who knows. 

Nowadays most horror movies are either about a haunted house or being trapped in a house with someone, which is an exhausted premise and hopefully we can move away from it. Hollywood also has a bad tendency to make things franchises that have no reason being franchises (Paranormal Activity, The Purge) and so I doubt we'll see that end soon. Maybe that's the most horrifying thing of all: no fresh, original horror stories. 

Guess who's not sleeping tonight! 

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