Why Are Horror Movies Horrifyingly Awful?  

I came across an article on the New York Times, called Where Horror Movies Get the Red Carpet Treatment, and it talked about the Toronto International Film Festival, but what caught my eye was the line “With “Get Out” a possible Oscar contender and “It” breaking box office records, it’s telling to see so many horror and other such films creeping into the festival’s daytime hours.” It made me realize that this comment almost had a surprising tone, and I also realized that I was surprised too because horror movies are always bad. Also, recently, I have been hearing that “It” was “surprisingly” good and “actually” really good. I was even surprised how good “It” was claimed to be. So why are horror movies assumed to be bad all the time? Why is it a big deal when horror movies are good?

Of course I then took the question to Google, and an amateur movie reviewer on Reddit seemed to make sense in the known yet unknown fact that horror movies usually get low ratings and are considered bad. CommodoreBelmont, the username behind the explanation, explained that horror movie writers, directors, and actors are usually new to the business and not experienced at all in creating or acting in movies. Therefore, you have bad writers and bad directors instructing even worse actors. Literally the blind leading the blind. But the reason why amateur film makers and such go into creating horror movies when they are new to the business is because the movies tend to have a bigger payback. For instance, dramas and horror movies cost the same amount or dramas can be cheaper, but horror movies, no matter the ratings, have a higher profit. Then since horror movies are cheap but usually receive a high profit, new filmmakers can then make more movies with that payback and eventually make their way up the totem poll to bigger and better films. Then Commodore Belmont continued to explain, for example, the difference between a movie like Avengers that had a 220 million dollar budget, but then made 1.5 billion dollars which is a 6.8% profit, to a movie like The Devil Inside, who made 101 million dollars on a 1 million dollar budget. Even though Avengers made a lot more money, on the basis of percentage the horror movie, The Devil Inside was a bigger success.

Now the questions stands why horror movies get such bad reviews, and CommodoreBelmont easily explained that a movie critic will rate a movie on its “surprise factor”, and with horror movies story lines tend to be quite similar. Therefore, a movie critic is going to give a horror movie a low rating because they have seen the same storyline at least 30 times already. But at the same time who listens to the critics anyway? No matter how awful a movie’s ratings are, people will watch a dumb horror movie. But when the rare occurrence of a genuinely good horror movie coming out, then it will just bring in more viewers.

 

 

Articles:

 

Grode, Eric. “Where Horror Gets the Red Carpet Treatment.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 12 Sept. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/movies/horror-movies-toronto-international-film-festival.html.

“Why does it seem like scary movies always get low ratings/Bad reviews? • r/Explainlikeimfive.” Reddit, 2014, www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gc5f3/eli5_why_does_it_seem_like_scary_movies_always/. Accessed 15 Sept. 2017

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2 thoughts on “Why Are Horror Movies Horrifyingly Awful?  

  1. I’m the same way with horror movies. I don’t understand how people can think that they’re all so different; most of the time, the movies lack a strong plot and end up more focused on the jump- scares. This being said, I actually went to go see “It” last week with my friends, and I haven’t slept without seeing freaky clowns since. The one thing I disagree with the people writing about the movie is, it was very confusing emotionally. I never knew if I was scared or I thought it was hilarious. I’ve also never looked at a red balloon again the same way.

  2. Wow. You went above and beyond with this post. Not only did you give a synopsis of what you read on the New York Times. You took things to Google! I applaud your determination to give the most accurate conclusion possible as to why horror movies are usually so bad (except “the conjuring” – that movie is awesome).

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