Despite being liked by all, we don’t see many horror-movie releases every year. From a director’s point of view making a horror film is always a double edged sword’s game; it can make the audience fear or laugh. In fact, we see many movies of horror-comedy genre performing well at the box office. The horror – comedy genre came to the existence by accident, and that was the failure of horror film turning into comedy ones.
No doubt, our filmmakers around the globe are trying hard to make us fear and only fear, because a good horror film can make our ‘night’.
Why Horror Movies Fail: six to seven out of ten horror films fail. The failure ratio is, if truth be told, very high around the globe. The reason being it is the lack of plot. The most exploited plot is ‘couples entering their new house, located in the wilderness, and something unexplainable starts taking place.’ Most of our popular docudramas like A Haunting, The Haunted, etc., are based on it. Episodes after Episodes we see the same plot, and finally it turns boring, and we shut it.
There is another reason behind the failure of such flicks, and that is lack of creativity. Our writers fail to bring new tactics to make us fear. We have seen enough of ‘hearing something’, ‘seeing something’, ‘being touched by something’, and something. Our writers have been struggling with these phenomena since the very early days of the beginning of this genre. But they are helpless, this is how supernatural activities happen, they can’t leave or ignore this.
What make horror movies succeed: that is our innate desire to experience fear, death and supernatural occurrences. It is only our desire that we swarm to movie theatres when a critic gives a good rating to a horror flick. It is the basic instinct of a human that question our existence and the existence of ‘the others’. We want to know what happens when we die, or if the dead ones try to contact us, or if we can contact the dead ones- our loved ones. And this is what makes supernatural cinema hit.
What type of horror movies succeed: There are many types of horror movies: supernatural, horror, comedy, gothic, psycho, war, apocalypse and many more. But supernatural-horror is the real horror. A good supernatural horror film evokes our subdued philosophy.
What are the good horror movies available: thankfully, we do have many appealing horror movies from the world cinema, not just from Hollywood. But, Hollywood is our home. Here is the list of some interesting, engaging and horrifying films from the various industries.
HOLLYWOOD:
The Exorcist (1973)- An exorcism movie which made America shiver back in the seventies. But, as time passed, our directors and writers developed better plots.
The Blair Witch Project (1999)- This is the first movie of its style. It gave birth to the idea of handy-cam cinema and TV Series. But no handy-cam film is as good as The Blair Witch Project.
The Conjuring (2013)- This film is a complete surprise as it sold the same old wine in the new bottle successfully. ‘Couples entering their new house, located in the wilderness, and something unexplainable starts happening’ plot did the wonder again.
The Others (2001)- When you want to know the story of ‘The Others’ side, you get this beautiful movie set in the wilderness of old America, which ends with a surprise you never expected.
Insidious (2010)- The best thing about this movie is it connects us to our childhood. This film also takes you to ‘the other’ side of the story. It takes us to the deads and their world.
Paranormal Activity (2007)- This film successfully implemented the idea of The Blair Witch Project from wilderness to our bedrooms.
Sinister (2012)- In the search of a successful novel’s plot a failing writer finds out the past of a family. If you loved The conjuring, you’d love this one too.
ASIAN CINEMA:
When Hollywood was struggling with ‘Couple Enters New House’ plot, Asian supernatural movies came out with their indigenous ideas, and they are really good. In fact, Hollywood didn’t shy away from stealing their tempting plots.