Watching horror movies is a tradition on Halloween that I started a few years ago as I still tend to watch horror movies with my best friends, Sam and Spencer, whenever we are together.
In my opinion, horror movies that have come out in the past five years are not as scary as the old movies.
In the past year, I re-watched all of the old classics including “The Omen,” “Halloween,” “The Night of the Living Dead” and “Evil Dead.”
These are what the epitome of good horror movies are. They scare you to the point that the night after watching them you are suddenly afraid of the dark.
Horror movies these days have just become very tacky and not really scary. They are just there for the simple fact of production.
They don’t have any depth or build up, and a majority are remakes of old movies.
Take “Amityville Horror,” the original from 1979. Even though the quality of movie is not up to today’s standards, it was a fantastic movie. But it was remade in 2005, replacing James Brolin with Ryan Reynolds and honestly I didn’t find it that scary.
“The Conjuring,” which was released in 2013, is also set off the same concept as “Amityville Horror.” It follows a family moving to a new house that turns out to be haunted by evil spirits that wish to destroy the family.
Nothing is very original and I don’t like recycled movies unless they are done better. The exception was in 2017, when “It” was released. The original was a mini-series made in 1990, starring Tim Curry as creepy Pennywise. There is nothing funny about a demonic clown that terrorizes a town.
The remake starred Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise, and the uncanny grin that Skarsgård brings to the character brings a new layer of evil.
I am also a firm believer that the first movie is always better than the second. This stays true to all of my favorite horror movies as well.
“The Exorcist” is a classic horror movie that everyone has to see to be a true horror movie fan. The movie was released in 1973, where Linda Blair played the little girl Regan MacNeil, who was possessed by a demon and needs an exorcism. They later go on to produce four more films, but the sequel is the only other movie to feature the iconic MacNeil.
The movies take away from the point and veer off track from the original story. Another one that can be argued is the “Halloween” movie franchise.
The “Halloween” franchise contains 11 movies and the most recent came out in theaters on Friday. The movies are also disconnected for the most part. The first two movies are connected by Jaime Lee Curtis’s character, Laurie Strode, but she later returns in “Halloween H20” as a direct sequel to the first two.
But movies four through six focus on Jaime Lloyd, the daughter of Laurie Strode.
I will have to watch the new “Halloween” movie to judge whether or not this franchise can be redeemed.
AMY BENKOVICH
