How do you prefer your horror movies(spoilers?)

[Batmex]

Got thinking about this after watching "Dead Silence", how do you prefer your fav horror movie to end?

Good guy saves the girl, kills the evil killer/monster/ghost?

Good guy saves the girl, but the killer/monster/ghost gets away or survives the final confrontation.

Evil killer/monster/ghost, kills everyone

Please use spoiler tags when talking about your movie.

[Wingus]

Not all that into horror movies. Kinda cemented that when we saw AVP:R, Batmex. ^^;

[Frank Castle]

I'm not a big fan of horror movies outside of anything Bruce Campbell is in.

[GregX]

Um, I think the poll should be different.

I prefer psychological horror to gorefests.

[Movie06]

For me it's either way, I like all kinds of Horror films to be honest.

[Hanshotfirst113]

Um, I think the poll should be different.

I prefer psychological horror to gorefests.

It all depends. I don't really have much use for "gorefests" in some senses (I've never seen any of the Saw or Hostel movies, I have little interest in slasher or splatter fare, and zero desire to see much extreme stuff), but films that play with the conventions of the "Aestheticization of violence," so to speak, like Evil Dead II's willingness to go so far with everything as to be wildly creative and absurd is hysterically funny and ingeniously inventive. Similarly, I often stomach George A. Romero's blood and guts to see his bleak social commentary and allegory. I don't have an intrinsic problem with violence, I just prefer when it severs some sort of purpose and doesn't sicken me away from watching the films altogether.

"Horror is, in a way, the last brave genre."
Guillermo del Toro

[Sandoz]

Good guy saves the girl, kills the evil killer/monster/ghost?

Good guy saves the girl, but the killer/monster/ghost gets away or survives the final confrontation.

Where's the "girl saves herself" option? They call them "Final Girls" for a reason.

[Bones Justice]

I'm not a huge horror-film fan but I do like stuff like the Resident Evil series. The only "must" I have when it comes to horror is that at least some of the heroes have guns and that the monster(s) are vulnerable to gunfire. I can't stand watching movies where the people with guns are portrayed as idiots while the unarmed folks end up saving the day.

[Fifi Fanatic]

Where's the "girl saves herself" option? They call them "Final Girls" for a reason.

I gotta agree with that. Those 80's slashers were a siginificant part of my adolescent years. It is required by international law that the last surviving female is the one who kills Jason/Freddy/Chucky/Michael.... until they return in the next movie of course.

When it comes to horror, I tend to lean either towards these vintage slashers or some good old B-movie cheese in glorious living black-and-white. Oh, MST3K, how I miss thee.

Still, I picked the "Monster Kills Everybody" option.

[Lord Dalek]

Yeah splatter flicks are never really that scary (they're designed to scare but end up just plain gross or unintentionally funny). I prefer suspense based off off abrupt short sharp shocks and playing on our expectations. Spielberg has shown he's a master at this in stuff like Jaws and the first Jurassic Park. Its the kinda subtle dread that these more recent films lack.

[BonyT]

Yeah splatter flicks are never really that scary (they're designed to scare but end up just plain gross or unintentionally funny).

Agree entirely. I'm not a huge fan of the broader horror genre in general, but the films I find most effective are things like Kubrick's The Shining, which features very few depictions of actual graphic violence, but rather is powered entirely by well-crafted highly atmospheric scenes.

[Hanshotfirst113]

Yeah splatter flicks are never really that scary (they're designed to scare but end up just plain gross or unintentionally funny). I prefer suspense based off off abrupt short sharp shocks and playing on our expectations. Spielberg has shown he's a master at this in stuff like Jaws and the first Jurassic Park. Its the kinda subtle dread that these more recent films lack.

I agree. Splatter movie sometimes disgust me, but they seldom scare me. I think that the genius of directors like Hitchcock and Spielberg is their skill at storytelling and audience manipulation. I mean, think of Spielberg. Look at the Indiana Jones movies. Now, is Indiana Jones going to die? Of course not. If he does, the movie ends. But Spielberg can make you believe in every scrape that he gets into that it just might be the end of him. The reasons slasher movies aren't suspenseful is because I don't care about the characters. I'm not one of the malicious people who enjoys watching people die in horrific ways, but there's so little sympathy or empathy with the stock characters (horny teenagers, etc.) that I just don't care. Spielberg and Hitchcock could shock us because we don't want to see these people die. It's easy to play on the lowest common denominators of watching something with a creepy makeup job jump out of the shadows (though people like Ridley Scott and James Cameron are good enough at adding polish to make it work), but it's in your head where things are truly scary. "What would I do in this situation?" I found myself asking that in Cloverfield, and it's supposed to be one of the impetuses for the Saw series. Spielberg and Hitchcock delight more in the telling of the tale than its meaning, hence the "maguffin," as it were. It's a fine line that Spielberg treads, because piling too much stuff into a set piece can easily lead to idiotic overkill (pretty much any Jerry Bruckheimer movie you care to name), but those who know how to play with this ridiculousness like Buster Keaton, Jackie Chan Kong Sang, John Woo Yu Sen, Sam Raimi, Spielberg, James Cameron, Hitchcock, Peter Jackson, and Guillermo del Toro can be massively entertaining, surprising, and creative with it.

"If a bomb under a table suddenly explodes, that is merely a surprise; if the audience knows that a bomb under the table is going to explode in five minutes, that is suspense."
Paraphrased from Hitchcock (And if the audience and the characters both know that it's there, then it's a 90s slasher movie, but I digress...)

Agree entirely. I'm not a huge fan of the broader horror genre in general, but the films I find most effective are things like Kubrick's The Shining, which features very few depictions of actual graphic violence, but rather is powered entirely by well-crafted highly atmospheric scenes.

I've actually never cared for The Shining, but I entirely agree with what you're getting at. Atmosphere understands fear, because of the sense of dread that it conveys. Ridley Scott's Alien would be a perfect example: there's nowhere to go. Around every corner, death may lurk, and you can't just leave the haunted house.

[Michael24]

Either of the first two options is fine with me. As a viewer, I like to have at least one survivor by the end of the film. I feel somewhat cheated otherwise if I've sat through a 90 or 120 minute movie only to have everyone die at the end and the killer walk away until the sequel.

I like both slasher horror and more serious horror. I don't mind some blood and gore, but I'm not at all into the extreme "torture gorefests" like Saw or Hostel. I like a lot of '80s horror films, from the popular ones like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, to the lesser-known ones like Sleepaway Away Camp 2 and April Fool's Day. I'm also a big Halloween fan.

But I can appreciate a good atmospheric horror film as well, like Psycho, Alien, the original The Haunting, and more recent ones like Stir of Echoes.

[BonyT]

I've actually never cared for The Shining, but I entirely agree with what you're getting at. Atmosphere understands fear, because of the sense of dread that it conveys. Ridley Scott's Alien would be a perfect example: there's nowhere to go. Around every corner, death may lurk, and you can't just leave the haunted house.

It's funny you should mention that, because I was actually going to cite Alien as one other classic example in my post. But, you know, it was time to go to lunch. Yes -- I'm a very lazy poster.

Re: The Shining, btw --- I'm a little surprised that, if Alien appealed to you, Kubrick's film didn't. It does have much the same kind of thing working for it, after all, with Jack's family trapped in the mad house (er, mad hotel) with no exit. Adding to that is the recurring device of mazes -- both the maze of hallways in the Overlook and of course the unusually tall hedge maze itself (which is a big improvement over King's topiary, since it better echoes the sinister rat's maze trap motif created by the hotel hallways). For my money, Kubrick just uses everything that films can do so well -- and to some extent, so uniquely, as for example with the "ghost" bartender who's just introduced into the story so abruptly, and almost nonchalantly -- to create atmosphere.

At any rate, I know Stephen King didn't much care for Kubrick's film. I've never read the book; but if the later (and unfortunate) King-approved TV movie miniseries is any sort of true indicator, then I'd have to say frankly that Kubrick's film is VASTLY superior to the King source work. (And I can't help wondering if maybe that's really what kind of crawled under King's skin so much ... ?) I know very little about Kubrick, and have only seen about three of his films; but based on those, I just get the distinct impression that he had no qualms about taking someone's source story and doing his own thing with it, with no regard whatever for the original author's intent. ... I also kind of get the idea that he was probably generally right about his version being the more worthy work.

[Michael24]

I also never really cared for The Shining. (*gasp* I'm agreeing with Hanshotfirst! ) It has it's moments and some creepy atmosphere, and a fun if rather over-the-top performance by Jack Nicholson (which I believe is one of the things Stephen King disliked about the film), but overall I didn't particularly enjoy it much, and I actually prefer the 1997 mini-series remake. Granted, they could only go so far with the material given the fact it was on network TV, but overall I enjoyed it much more.

[Punisher]

Morbid as it is, I prefer everyone(sometimes but not always including the monster) dying. The Thing is a classic example of this, but The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginnng is another great example. In the case of the latter, everyone knew before the movie even started that Leatherface was going to live on-the way he acted and the situations he was in were the parts of the movie that pulled you in. And in the case of The Thing, it really couldn't have ended any other way.

Regardless of if the hero lives or dies, I do enjoy me some gorefests. Some see this as being disturbed or morbid, I prefer charcters being put into life and death situations and seeing how they react and wondering how I would act in the very same situation. The Saw series does this perfectly. Would I pull chains out of my body in order to save my life? As painful as it is shown, I would probably pull those chains. The Saw series shows how far a person will go in order to keep their life, and for that, I find it both disturbing yet enjoyable.

Hostel, however, had no redeeming value. I'm not for mindless gorefests, it has to have something resembling a decent plot/morral undertone.

[Michael24]

Morbid as it is, I prefer everyone(sometimes but not always including the monster) dying. The Thing is a classic example of this, but The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginnng is another great example. In the case of the latter, everyone knew before the movie even started that Leatherface was going to live on-the way he acted and the situations he was in were the parts of the movie that pulled you in. And in the case of The Thing, it really couldn't have ended any other way.

Haven't seen TCM: The Beginning, but I agree with you on The Thing. Now that's a case where I don't mind a (somewhat) downer of an ending for a horror film. It's such a brilliant ending.

[Batmex]

Where's the "girl saves herself" option? They call them "Final Girls" for a reason.

Err....umm...where's the poll edit button?

[HG Revolution]

There's pretty much two main types of horror movies I enjoy: dark suspenseful horror (i.e. Psycho, The Shining, etc.) and over-the-top comedic "horror" (i.e. Scream, From Dusk 'Till Dawn, etc.), though often the downright scariest movies avoid falling right into the horror genre (Pan's Labyrinth was part historical fiction and part fairy tale, No Country For Old Men is a crime film and a western as well as being scary, An Inconvenient Truth is terrifying because it's true, etc.).

[Harlan_Phoenix]

The only horror movies I've ever really gotten deep into were the Halloween movies (although all I've seen is 1, 2, and 5), but I found Child's Play to be a nice way to waste some time.

So I guess, for me, it'd definitely be something involving some main antagonist in the vein of Michael Myers/Jason/some such. Jason being just an example, as I haven't seen Friday the 13th (but I want to).

I can see the value of psychological horror. I'm a huge fan of Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem for the Gamecube. But I'm a pretty big sissy at heart, so the slashers are mostly what I can stomach. I'm also attracted to the odd iconography that comes with those types of villains, as their origins and motives get more and more convoluted with each installment (such as the aforementioned Michael Myers before the first series retcon).