Contemporary Horror Films and Teens

These days, kids, there aren’t really any good horror films released. Maybe because the horror film genre’s core audience – mainly teenagers and thirty-something’s with goatees – has basement-level expectations for slasher films and the like. Their expectations? Well – skin, frankly. Bloody skin, too – Yes, moist, sweaty, sexy, bloody skin. The more glossy and youthful, the better. That seems like the acceptable criteria.

Here inclosed, are some of horror’s recent efforts:

When a Stranger Calls

When a Stranger Calls is a remake that remakes the first quarter of the original 1979 film of the same name (which, I believe, might have been a remake), where a babysitter, Jill Johnson (played by Camilla Belle), is harassed by threatening, almost ex-boyfriend-esque, phone calls – and no, Camilla Belle, I will not stop calling you during random hours of the night. The domineering phone calls, to Jill’s chagrin, last up to a full 120 minutes, which is impressive, considering the movie is 87 minutes long.

Due to a paper-thin plot – there are lots of scenes of our heroine being startled by mundane household appliances – director Simon West relies on his composer’s tense score; yet, even with a jumpy soundtrack, the heat turning on in the house is not scary to anyone other than my kitten Mittens.

Typical of the horror fare, the filmmakers try to create an eerie ambiance with orchestra and sound design to deliver a biggest “boo” possible – assaulting our ears with a synthetic and orchestral blast.

I call them stingers.

For the loudest, and most startling stinger, dear fimmakers, I recommend a combination of a door slamming, a ball pin hammer striking a radiator, a cat walking on a piano, and evil skeletons playing brass interments on their highest register. Sadly, this cluster of sounds is only appropriate over the imagery of Jabba the Hutt’s possible liposuction.

Saw II