Rebirth of the Horror Movie Genre

I remember, back in the day, when I was just a little kid growing up in Scotland how entranced I was by the old black and white creature feature type movies. Dracula and Frankensteins monster were just about the coolest thing I had ever seen and I was lucky enough that my Mum was a fan of those movies too. I remember many a Friday night sitting on my Mum's knee in absolute awe at what I was watching. It was those nights that helped shape my ongoing love for all things horror and, as luck would have it, just as I was turning eighteen the slasher flicks were hitting the theaters and those opened up a whole new world for me and horror fans everywhere. Psychos like Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Kreuger became household names but in the end the only thing that could kill them, and a genre, off was greed. Movie studios rushed to cash in on the success of these characters by churning out sequel after sequel, none of them ever coming close to touching the originals. All sense of originality was lost as filmakers spewed out a host of forgettable slasher flicks trying, in vain, to come up with new outlandish character....anyone remember "Shocker"?...No? I didn't think so.

Horror movies continued to be rolled out but most were terribly dull or so much gore and violence cut out of them by the MPAA that they lost any semblance of meaning. Then along came "Scream" which was clever, had a story and surprisingly actually poked a little fun at the genre. This looked like it may well be the starting point for another horror revolution but it had the same effect as the slasher flicks as studiois clamored to release similar type movies geared towards teens and the PG-13 crowd.They weren't all bad (The Final Destination trilogy being a good example), but the true horror and goremeister fans were left wanting something a little more substantial and, for me, that came with the release of two movies in particular. "Saw", a brutally violent serial killer flick with a twist, and "Shaun Of The Dead", an absolutely brilliant zombie movie that's as funny as it is gut-wrenching. "Saw" kicked the doors wide open for a host of new gore-filled cinematic gems. The eye-popping "Hostel" and two great blood-soaked remakes "The Hills Have Eyes", and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"

Across the pond, thanks in no small part to the success of "Shaun", the Brits started churning out a whole host of moody, sometimes humorous, but all very well made horror movies of their own, the best of which were "28 Days Later", "The Descent", "Severance", "Dog Soldiers", and "Wilderness".

We are now in the middle of a rebirth of sorts of the horror genre and if you look at the last few months there have been some really good movies to hit the market like "Dead Silence", "28 Weeks Later", "Behind The Mask : The Rise Of Leslie Vernon", and "The Host", a great little Asian creature flick that may have been missed by many...be sure to check it out on DVD.

With this newfound success and creativity coming to the rise we are being treated to great movies by some very talented young directors like Eli Roth, Alexandre Aja, Neil Marshall, and Rob Zombie whose interpretation of "Halloween" has left all us horror buffs drooling a little after seeing the first full trailer. Lets hope that these guys and the directors who follow in their footsteps can continue their stellar work and provide us with many more frights, bumps and jolts in the coming years.