If every single ticket sold out, theaters would be doing more than just breaking even—they’d actually be turning a profit. But let’s face it, people just aren't hitting the theaters like they used to. The only real way to keep them afloat is through local government subsidies. Honestly, any city with a population of 100,000 should have at least two theaters. Take San Francisco, for example—it's got about 800,000 people and we have five different spots, though one of those is basically just an American Cinematheque style setup focusing on classics and indie flicks.
Those old-school theaters are perfect for catching cult classics, but if you're looking for the latest blockbusters? You go to AMC Theatres. I mean, who’s actually going to sit in one of those dusty old seats to watch LOTR or The Matrix or any other big new release? Plus, tickets aren't exactly cheap these days—it's a real rip-off. Honestly, you could just download pretty much anything for free online without dropping a dime on cinema tickets... If they want our money, they really need to offer way more than just a screen and some stale popcorn.
I don't really buy the idea that they're all cut from the same cloth, but hey, whatever. I've sat through his whole filmography—the remakes, Return of the Living Dead, and everything else—but there's also a huge pile of horror flicks out there that don't look anything like his style yet still have plenty of good qualities. If you'd actually seen them, you'd get what I mean. Besides, movies are totally subjective—what one person loves, someone else might just hate. There aren't any objective scoring systems like you'd find in sports.
quietdriver3 said:Nah, look, just give me one title so I can actually believe you 🙂
I honestly can't think of anything even remotely similar
I’d love to keep arguing with you, but... NOLD '68 is one of my absolute favorites too—and not just because it's a "bear horror" flick. 🙂 I'm not going against those movies, no matter how much you try to push me.
🙂
As for that last comment, sure, maybe Argento remade some American film once, but let's not forget that Americans just did a remake of his Suspiria which should be hitting theaters pretty soon.
Haha, honestly, everything you just listed was better articulated in every five-cent American comic book back during the Cold War era.
And don't even get me started on the movies...
The whole concept—both the idea and how it's executed—isn't exactly groundbreaking or original, let's be real. It’s about as old as the horror genre itself.
Maybe take a slightly closer look at the film archives.
quietdriver3 said:Look, George Romero is basically the godfather of the modern zombie genre—he laid down all the tropes and motives that we still see being copied left and right today.
Come on, just name me one single zombie movie made before Night of the Living Dead that actually hits all the beats found in today's z-films (honestly, it feels silly even typing out that word 🙄)
I'm not really talking about sequels, I mean the standalone originals
It’s impossible to call it a "new" genre when the ideas are just pulled from older zombie movies, using Hitchcock's suspense and claustrophobic vibes, or Roger Corman's special effects, and so on... It's more like an evolution of existing genres.
Italian films had their own unique trajectory long before Maria, and honestly, those Italian horror flicks had a very distinct style even before they started imitating their own local productions. They are handled WAY differently than American movies.
Faces of Death And the other sequels are just like that too...
To be honest, I’m usually not a big fan of remakes. There are a few exceptions, though—like John Carpenter's The Thing, which is actually way better than the original, or The Phantom of the Opera (1989), which is basically just one of dozens of different takes on that story. Most of the others? Usually pretty weak. Take the '98 version of Psych, the recent Ladykillers with Tom Hanks, or just pretty much everything else out there.
The zombie genre is pretty much as old as horror itself, though it really hit its stride back in the sixties when it started carving out its own niche alongside other subgenres. It just felt right for the vibe of that decade, you know? But honestly, its roots go way deeper—you can trace it all the way back through Roger Corman's work, Hitchcock's influence, and various other classics from years prior.
Now, regarding Faces of Death—it’s one of those weird ones that sits right on the line between a documentary and a horror flick. There aren't any actual actors involved, at least not in the version I caught. It features some guy talking about his job in law enforcement, like a forensic specialist, interspersed with autopsy footage and stuff. Even though there are a ton of sequels out there, I only ever sat through one, and frankly, it wasn't really my thing.
quietdriver3 said:The zombie genre as we know it today—the one we immediately think of when someone shouts "ZOMBIE"—didn't really exist before '68.
Movies like "I Walked with a Zombie" from back in the 40s aren't even close to Romero's style of zombie movie (you know, those massive apocalyptic scales and mindless, flesh-eating corpses). Honestly, the only film I can think of that actually fits the modern vibe before Romero's Night is Hammer's Plague of the Zombies from '66.
Come on, don't be naive 🙄—FoD is about as much of a documentary as Blair Witch is.
Give man, Bela Lugosi was out there filming zombie movies too! And we're talking about stuff dating all the way back to the thirties. It wasn't just limited to vampires.😉
Faces of Death is basically just a bunch of autopsy clips mixed with some fake elements—all in all, it's mostly a documentary.
quietdriver3 said:George Romero basically invented the zombie genre as we know it today, so calling those Italian rip-offs "copies" is actually pretty spot on 😉
And when you talk about famous tropes—honestly, there's a whole world of American films out there that most people don't even realize exist, and they don't follow the classic formulas at all (just thinking off the top of my head, like Faces of Death)
The real issue is that the stuff that actually makes its way over here usually just represents the mainstream, official cinema
Zombie movies have been around since the 1920s, so there's no way he could have single-handedly invented a subgenre that's been kicking around for decades.
Also, Faces of Death is a documentary, not a horror movie.
By that logic, you could include National Geographic documentaries about an Ebola outbreak in Zaire as horror films, even though they really have nothing to do with the genre.
It’s hard to call Italian zombie flicks mere copies of American ones—especially when you consider that Italy had a massive horror production scene long before the seventies even rolled around. Honestly? I think most American horror movies are just too polished, too focused on being "mass market" friendly. That’s just not how they roll in Italy. As for the actual plots? They kind of don't matter—it really just comes down to who's behind the camera and their specific style.
But man, that atmosphere... the vibe those Italian horror directors nail? You just don't see it in American horror. Most US films feel like they were churned out of a factory just to be consumer products.
Horror doesn't need to be an allegory, and it definitely doesn't need to follow strict logic or realism. In a nutshell, American horror movies all end up looking identical because they stick to the same tired formulas. The Italian stuff is way more chaotic, surreal, and atmospheric—it pulls you into the movie much deeper than anything coming out of the States.
That's something American horror will never quite capture. There's just this sense that they're... empty.
Italian zombie flicks have this specific vibe that almost no American movie can touch. Honestly, American films just lack that raw extremity.
Where an American director might settle for a quick cut, the Italians go all the way. For me, the most unsettling zombies ever were from the bavin and Fulci's movies—take, for example, the house by The cemetery zombi where Dr. Freudstein tries to stop his own decay by butchering anyone who wanders into that house near the woods right next to an abandoned graveyard.
If there are any horror movies that actually capture that inescapable nightmare feeling—that "end of the universe" atmosphere—it’s definitely Fulci's work. The man truly understood how to craft a top-tier cinematic horror experience. To be fair, when I watched Savinija, it was exactly what I expected: totally predictable. But these Italian films? They are something completely different than anything coming out of American production...
I’ll give you that—this movie definitely has its moments.
But honestly? I can't help but think it might have been better if Savini had just tackled an original project instead. He kind of locked himself into working with a horror masterpiece that isn't even *just* a horror flick—it’s a perfectly executed movie in every single sense. In the original, everything just clicked: that black-and-white look fit the apocalyptic vibe perfectly, the main cast didn't make it through the arrival of the "living dead," and by the end, the living zombies basically wiped out the undead ones. The whole thing has this incredibly depressing, dark, and hopeless atmosphere.
In the remake, I feel like Savini missed the mark by trying too hard to cater to the audience. If his goal was just pure entertainment, then yeah, he nailed it—but otherwise, it just couldn't touch the original. Movies like Night of the Living Dead from '68 or The Beyond from '81 are so close to perfection that maybe it's best to just leave them alone and try to create something new whenever possible.
Ever since the original Halloween came out, I’ve felt like the first and third sequels were actually worth watching—they at least tried to shake things up from the original premise. But that last one? The one where they try to track down Michael Myers using an iPaq with a camera attachment? Honestly, that was just a total disaster. And knowing how this industry works, I’m sure we'll be seeing even more sequels soon.
Now, Friday the 13th is also pretty great, though I'd say the first installment is the standout—just a solid, no-frills slasher with some decent gore and that classic, moody atmosphere you love (think lonely lakes, pouring rain, being miles away from civilization, and a killer lurking in the shadows).
Wait, did nobody mention the Candyman trilogy by Clive Barker? 1, 2, and 3 are all right there! Amityville and its sequels...
By the way, some of the most extreme horror flicks out there were actually inspired by H. P. Lovecraft. You've got big blockbusters in that vein, like the '88 version of The Blob or Beyond 86, and then you have the straight-up gorefests like City of the Living Dead, which was actually banned across much of Europe for over twenty years.
Wrong Turn felt like an attempt to mash up TCM and The Hills Have Eyes into one single movie. Honestly? It didn't work. There wasn't anything fresh about it—the action just takes over everything, and you don't even get that sense of irony you find in Gordon or Sam Raimi's work. The leads are just irritating and totally wooden, and all that hollowed-out carnage and recycling of other people's ideas feels like it's just there for the sake of being there. In Wrong Turn, the violence is more laughably ridiculous than actually scary, which definitely wasn't the director's intention like it was in Re-Animator.
Saying the Dawn of the Dead remake is better than the original—which was filmed during the absolute golden age of horror—is kind of like saying Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness from '95 beats out Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. At the end of the day, it's still just a copy of an incredible original.
It’s honestly such a head-scratcher—how does someone who managed to nail a cult classic like The Serpent and the Rainbow end up making something like Scream? I mean, sure, it works as this catchy, crowd-pleasing thriller for the masses, but as a pure horror movie? It feels like a total disaster on par with Wrong Turn and similar flicks.
If you want to make a killer horror movie, these are the absolute essentials:
1. A director who actually knows what they're doing—ideally someone with a real vision. 2. A special effects pro who isn't afraid to get messy. 3. If you can swing it, a killer soundtrack helps set the mood. 4. The storyline? Honestly, that’s kind of optional.
When it comes to everything else—actors, language, production value—I've noticed a pattern: the bigger the budget and the more "A-list" the cast, the worse the horror usually is. It ends up feeling watered down and overly polished, basically designed for the casual audience just looking for a quick thrill.
That’s why I think those gritty, indie-style flicks are about forty times better than those massive Hollywood blockbusters that somehow manage to ruin even their own classics—like how they've butchered sequels to movies as legendary as *The Exorcist*.
And don't even get me started on all these modern remakes of films from just a few years ago. It seems like American audiences have always struggled to connect with foreign-language films, though apparently, that's becoming a trend elsewhere too. Because of that, studios feel the need to take an original idea and repackage it into something bland and soulless just so it fits what they think people want to see.
Cannibal Ferox isn't even really a horror movie—it's more like an action flick with TONS of violence. I remember seeing it at the theater when I was just a kid, and people were literally walking out in droves right in the middle of the show. The whole thing is basically one big massacre. 😁
You just don't see movies like that being made anymore; they wouldn't stand a chance with today's censorship. 😁
Japanese horror is great, though there isn't quite enough of it out there. Honestly, I'd rather have a few solid gems than the mountain of garbage Americans churn out these days—not to mention those terrible remakes of classics like Dawn of the Dead.
Some of the absolute best American horror flicks have to be the original Hellraiser, the Reanimator comedy, and The Serpent and the Rainbow.