Where Have All The (Good) Horror Movies Gone?

Well, now that Halloween is over, we can all go back to our normal routines. Actually, since our routines were totally not disrupted by the holiday except for picking up a couple of bags of candy for our Panhandlers-Of-The-Future, life will continue pretty much as normal. Except for the fact that there will be less horror movies in our lives.

See, that's one of the benefits of the Halloween season, the amazing selection of quality terror available on your cathode-ray tube/screen of little tiny mirrors. There's nothing like shitting your pants in fright on a lazy Tuesday night, or just sitting back with a nice glass of The Red Swede and exploring the surreal. We here at WDR have all become quite the fans of The Horror, gathering together to watch such classics as "Welcome to Prime Time, Bitch" and "Why the hell is Saddam protecting us from zombies?".



Sadly, this hasn't been the case this October. For some reason, the cable channels have been extremely lacking in the horror department. There hasn't been a single showing of "The Shining" to my knowledge. I mean, how am I supposed to get through my Halloween season without shots of men dressed in bear suits performing fellatio? It's damn hard, I'll tell you that much. And why only one showing of "Children of the Corn II"? It's only the movie with the most brilliant exchange ever.

Frank Redbear: It means life out of balance. My ancestors would have told you that man should be at one with the earth, the skies, and water. But the white man has never understood this. He only knows how to take. And after a while, there's nothing left to take. So, everything's out of balance. And we all fall down.
John Garrett: Wait a minute... so that's what happened here in Gatlin?
Frank Redbear: No... what happened in Gatlin was, those kids went apeshit and killed everyone.

So I'm writing here in mourning. The movies that fill the cineplex now are pale imitations of better movies from the past, or just veiled excuses for torture porn. And we are NOT cool with that. Seriously, "Saw" had the worst twist ending in recorded history, yet it spawned 3 sequels, with 3 more sure to be coming out (thanks America for going out to the theaters in droves for those!) And cable has filled its hours with Law & Order spinoffs for far too long, neglecting our need for horror movies in marathon form.

In order to rectify this, I rented David Cronenberg's "The Brood", looking for a good scare on Halloween night. I had spent the last two months going through the entirety of Cronenberg's oeuvre, in preparation for seeing "Eastern Promises" in the theater (and of course, I just found out yesterday that it left theaters last week), so I felt that I was prepared. Stomachs that doubled as Betamaxes, biological extensions that are video game systems, nightmarish gynecological instruments, and even exploding heads were all handled with ease. Surely I could handle this movie.

Not quite.


Jesus Christ, midgets/kids are terrifying.