To think CGI isn't scary and it's ruining horror?

[MrsFattyBumBum]

I was watching IT, the one from a few years ago on Netflix before.

And Pennywise is scary as a character but all the CGI stuff, it's just so unrealistic that it just makes it almost like animation, just takes all the fear away. It's like watching a cartoon. You just know it's all fake.

I miss good old fashioned horror films that are just creepy. Things in the shadows crawling about. Peeping out from round corners. Not really knowing what is out there.

With CGI you see too much. Nothing is left to the imagination and it's imagination that keeps you up at night after a scary film.

So AIBU that CGI is ruining horror films?

It's funny I was talking to my 11 yr old ds yesterday he is a huge Godzilla fan and even he was saying he doesn't like the newer ones as they use to much CGI and the storylines are boring. He said even though the people in costumes is a bit silly the stories were alot more interesting.

When my kids were wee they were endlessly fascinated by things like Bagpuss, The Clangers, Postman Pat, Thunderbirds - CGI stuff was a lot less interesting to them. I think that the realness of the puppets 'coming to life' was more like their play world - their endless Barbie/teddy soap opera - than the slick, can't see the joins stuff.

Only read the first few posts, but totally agree and another recommendation for 'The Autopsy of Jane Doe'. A good tense horror movie that surprised me with how creepy and scary it was!

The original Japanese Grudge films are amazing and so scary!

The hills have eyes - so gory but so good

The hostel!

I loved looking for the hidden ghosts in the haunting of hill house(is that it, on netflix) made it loads scarier once you spotted one lurking!

Alien films with Sigourney weaver are just perfect, at least the first tow are!

There have been a couple of mentions of the George C. Scott film The Changeling - think it's one of the creepiest films I've seen, genuinely terrified me the first time I saw it. I've also struggled to sleep after watching The Amityville Horror.

Still think you can't beat The Exorcist. For me, the most frightening thing is the voice of the demon.

I detest it. It ruins every movie it’s used it. How can anyone think it provides anything to a film apart from reminding the viewer that what they are watching is fake?

*used in

@igotthemheavyboobs Try this version. This is the film version of The Woman In Black that originally aired on Christmas Eve 1989.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woman_in_Black_(1989_film)

Its barely been repeated and ive seen posts on here that say its because the writer didnt like this version. No CGI a lot of suspense and i remember a very scary close up scene in a hotel room.

We had to tape it as DB and i had to go to midnight mass. Thirty years on DB still has the videotape. I wish they would do a repeat showing this year for the 30th anniversary.

Well that version was written by Nigel Kneale who was a f*cking genius writer. A TV play of his called The Stone Tape gave me nightmares for years as a kid.

@MrsFattyBumBum I agree! But I think the most insane thing about IT the second chapter is that they CGI’d the kids faces. They’re a few years older now, so wouldn’t look like kids anymore. It not only looked weird but was a sinister insight into how easy it would be to manipulate the public with CGI.

Stir Of Echoes.

Agree with others that the trick with horror is to make the person watching create their own horror in their head. Because that will go to the place that most terrifies you, which is slightly different for everyone so no explicit scene will cover it.

This for me at least is true for all of the best horrors. Even Texas Chainsaw does this. Really it does. There are some seriously messed up images in it but you never see the chainsaw actually cutting into someone. But because it was done so well it got banned - I would say it got banned because of what people saw in their imaginations, which is proof of how good it really is, because they didn't realise that they hadn't actually seen stuff.

In fact, thinking about it, there is very little seen depicted violence in Texas Chainsaw at all - less than in your average Marvel film.

I agree OP - I much prefer a film that suggests rather than graphically illustrates the horror.

I liked The Borderlands - lowish budget found-footage type film, very creepy ending though, I was shuddering over that one for days.

I also liked Creep (not the London Underground one) and Creep 2. If anything I preferred Creep 2 which had a streak of black comedy to it too.

Generally I can’t bear vampire movies (does that count as horror?) but I did like Let the Right One In (Swedish version). I think because it was oddly realistic.

I liked The Ritual, as the real horror wasn’t the monster.
Pan’s Labyrinth
The Orphanage
Borderlands
Sinister

I watched The Conjuring last night and for the most part enjoyed it. Some good old fashioned scares - although it doesn't offer up much new, but I suppose it's hard to produce a horror film that hasn't been done before in some way or other.

Does anyone remember Salem's Lot? I was very young when I watched it (older cousin let me watch), it was a vampire series but really scary. Other than than, like a PP said, Hostel is great.

Yes yanbu. Modern horror is shite and It's all about the gore.

Now the older stuff has scared the shite out of me. The birds in particular. Psychological horror is better over gore horror.

Agree with lots of posters, once you see the monster/baddie, its often a let down.
Watched a good Icelandic film last night called i remember you, which was spooky.
I also found A Field in England to be very weird and unsettling

Pan's Labyrinth was a film that used good CGI effectively. Excellent film.

It's not CGI that's the problem, it's how it's used.

@ClashCityRocker I agree about The Conjuring. Some of the "make you jump" moments are not ghosts at all, but the children doing normal things, cunningly timed. Near the beginning, while the mum's blindfolded and groping in the wardrobe we know to be haunted, the daughter then bounds into the room to tell her mum she's lost the game. That makes you jump! Also the doll doesn't do anything: her mere presence is scary.

I think those of us over a certain age remember when it was more "acceptable" not to have so many special effects, because you couldn't do them so easily as now. In the 1985 film Clockwise, John Cleese is lecturing his pupil about driving without a licence; he then drives off and crashes into a police car. You don't actually see the crash happen: just their shocked faces, and the state of the cars afterwards, and it makes you jump (and giggle). Much cheaper to film it that way! Acceptable then, but probably not now. Mind you, that film didn't make it big in America.

Also (not horror) but it should be noted that the first series of Blackadder had a huge budget and was very visual, but not very successful. The later series were very cheap and cheerful, but much funnier. For instance, Baldrick would say "this doesn't look like Southampton to me, all those natives around a large pot". You see him, but you don't see what he's looking at.

For truly chilling watch A Carnival of Souls WOW now that's stuck with me since the Alex Cox Moviedrome tv series c.1992

Yy that is excellent and also I watched it in the same series! Wasn't that also the season that showed dead of night? Another classic British horror that is never seen these days.

Carnival of souls was on talking pictures recently btw which ime means it will be on there again soon. Definitely worth taping.