Horror movies are such a good source of entertainment for friends and family or even just yourself but with an easily predictable story, we lack that same fear that horror is supposed to hold over us.
Horror stories are supposed to give us the exciting experience of a new and original story throughout each time and with that being provided to the viewer it results in giving us so much more terror to enjoy. Those incredible feelings of terror and interest in tales of horror are what makes it so intriguing and amusing for us. Instead what we see more and more is storylines being produced without that factor that makes horror completed as a horror story.
Recently there have been so many similarities in the stories that it’s hard to find that same joy of finding something new and original. Movies such as; Annabelle, Halloween Kills, Scream, The Nun, Child’s Play, Halloween. The repetitive sequels after more and more sequels aren’t scary enough and the desperate acts in the hope of grasping at the audiences’ arousal and horrifying those views with their jump scares don’t help the cause of our loss of authenticity, it just makes everything so stale. With jumpscares, they obviously give the viewer that fear factor through the unexpected jump and their adrenaline pumping, but a good horror story will keep someone on the edge of their seat with the debate on if it’s too scary to continue watching, something that terrifies the viewer and holds them in that fear but strong interest to continue on with their viewing pleasure.
With these previous examples we find these issues, not that it makes them bad movies, just repetitive with the ending always being stuck in the glue of almost identical endings and random jumpscares or the overdoing of jumpscares leaving the viewer prepared for them and unable to be shocked with terror.
In “Child’s Play” sequels we don’t find much of anything new aside from the scenes and new side characters, but it always sticks to Chucky (the antagonist) finding some way to come back and attempt to find a new victim and assassinate them while murdering others to make his way to whichever person he chooses to be his main goal.
With “Scream” we continue to see this idea of a masked person murdering teenagers. Nothing really changes aside from, again, the scene and characters. Leaving it to be repetitive.
Essentially we are stuck in a time of knowing what the outcome will be and not caring enough to see the end because we already know what we’ll see because these stories have been told thousands of times before. Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely a struggle being creative when so much has already been done but we don’t really find any difference within the stories that have been recently created and produced. It’s the same old story over and over again with new characters or new places for the story to be told, with no change in the storyline. Of course, it’s not like we need something unpredictable but nothing makes a movie more horrifying than the unknown story within it.