Anyone else think modern horror movies are overlit?

H

harmonica44

I saw trailers and clips for the new The Thing film, and thought it was lit too much. A lot of horror films have been doing that lately, compared to the older ones. In the older ones the cinematography and lighting was just darker, murkier, creating a chilling atmosphere. The 82 The Thing was just like that. But a lot of current horror films, are making their scenes brighter and more colorful, thereby taking away the dark murky creepiness of older ones. Some horror remakes have been doing that too. If you look at the remakes Friday the 13th, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for example, the new ones are not dark looking enough to have the same effect.

So why is modern horror going into the brighter flashier, more colorful effect, when the old lower budget murky style was more effective?
 
This is just a guess, but I think home video changed the paradigm. Well, actually I know it shifted several paradigms.

In the old days (pre-home video), if you wanted to see a movie you went to the theater. There you sat in the dark, fixated on what was happening onscreen. As long as the projection equipment was properly calibrated for the space, even the smallest point of light drew your attention.

Nowadays, most of the people who see a movie will do so at home, often on an improperly tuned TV, with the lights on and the phone ringing, etc. Only the true fan devotes their full attention to what is happening onscreen. The rest are just mindlessly glancing at images that flash past them. Too dark, and they'll tune out because they can't see what's going on. Frankly, our attention spans are negligible at best anymore.

Cynical, I know, but that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
 
Another reason is the improved quality in special effects, and the fact that more CGI is used now. In the 70s and 80s, special effects in horror movies weren't very good in most cases, especially if you looked closely, so keeping things dark helped cover up their shortcomings. Now, we can manage very good practical effects, and even better CGI effects, on very low budgets, and don't need the same level of darkness to cover things up. At the same time, I think many filmmakers want things to be a little brighter so it shows off their effects better. This is compounded by the fact that many films now are much, much gorier than films were back then, because horror audiences want to see the gore, not just have it implied. So again, that calls for brighter lighting.

Personally, I find the darker stuff of the 70s and 80s to be way more terrifying and creepy than a lot of the new horror movies. I don't watch a whole lot of new horror because it's too gory for my taste (and I don't find gore to be scary, just disgusting).
 
I agree....to me a good horror is not about voilence, blood or core. Its about dreams, distorcion of reality and surreal nightmares where jou have no real power. The old horrors had al of that even the first Hellraiser and Freddy Krueger used a universe beyond reality. Real horror is a concept of nichtmare .....where things happen that are way more nasty than dead.
 
The 82 The Thing had a lot of gore though, and it was still murky and dark. Is it because the gore and effects were more fake so they needed the murkiness to make it more convincing even so?
 
cameronchapman said:
Personally, I find the darker stuff of the 70s and 80s to be way more terrifying and creepy than a lot of the new horror movies. I don't watch a whole lot of new horror because it's too gory for my taste (and I don't find gore to be scary, just disgusting).
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I agree. I think often gore can be a substitute for a thin story.


Hey, nothing wrong with shooting in daylight, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was shot in the day. You should check out the film "Session 9". It's a beautiful, blue sky day where all kinds of bad things happen!

-- spinner :cool:
 
Yeah but even horror movies shot in daylight were murkier looking back then compared to today. Good murky, in a creepy way. Like comparing the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre to the new. Not good movies in my opinion, from the sections I've seen, but the original has got the creepy murky photography down, compared to the overly bright and colorful remake.
 
FWIW, the original Chainsaw Massacre was, more or less, what we now call an "indie" film. Ultra low budget, probably very little in the way of equipment. That probably had a lot to do with it. The remake, on the other hand, had a much bigger budget, crew, etc.
 
So the remake managed to produce a brighter more colorful, therefore less scarier cinematography though. But the the original The Thing was a bid budget too right, so it seems some productions, know how to not overdo it.
 
Both prior versions of The Thing were studio productions. Carpenter's version was made before home video took over (see my first post). Cameron made a good point as well that the dark photography hid shortcomings in the effects that no longer are an issue in the CGI age.

Spielberg was hailed as a genius for showing so little of the shark in Jaws, but that wasn't so much an artistic choice as a matter of the mechanical shark constantly malfunctioning and holding up production. In hindsight I'm sure he's grateful, but at the time I've no doubt he was frustrated as hell.
 
Okay that makes sense. But the dark murky look looks scarier. So even though special effects have vastly improved, would it really hurt movies to bring it back, for creepy style?
 
Again, an indie movie made with a micro budget. Tobe Hooper and Sam Raimi overcame much bigger technical obstacles than we face these days, and parlayed their creativity into pretty decent careers.
 
I saw Drag Me To Hell. 2 hours of my life I'll never get back.


Evil Dead 1, however, love it.

The Raimi brothers are legend at Michigan State University.



-- spinner :cool:
 
I found "Drag Me to Hell" to be extremely entertaining. I even just read the script, which was also very enjoyable.

It was fun watching a great director work within the constraints of a low budget.
 
Drag Me To Hell was low budget? Some of those sets looked expensive, like the big exotic houses. And filming in a public train station doesn't come cheap. But the known actors fees cost more than those alone probably.
 
harmonica44 said:
Drag Me To Hell was low budget? Some of those sets looked expensive, like the big exotic houses. And filming in a public train station doesn't come cheap. But the known actors fees cost more than those alone probably.
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No, but the movies Drag Me To Hell and The Evil Dead where Directed by Sam Raimi
....so comparing the 2 we can see if using difrent conditions and budget.....improve or diminish the movie.
 
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