Are slasher movies getting worse or are we just getting old? That’s the question that crops up on horror-movies.ca as part of their continuing attempt to get more editorial with their work, and to be perfectly honest, I think the answer is yes on both fronts.

They don’t have to be mutually exclusive, and they touch on this point somewhat. It’s true—the older you get and the more movies you see the more they all sort of start to run together. It reminds me of a Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin claims that being young is great because experiences are new and thus sharper. He proves this by sticking his nose into a jar of mustard and inhaling deeply.

We “older folks” know better than to inhale mustard, so we wouldn’t get burned that way. Meanwhile, we can also see the next Texas Chainsaw Knockoff coming from three states over. We know that, when you put high school or college kids in a room with a maniac most of them will not be coming back. We can see it coming, and that predictability has made us somewhat jaded. And far, far more resistant to horror.

Oh, sure…we’ll still gather our beer buddies together for a long, boozy night of pizza and Nightmare on Elm Street sequels. I personally have fond memories of a Halloween weekend night spent with some of my best buddies watching Children of the Corn III and mocking it mercilessly. But still…it’s harder and harder to find truly original horror movies any more. And nothing makes a scary movie worse than not being scared.

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