Horror is like metal in many ways; it wavers in and out of the mainstream and the older the genre gets, the less reputable works are released. Just as metal had what some will call a "golden age" with traditional, somewhat tame acts such as Sabbath, Priest, Maiden, Motorhead, Rainbow etc. and then became progressively more extreme introducing a whole new era of greatness with Death, Morbid Angel, Repulsion, Darkthrone and Emperor, the evolution of horror has been somewhat similar. There was the first wave of masterpieces in the 1930s like Browning's Dracula, Whale's Frankenstein and Halperin's White Zombie followed a few decades later by a fresh and extreme second wave consisting of now canonized films like Suspiria, Rosemary's Baby and Psycho. Of course in the cracks of these cinematic explosions there were many great films released like Night of the Demon and The Horror of Dracula. If you look at the state of modern horror cinema (particularly American), it is nothing to be proud of. Sure, there are the occasional standouts like James Wan's Saw and Raimi's Drag Me to Hell (CGI galore for you naysayers), but the vast majority are watered down remakes of modern Asian classics designed to scare the shit out of 13 year old girls on their first dates. The metal mainstream is no better. For every one Mastodon, there are 5 36 Crazyfists to deal with. I hold both of the subategories of wonderful media close to my heart, which is why I feel so deeply embarassed that they refuse to live up to their true potential (If you ever seen Polanski's Repulsion or listened to Repulsion's Horrified you understand what I mean)
At least we'll always have those classics to fall back on but I still have hope because there are those still who carry the torch.
