It’s time for a horror movie makeover

3.  If it’s too loud then you’re too lame
Speaking of “The Messengers” — the rural “Barn of Terror” movie that opened last week and somehow made more money than anything else — I sat in front of a group of rowdy teenagers (PG-13! Whoo-hooo! Let’s skip school!) who openly mocked the film when the following sequence of events went down:

a) Teen heroine, in close-up, fills half the screen. The soundtrack is unnaturally silent. The other half of the screen is empty and waiting for a ghost to jump into frame, a bird to fly into a window, a toy to spontaneously animate without human help, anything to fill the frame all surprise-y and boo!-ish.

b) That other thing fills the screen after approximately three to five beats.

c) The soundtrack erupts in a digital thunderclap so loud that the audience in the next house watching “The Queen” all jump out of their seats.

Now, okay, yes, a shock-cut and a loud noise can work if it’s a ghost. Being ghosts, they’re capable of anything, including jet-engine-style decibel levels. But birds knocking on windows, cats jumping out of dark closets, toy tractors rolling forward out of the dark really fast and scary? That stuff doesn’t warrant this sort of thing. It’s cheating. It’s bad filmmaking. It’s so laughably been done a million times and then a million times more that even the truest, purest burnouts of the educational system who’d sooner ditch class and come watch your movie than get an education, even they know its coming. And they’re laughing at you. So why do you bother anymore? I know, I know, you have their money and you don’t care.

4. Declare moratorium on remakes
I wrote about this once before on this very site. A whole article about it. I believe it was called “I Spit On Your Horror Remakes and Sequels.” It was pretty good if I do say so myself.  Here’s the gist of it if you’re too lazy to go back and read it: remakes, save for “Dawn of The Dead” are no good. Ever. Never ever. They offer a cheap moment of almost-entertainment. Sometimes. But that’s it. Like PG-13, they’re not about making anyone happy, they’re about making money. Yeah, I know that makes the filmmakers happy. But I don’t care about them. I care about me. So knock it off.

5. Think fear
Some recent horror films that I thought were pretty decent? “The Descent.” And … um ... hang on, still thinking ... yeah, “The Descent.” You know why? Because it upended the teen-star paradigm by featuring an ensemble of (admittedly interchangeable) adult women, it focused as much attention on the tense, suffocating claustrophobia and giddy panic of being trapped in a pitch-black cave as it did on the herky-jerky eyeless monsters that lived there, it was gory but didn’t rely entirely on fake guts splattering every square inch of screen to make its point and, at least in its original UK release version, it came back-loaded with a bitter, brutal ending.

“The Descent” knew what all truly frightening movies know: that darkness and what happens there, especially when it’s inches from your face (think Jodie Foster being trailed with night vision in the final sequence of “Silence of The Lambs” or any real-life Manson Family “creepy crawl”) is the most terrifying stuff of all. To be trapped in that darkness is everyone’s greatest fear. But until another well-made horror film comes along, one that understands what moves to make in that darkness, audiences are going to remain trapped in a crashingly dull day-for-night.

Dave White is the film critic for Movies.com and the author of “Exile in Guyville.” Find more of him at www.imdavewhite.com.

MORE FROM MOVIE OPINIONS

Can word-of-mouth sell ‘The Road’?

Can word-of-mouth sell ‘The Road’? ‘Princess’ avoids the elephant in the room Oscar season nears, but where’s the buzz? Hollywood’s vampire obsession may bleed out Does ‘Precious’ stereotype big black women? Newsweek: The problem with ‘Precious’ When it comes to stardom, Clooney has smarts ‘Saw’ franchise creates buzz, but is it any good? Remembering concert documentaries that rock theGrio: ‘This Is It’ a final act fit for a king   Add Movie opinions headlines to your news reader: