I'm not sure about the horror fans thing, though, philly- I'm not a horror fan at all and i can spot the cliches a mile off. Sometimes the fans are willing to ignore the cliches (i know i am in the stuff i like)... :)
Yeah, but you're not stupid like a Hollywood scriptwriter or director! Don't forget they're probably off their faces on mountains of coke shouting "yeah, yeah, this is $%&#in' great man!" at each other.
But yes, I am willing to ignore the clichés to an extent... horror's such a narrow genre in some way, it's almost like a game with a set of rules which you have to stick to.... but it's how well you
play the game that counts.
It's interesting because it's a genre with a very dedicated fanbase, so the films can be made relatively cheaply and still turn a profit. So at one end you get horror fan-boys picking up good distribution for a film that they shot in their local woods with money borrowed from their parents... and on the other end you get the big studios quickly knocking out bad remakes of '80s slasher movies, starring good-looking kids from TV teen dramas. And we watch all of them, even the ones we
know are going to be shite. :roll:
I go to FrightFest every year (over August bank holiday) and we sit there and watch 25-30 (mainly) horror movies over 5 days. It's hard to explain, but you can just "feel" when the director understands his audience and knows when to play by the rules, when to bend them in an imaginative way. You can also feel when it's just some hack going through the motions when he'd rather be directing a rom-com. All the best horror directors are also fans - they come along to introduce their films and they're people exactly like us! :lol:
