Why is the horror genre so popular on Blu-ray?

[malakaheso]

Originally Posted by Bumblefeet

I do find that the "cult" label is overused. Practically everything that's considered obscure and unreleased but now finds it way onto blu-ray is considered cult or even a classic. Sorry, but a lot of trash movies that get put out are still just that: trash.

But a lot of trash films have cult followings, so naturally there is a degree of overlap. I agree that the term is overused though.

I also don't like that so many modern horror films are too self consciously trying to be 'cult', or achieve that kind of status, but that's a whole different story.

[Bumblefeet]

Originally Posted by malakaheso

But a lot of trash films have cult followings, so naturally there is a degree of overlap. I agree that the term is overused though.

What constitutes a cult following though? In my opinion few trash movies have a passionate fan base, they are lucky to have people at all who've heard of the movie let alone seen it or care to own it. Perhaps some of them are simply a loud minority as I'm sure the labels will have titles that moved little to no stock. Nostalgia also plays a big part, movies you once thought were cool but now are terrible to watch (the high def doesn't help either in that regard). It all depends on the attitude of the viewer, but there is an obvious picking order in the B-movie catalogue.

Originally Posted by malakaheso

I also don't like that so many modern horror films are too self consciously trying to be 'cult', or achieve that kind of status, but that's a whole different story.

I agree, I'm not a fan of those either. It's almost like a meta thing where it's all about style and reference and less about authenticity.

[returnofthemack]

By my count 260 of the movies in my collection could be considered horror, so about half. I just love horror, can watch it anytime and it's one of the funniest, surprising and experimental genres around in my opinion. I have love for other genres as well but not enough to spend a ton of money on them.

As for the whole VHS thing, ive never understood the arguement that some horror looks better in VHS or DVD because it's better when it's grimy and dirty. My one buddy says that Blu Rays have ruined some movies and he will only watch the DVDs because they are like totally different movies. Well I disagree because seeing them in theaters was how they were meant to be seen and Blu Ray comes the closest to replicating that experience.

[The Great Owl]

Horror is not my favorite movie genre. My favorite movie genre is classic-era film noir from the 1940s and 1950s.

I do, however, own way more horror movies on Blu-ray than I own movies from any other genre. This is mainly because there are more horror films available in this format than there are film noir movies (although I currently own all of the classic-era film noir that is available on Region A Blu-ray). Going by the statistics page of my collection here on this site, I own almost 120 film noir and neo-noir movies, whereas I own 240 horror titles on Blu-ray. (Although I probably own more film noir if I were to total up both my DVD and Blu-ray collections.)

As to why I own so many horror movies on Blu-ray...

1. Horror movies are like pizza. Even the bad horror movies are pretty good.

2. I have strong nostalgic ties to the horror genre. In fact, the vast majority of my horror collection consists of horror cinema from the 1970s and 1980s. I assume that most Blu-ray fans here are like me, and that they harken back to the days when we all used to browse the shelves of video rental stores during the 1980s and 1990s, when cover art for horror films on the shelf captured the imagination, and when many of us first experienced many of our favorite horror films. Blu-ray seems to cater to that nostalgia.

3. Horror has so many subgenres (classic horror, sci-fi horror, slasher, supernatural, giallo, etc.), so it's easy to own a great many without trying to do so.

4. I'm always in the mood for a horror film. Horror provides some emotional catharsis to the viewer without (usually without) making any heady intellectual demands on the viewer. In other words, they're great flicks to watch after a long day at work.

I usually couldn't care less about cover art or slipcovers, but I'll admit that limited availability does play a part in my choice to own many horror films on Blu-ray. This may well be the last physical format in which many of the more obscure horror titles are available.

Like most horror fans, I do have boundaries. I do not like to watch horror movies involving torture. (I have never seen any of the Saw movies, for example.) In all honesty, I could even take or leave most gory stuff in horror films, but I do enjoy appreciating good makeup work when it comes to those scenes. Horror is an art in so many ways.

I grew up going to church, and I still have Christian beliefs, but I do not believe that my love of horror cinema contradicts any of this. In most horror films, we see evil being defeated. There's something oddly inspiring about these films where, for example, the shy nerdy girl who is just going along with her friends for a weekend in the woods must find her inner steel and rise above incredible difficulties to escape and defeat a killer after she is wounded and all of her friends are dead. We probably all have that inner steel inside us.

The funny thing is that my 240 or so horror movies that I own on Blu-ray are only a small fraction of the horror films that are available in the format. This is because, as I wrote above, my tastes are centered around horror from the 1970s and 1980s, with quite a few classic horror titles thrown in from older decades. I could take or leave most of the horror movies from the past 20 years, so I do not own a lot of contemporary horror.

[Gargus]

Horror fans tend to be collectors of the movies as well. People into more mainstream movies can watch, rent, download or whatnot mainstream movies all they want and are easily found on ebay, amazon, goodwill, fye and so on readily so there isnt a lot of collecting going on there. Plus most mainstream movies arent collected, they are watched once or maybe twice by a person and they move on. But horror fans tend to watch their movies many many times.

Then you have the fact most older movies are easily found, but older horror movies are not so much as they dont bring in the big bucks like say chinatown, gone with the wind, or rio grande would since they dont have the mass appeal so the horror movies tend to be under produced, if at all. But there are tons of horror movies that never made it past VHS.

But really it still boils down to most horror fans are collectors of the genre. Thats why you see so many horror figures, toys, retro collectibles, artbooks, conventions, tshirts, comic books, posters, replicas and so on for all of horror in general, because horror fans love to collect and make a hobby of horror movies.

[Abby is Q]

- How much of your collection is made up of such films?

Over 50% of my blu-rays, DVDs, and VHS tapes (which are put away somewhere and never watched) are horror.

- Did you start collecting the genre on Blu-ray or on a previous format?

Started on VHS, though about 90% of those were bootlegs. I have maybe 25% of bootlegs on DVD and all my blu-rays are studio releases.

- How does the feeling of watching a "sleazy" horror flick on Blu-ray differ from watching one on another format? Personally, I think the technical superiority of Blu-ray legitimizes works that I would otherwise dismiss as "trashy." VHS kind of has the opposite effect for me, and cheapens the look and feel of pretty much everything. However, a VHS collector in Adjust Your Tracking insisted that the clarity of Blu-ray ruins effects that aren't as clearly visible on VHS.

The better the quality the more enjoyable the movie watching experience is. When DVD was first new I thought I liked VHS more because the extra grain and fuzziness added something to low budget horror movies, but with studios like Vinegar Syndrome and Arrow I have completely changed my tone. Watching these movies with some clarity feels like I could be watching these movies in some slum of a theater on 42nd street back in the 70s/80s. That enhances the experience more than old VHS tapes that I can barely make out faces sometimes.

- Does Blu-ray provide the optimal viewing experience for these kinds of films? The VHS collectors in the two documentaries seem to favour the technical crudeness of tapes and VHS transfers over proper aspect ratios, bonus features, or increased resolution.

Pretty much answered above.

- How does the artwork for horror films compare between Blu-ray and previous formats? Do you ever buy BD releases because of the cover? The collectors in the docs praise VHS artwork and say that it was often the main reason they bought certain films (they also admitted that the cover often generated high expectations of quality or intensity that the film itself did not live up to).

VHS tops them all, but a lot of studios try to include the original artwork for movies so I have no complaints with the format. However, DVD was absolute trash for some covers (Alligator and From Beyond immediately come to mind).

- Does rarity/limited availability affect your purchase habits? A lot of these horror titles seem to have short production runs and occasionally a high price tag.

Yes. If it's rare and I don't own it on DVD already then it immediately becomes a high priority purchase. I've learned my lesson from putting off titles in the past, so if I have the money I pre-order pretty much anything that was a rarity before.

- Does it matter to you whether these titles are new or used? Referring to the VHS collectors once again, they seem to love the "history" of their tapes (visibly indicated by wear at certain points in the film, edits that reveal content taped over other content, etc.).

I prefer brand new. It was different with tape trading on VHS or cleaning out old rental stores of their stock when they closed down, but I always go with brand new.


Also, to answer the question of why horror is so popular, the answer is pretty easy. Horror is the only genre of movies that is still entertaining if the movie is "bad." Most horror collectors probably have dozens of movies they admit are bad because even the bad movies have some entertaining qualities. So horror collections tend to bulk up more quickly than other genres. I probably love the comedy genre as much as horror, but bad comedy is miserable so I don't usually blind buy comedy. That's why my comedy collection is outnumbered like 10:1 opposed to my horror collection.

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by Abby is Q

Also, to answer the question of why horror is so popular, the answer is pretty easy. Horror is the only genre of movies that is still entertaining if the movie is "bad." Most horror collectors probably have dozens of movies they admit are bad because even the bad movies have some entertaining qualities. So horror collections tend to bulk up more quickly than other genres. I probably love the comedy genre as much as horror, but bad comedy is miserable so I don't usually blind buy comedy. That's why my comedy collection is outnumbered like 10:1 opposed to my horror collection.

That is kind of a ridiculous statement and I'm confused as to how it keeps coming up as if it's some truth that applies to anyone other than horror fans. I'm sure many people that don't like horror would say the same thing about their genre of choice and say bad horror movies are just as unwatchable as bad films of any other genre.

I find just plain bad horror movies to be totally unwatchable (ex Sorority House Massacre). The horror genre is more prone than other genres to produce truly bizarre movies which aren't good by any conventional definition but certainly aren't boring, which I enjoy watching, though the same thing is frequently true of any other genre as well. Stuff like "The Room" or "Miami Connection" is fascinating due to its ambition and total failure, and I think that it falls into the same category as many of these "bad" horror films that are still watchable. Same deal with all those Cannon action flicks, etc.

[Abby is Q]

Originally Posted by cakefactory

That is kind of a ridiculous statement and I'm confused as to how it keeps coming up as if it's some truth that applies to anyone other than horror fans. I'm sure many people that don't like horror would say the same thing about their genre of choice and say bad horror movies are just as unwatchable as bad films of any other genre.

I find just plain bad horror movies to be totally unwatchable (ex Sorority House Massacre). The horror genre is more prone than other genres to produce truly bizarre movies which aren't good by any conventional definition but certainly aren't boring, which I enjoy watching, though the same thing is frequently true of any other genre as well. Stuff like "The Room" or "Miami Connection" is fascinating due to its ambition and total failure, and I think that it falls into the same category as many of these "bad" horror films that are still watchable. Same deal with all those Cannon action flicks, etc.

I was going to elaborate saying that action and comedy genres have a similar appeal, but refrained because I figured horror fans would understand where I was coming from. Yes, action and comedy genres have a bad movie appeal as well, but usually they're cult movies from the 70s-80s, whereas bad horror movies from the 50s-2000s have reached cult status. Movies like The Room and Miami Connection certainly have a cult status, but in the case of The Room it is an extreme case and I'd personally be hard pressed to name ten famously bad dramas that many drama collectors have in their collection.

And I wouldn't even compare Cannon to some of the stuff horror collectors buy. Cannon action movies are just generic and fun for being so blunt. I wouldn't compare them to movies like Manos, Troll 2, Plan 9, Zaat or other trash horror collectors buy.

[ThatOneGuy]

Originally Posted by Abby is Q

I was going to elaborate saying that action and comedy genres have a similar appeal, but refrained because I figured horror fans would understand where I was coming from. Yes, action and comedy genres have a bad movie appeal as well, but usually they're cult movies from the 70s-80s, whereas bad horror movies from the 50s-2000s have reached cult status. Movies like The Room and Miami Connection certainly have a cult status, but in the case of The Room it is an extreme case and I'd personally be hard pressed to name ten famously bad dramas that many drama collectors have in their collection.

And I wouldn't even compare Cannon to some of the stuff horror collectors buy. Cannon action movies are just generic and fun for being so blunt. I wouldn't compare them to movies like Manos, Troll 2, Plan 9, Zaat or other trash horror collectors buy.

Ehhhh, I'll argue that isn't true. 90s and older is where bad horror films are well loved, newer they are just straight up garbage.

Today is now bad sci-fi stuff like Sharknado.

[Abby is Q]

Originally Posted by John Klein

Ehhhh, I'll argue that isn't true. 90s and older is where bad horror films are well loved, newer they are just straight up garbage.

Today is now bad sci-fi stuff like Sharknado.

There are still a ton of bad horror movies from the 2000s that have their fans. The Wicker Man, Birdemic, House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Day of the Dead, Leprechaun in the Hood movies, Wrong Turn sequels, Gingerdead Man, Killjoy, etc etc.

And something I didn't mention before was that horror franchises tend to spawn tons of sequels that are only matched by the action genre. Considering many movie collectors are completionists, with something like 9 Hellraiser movies, 12 Friday the 13th movies, 10 Halloween movies, 7 Chucky movies, and many more, the horror genre is going to really bulk most collections.

[Dirk504]

My mom was into horror and kung fu movies when I was a kid growing up in the 80's. They were the only R-rated movies she'd let me watch. Fright Night and the Nightmare on Elm St. movies were some of our favorites. She'd buy the VHS tapes and let us watch them. While my collection is nowhere as big as most of you, I now have some of my favorite horror movies on Blu Ray. My favorite movie of all time, not just horror, is The Lost Boys.

[filmmusic]

I believe that horror genre is popular on BLuray (or any other home media) because the main customer group is straight males (and this genre is popular among them).

Imagine e.g only women buying blurays. The horror releases would be much much less.
I know this sounds very generalised or even sexist, but I think you can't deny the general tendencies among certain groups of people.
I'm sorry if my opinion offends anyone, it was not my intention.
just said what I think based on personal experience and observation.

Of course here among us, this doesn't apply very much because I'd like to think that most of us that are in this site aren't casual viewers but people with more expanded film tastes.
I was talking about the average viewer.

[ThatOneGuy]

Originally Posted by filmmusic

I believe that horror genre is popular on BLuray (or any other home media) because the main customer group is straight males (and this genre is popular among them).

Imagine e.g only women buying blurays. The horror releases would be much much less.
I know this sounds very generalised or even sexist, but I think you can't deny the general tendencies among certain groups of people.
I'm sorry if my opinion offends anyone, it was not my intention.
just said what I think based on personal experience and observation.

I know more women into horror then men (one of them being my own mother) so your statement rings wrong to me.

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by John Klein

I know more women into horror then men (one of them being my own mother) so your statement rings wrong to me.

Horror conventions have plenty of women. Probably a majority are there with their "partner in crime," but there are obviously plenty of single ones out there. If you look for the horror fans crazy enough to get tattoos of their favorite characters, the gender split is usually fairly even. I have never heard of a woman that independently obsessively collected blu-rays, though. And no, that's not sexist, cause obsessively collecting blu-rays is not something to be proud of

I'm sure there are exceptions out there, but the fact that many horror fan ones who would are married to someone that does means it probably doesn't matter either

[brettxwt]

Originally Posted by filmmusic

I believe that horror genre is popular on BLuray (or any other home media) because the main customer group is straight males (and this genre is popular among them).

Imagine e.g only women buying blurays. The horror releases would be much much less.
I know this sounds very generalised or even sexist, but I think you can't deny the general tendencies among certain groups of people.
I'm sorry if my opinion offends anyone, it was not my intention.
just said what I think based on personal experience and observation.

Of course here among us, this doesn't apply very much because I'd like to think that most of us that are in this site aren't casual viewers but people with more expanded film tastes.
I was talking about the average viewer.

Yeah, horror is mostly a guy thing

[Todd Tomorrow]

Originally Posted by brettxwt

Yeah, horror is mostly a guy thing

Not when I go to my annual horror film festival in London. Lots of women there and most of them real fans who didn't just get dragged along by their men against their will. Most horror films haven female characters in the lead and that appeals to many women. Horror will always be a little niche and not appeal to everybody because a lot of men and women don't enjoy getting scared. The only thing is that men nerd out a bit more about film in general than women and women don't tend to amass huge Blu-Ray collections.

[Abby is Q]

Originally Posted by Todd Tomorrow

Not when I go to my annual horror film festival in London. Lots of women there and most of them real fans who didn't just get dragged along by their men against their will. Most horror films haven female characters in the lead and that appeals to many women. Horror will always be a little niche and not appeal to everybody because a lot of men and women don't enjoy getting scared. The only thing is that men nerd out a bit more about film in general than women and women don't tend to amass huge Blu-Ray collections.

Yeah, we had this discussion in the significant others thread and the conclusion among us seemed to be that horror is generally more diverse than other genres.

I will say, however, men tend to outnumber women as fans of exploitation/grindhouse movies. There are exceptions (I'm one of them), but it seems that fans of late 60s/early 70s exploitation flicks tend to be men.

[joie]

Wow. This is where the site's brain trust is posting, possibly excluding myself. I mean people posting here are more articulate and can say something more meaningful than, "Day one!" or "All in!"

[Jaymole]

- How much of your collection is made up of such films?

I own almost 12,000 films on DVD & Blu and I would say that horror/sci-fi is at least 20%

- Did you start collecting the genre on Blu-ray or on a previous format?

I started collecting Laser Discs back in the 80's. I was never a fan of VHS

- How does the feeling of watching a "sleazy" horror flick on Blu-ray differ from watching one on another format? Personally, I think the technical superiority of Blu-ray legitimizes works that I would otherwise dismiss as "trashy." VHS kind of has the opposite effect for me, and cheapens the look and feel of pretty much everything. However, a VHS collector in Adjust Your Tracking insisted that the clarity of Blu-ray ruins effects that aren't as clearly visible on VHS.

I always disliked VHS and never collected it so I agree with what you say. I want to get as near to the cinematic experience as I can, and VHS goes the opposite direction


- Does Blu-ray provide the optimal viewing experience for these kinds of films? The VHS collectors in the two documentaries seem to favour the technical crudeness of tapes and VHS transfers over proper aspect ratios, bonus features, or increased resolution.

They might be nostalgic because they grew up with VHS, but VHS offers no redeeming features in watching these type of films. I know a collector of horror VHS and it was because he grew up with watching these films on VHS that he is a collector and prefers watching them on that format.


- How does the artwork for horror films compare between Blu-ray and previous formats? Do you ever buy BD releases because of the cover? The collectors in the docs praise VHS artwork and say that it was often the main reason they bought certain films (they also admitted that the cover often generated high expectations of quality or intensity that the film itself did not live up to).

I never buy a dvd or blu based on the cover, but nothing beats a Laserdisc jacket. However, I do love seeing the artwork on old VHS boxes of horror & exploitation films. There are books on this you can buy.

- Does rarity/limited availability affect your purchase habits? A lot of these horror titles seem to have short production runs and occasionally a high price tag.

It affects it in that I am more immediate in buying them than films put out by the larger studios, (which I will wait and buy when on sale), for fear of it becoming OOP. However I will not buy a film just because it is limited.

- Does it matter to you whether these titles are new or used? Referring to the VHS collectors once again, they seem to love the "history" of their tapes (visibly indicated by wear at certain points in the film, edits that reveal content taped over other content, etc.).

I prefer New, but I will buy used but only because of price and not because of their history.

[Val Lewton]

I'm surprised to see so many people bring up gender in regards to liking horror movies. It's always been my experience that women like horror just as much as men.

I grew up in the 80's. Horror and slasher movies were our date movies. These movies were aimed at teens. There's a reason they churned out so many of them during that time period - they made tons of money. This is what we were paying for. Paramount weren't churning out a new Friday the 13th every year for their artistic merits.

I had sisters growing up. When they had sleepovers, it was part of their ritual to rent scary movies. Anecdotally, most females I knew back then loved them as much as men. My current girlfriend loves horror, most of her female friends love horror, and my former girlfriends loved horror.

This might be a generational thing. It could be that those of us considered Generation X were just inundated with these types of films, so there's quite a bit of nostalgia when it comes to watching these things.

The real gender gap comes from the collecting aspect of it. Although I know many females that love horror, I know very few that feel the need to obsessively collect them in a physical format. It's the same with music. Everyone loves music, but all of my friends that obsessively collect vinyl or CDs are male. There are exceptions, of course, but the act of collecting physical forms of entertainment seems to be mostly a characteristic of males.

Although I know they're out there, I've yet to meet a female that feels the need to own every Criterion release and go to extreme measures to make sure there's not a gap in their spine numbers...