10 Exact Moments Horror Movies Stop Trying
When writers, directors, and even the cast just CBA anymore and begin to phone it in.
Horror has never been a genre that demands maximum effort. Writers and directors have historically used horror to titillate, shock, and scare, without caring too much what Roger Ebert and Co. think. However.
There is a big difference between a horror movie being chaotic fun and frights, and it just being a mess, a bore, or a brainless slog. And there have been plenty of films over the years that have roped us in with bold plots, kooky characters, insane villains, and tantalising setups, but then failed to deliver. Just think of the difference in how you felt before and after watching Alien: Covenant, the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street remakes, or most of M. Night Shyamalan’s work for the past two decades.
So often, there is a definite tipping point where what was an excellent, promising, or at least bearable film either re-attaches the stabilisers or goes completely off the rails, with neither option resulting in an especially enjoyable ride. In some cases the writers and directors are just lazy, figuring that if audiences can be snagged with an elevator pitch and a trailer then it's job done; in others there’s an inability to think far enough ahead to do their own ideas justice; and far too many paint themselves into a corner and simply don't know how to get out.
Whatever the reason, here are the results, with the 10 exact moments where horror movies stop trying.
10. Nope (2022)
Writer-director Jordan Peele's third effort, Nope, brings UFOs to the US desert – precisely where they belong. We join Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer as OJ and Em Haywood, a brother-sister horse-wrangling team working with the movie biz in California. But when their ranch is beset by strange occurrences – random objects falling from the clouds, horses going missing, electricity fluctuating – they look to the skies for their answers, where a Stetson-shaped UFO is a-lurkin’.
Despite having plenty of experience in the horror arena, with two prior features (Us and Get Out) that manage to sustain and develop their core concerns in genuinely surprising ways, Peele fumbles the ball on Nope. And the moment the film begins to fail is the Star Lasso Experience scene: former child star Jupe Park (Steven Yeun) puts on a show designed to entice the UFO out, and the entire crowd winds up getting sucked up inside the creature's big fabric belly, showing us its basic design first-hand.
After a strong start and plenty of tantalising mystery, Peele chucks it all in by making the UFO just a big, dumb beast to be tamed, and the strange events surrounding it are reduced to it just eating things. As a result, Nope becomes a creature feature of the wrong kind.