17. Killing is My Business and Business is Good!
Horror films = deaths. That's the case 99 percent of the time. People do not go to watch the Final Destination franchise for a romance or for the comedy. They go to watch how suspenseful and inventive the makers of the film can stage the deaths (my favourite Final Destination death was in the third instalment - the two girls in the sunbeds). A lot of the fun in horror films is picking out who is going to croak and who is going to survive. The more entertainingly/violently/shockingly they are killed, the higher the audience satisfaction. A good death scene passes into horror film lore and can make a movie. Just think about the opening sequence to Suspiria. Just think about how satisfying it was to watch Paris Hilton cop it in the head in House of Wax. Horror is perhaps the only genre where you can enjoy death as a spectacle, in other genres you feel bad about it. But when you get a bunch of dumb teenagers in a silly situation, you have no emotional investment in them and you know they are pure canon fodder. Bring on the chainsaws, nail guns, hot pokers and other implements! Wild bloody mayhem makes horror rule the world!