That bump in the night, the chill down your spine, or that five second heart attack that you get when the unexpected happens, whatever it is that is keeping the popularity of horror alive,but not just any type of horror psychological horror. This type of genre is constantly used in horror movies where the main conflicts in the movie would not be physical but a mental threat causing us to tread in the mind of our protagonist who eventually enters a state of hysteria as a result of subcuming to the madness. If we were to break the word down we get psycho- meaning mentally disturbed and logical- meaning coherent. Horror movies are not just made to entertain us, but to mess with our emotions and reveal that inner baby in you. Why do we bother with prying open our wallets to pay for a movie consisting of only death and suffering?

A reoccuring theme in a horror movie is suspense and this is wonderfully displayed in the Japanese horror film Ju-on. Even though it is a older movie it still contains that one essential asset for horror movies: silence. Silence can build up a bunch of tension to keep us viewers expecting the worst, this is where the psychological part comes in as the viewer watches the film we recall the moments when we were children, all of those fears and the “monster in my closet” mindset is pulled out from that graveyard that we know as the subconscious. Allowing us exposure to our fears in a safe environment. We adore this genre so much that we would throw money at James Wan - the director of Saw- to give us a sequel or even a prequel.On Halloween 2004 the first instalment of Saw was introduced to the world, we watched as our characters struggled to survive by solving various puzzles given to them by a serial killer who goes by the name of “Jigsaw” failure to succeed will result in death. Saw in America got a total of $18,276,468 on the opening weekend, but why are horror movies being successful when it comes to America?

Horror movies have been successful over the years because the creators have to spend less movie than an action powered movie such as Fast and Furious. The reason behind this because they do not have to spend big bucks on trying to get famous actors and actress such as Leonardo DiCaprio or Cate Blanchett. For example movies like Inception had a budget around $160,000,000 while Paranormal Activity kept a budget of $15,000. This leaves them with having only to spend a small amount of money without the stress of going over the budget. Which is why this hamster wheel we call horror will not stop spinning because when they can make a low budget movie and still get profits that are at least over $10,000,000 there is no way they are going to stop using this system, but horror in general has transformed over the years.

Final Destination 5 is an example of horror falling into the cesspool of nothingness, whenever excessive and unnecessary amounts of gore have to be put into a movie it is not horror its just revolting. This just pushes us back to 80 AD when Roman citizens would pay to watch people fight for their lives as they were either mauled or murdered by someone or a wild beast. Thriller should be the main focus for a good horror movie because without it we are stuck sitting on a bench watching as Saw VII and Scream 5 emerge from the ground of repetition.