Anything purporting to tell a story that doesn’t involve something supernatural that involves clever and creative ways to kill idiot characters doesn’t do it for me. Those movies should be 10 minutes long. The group of protagonists has one never killed. The rest get big weapons devise a good plan of attack and stalk the killer who is alone. They corner the killer and disable him and call the police. Or they just kill him. End of movie. There is a reason that commercial mocking those sort of movies was so accurate.
To me a scary movie has to build tension and have either a mystery or a story to tell and preferably the supernatural elements follow some sort of consistent structure. The Exorcist is a classic. The original and even American versions of the first two Grudge movies. Jacob’s Ladder remains an underrated classic in my view. The Sixth Sense was great the first few times but obviously it loses something with repeated viewings. There are some days I like The Shining and some I think it’s brilliant. The first Halloween was reasonably well done and along with Psycho is really the only slasher movie that works for my taste. Nosferatu is still fun to watch.
I don't disagree. Horror movies go into two camps for me.
A film like 'The Strangers' or 'Open Water' that can use natural fear to scare you. (Open Water is my favorite horror movie of the last 20 years)
Or an unabashed gorefest that you watch not for the storyline (although Terrifer has an entire universe of world building) but for the bloody kills. I rather watch these movies more often than not.
It's a lot like superhero movies. I don't watch Batman to be NCIS in a cape. I watch Batman to see him kick the shit out the Penguin and the Riddler. I think there is a place in film for pure escapism. I think more movies try to be dark for the sake of being dark. We need more light heartedness in a film.
Horror movie-wise that's what made the original 'Scream' so good. It let us in on the joke while still being authentic to old school 70s and 80s slashers.
I'll put it this way.
If I want a deep horror movie that makes me think I'll watch 'The Wicker Man'
If I want a so stupid it's good movie I'll watch *the other* Wicker Man.
Fun fact about the original Halloween. It's one of a handful of horror movies that Gene Siskel actually liked.