Sep '18
70s vs 80s horror. A long discussed topic, though maybe losing its relevance the further in time we continue and the more distant those decades become. The way pre-70s horror really has no influence on me or my tastes, 70s-80s horror is an ancient relic to the current generation.
But anyway, that isn't really what this topic's about. I'm aging and out of touch and fine with that.
I'm team 80s horror all the way. The conundrum that I'm in is, for folks that prefer 70s horror, why? Yes, there's plenty to love from that decade. But dang. Aren't there more horror films from 1981 alone than the years 1970-1974 combined that are just....well, better? Yeah, I get that it's all subjective. And quality over quantity and all that. I dunno. What're your thoughts? How can you honestly prefer 70s horror as a whole, over 80s, when there's just not nearly as much to like? For collectors, wouldn't you agree your collection is made up of more 80s horror films than 70s?
I mean, I suppose if you own 100 films from the 80s but only 15 of them you rate, say, an 8/10, and own 20 films from the 70s and 15 of them you rate an 8/10....I suppose I can see one's point.
*partially inspired by Troma's 70s horror thread.
But anyway, that isn't really what this topic's about. I'm aging and out of touch and fine with that.
I'm team 80s horror all the way. The conundrum that I'm in is, for folks that prefer 70s horror, why? Yes, there's plenty to love from that decade. But dang. Aren't there more horror films from 1981 alone than the years 1970-1974 combined that are just....well, better? Yeah, I get that it's all subjective. And quality over quantity and all that. I dunno. What're your thoughts? How can you honestly prefer 70s horror as a whole, over 80s, when there's just not nearly as much to like? For collectors, wouldn't you agree your collection is made up of more 80s horror films than 70s?
I mean, I suppose if you own 100 films from the 80s but only 15 of them you rate, say, an 8/10, and own 20 films from the 70s and 15 of them you rate an 8/10....I suppose I can see one's point.
*partially inspired by Troma's 70s horror thread.
One thing about the 70's is that some of the horror was less corporate, more genuine... I think of Audrey Rose when I think of this subject. There was some real, deep-seated middle-American unease with un-Christian religions and paradigms, and with anything new or "alien" (non-Western, non-Anglo... foreign). Race with the Devil captured this, too... I guess you could say the 80's had the Satanic panic going on, so I just disproved my own point... swell. The Exorcist is another example of what I'm trying to say. I'm pretty sure a LOT of people out there don't really understand that it's fiction at all. It gets into your mind on such a deep level, it just sways people. I think that came out of the zeitgeist of the late 60's and 70's, somehow, it couldn't have been made in the way it was at any other period.
What else, what else... The book Future Shock came out around 1970. People were really flipping out about things becoming more science fictiony in the 70's. I think the really serious horror movies of that decade were part of a reaction to science and progress... you could say that the Moral Majority, and various similar things that went on in the 80's, were a continuation of the same reaction.
Sorry, I'm just rambling. Trying to state what makes decades different is hard.