Not everyone likes a horror movie, but there are horror movies out there that aren’t quite that scary even if they do manage to get a rise out of some people. The fact is that some horror movies kind of miss the whole ‘horror’ aspect either by design or by accident since they end up focusing on other factors within the movie that make the horror stand out less and less. This is actually great for those that don’t enjoy the constant jump scares in some movies that are meant to elicit some type of effect, be it a scream or a heart attack, hopefully not the latter. But with the horror movies listed below, which have been designated as horror throughout the years, it’s fair to say that as much as they might cling to the horror aspect due to the content of the movie, they end up feeling like something entirely different by the time all is said and done. It could be that the director of each movie meant to do something a little different but had to work around various restraints on their vision, or it could be that this was what passed for scary back in the day. In any case, these movies felt like something other than horror.
Here are a few horror movies that didn’t feel like horror movies.
5. The Wicker Man
This just felt like suspense all the way through, both the original and the remake, since the focus on the cult activity was something that couldn’t be missed. But the whole idea behind this movie was that the protagonist was trying to figure out what had happened to the person he was searching for and why it would appear that no one was willing to talk to him. People have stated that the original was better than the remake, but the truth is that for a story such as this the potential was definitely there, but something was missed out on within the movie and it was never really recovered.
4. The Craft
It’s not quite a coming of age story, but it definitely has the teenage angst element to it since the girls are trying to fit in and seeking to find acceptance in a school where people have already made up their minds about them based on how they look. The desire for a change, for the power to create change, is something that a lot of people would want, but the ability to find it and tap into it is something that could obviously twist a person beyond their capability of control. While the movie was entertaining enough, it was worth an eye roll since giving people what they want, and plenty of it, often becomes a recipe for disaster.
3. Jaws
There’s no need to say that this movie was awful since it still stands as one of the best movies of all time and there’s a reason why it’s remembered. But Steven Spielberg was working against a lot of challenges that he had to continually push past and kept having issues with one thing or another on the set. Trying to work with a huge animatronic shark wasn’t bound to be easy, and to be honest, even thinking about having to at like you’re being eaten by the thing might make a lot of people nervous. But the scares kind of came and went pretty quickly since once the three men took off it was understood that the shark’s days were numbered.
2. Van Helsing
This was a CGI nightmare to start with since the idea to allow the vampires to unhinge their jaws like anacondas if such snakes had those huge, sickle-like teeth, was kind of nuts, but at least the werewolves literally ripping out of their skin was kind of interesting. Still, there was more humor to this movie than anything since the horror element was there and it was used in some way, but it definitely wasn’t to provide the type of scares that people are used to from vampire and werewolf movies. When a movie like The Howling can put another movie to shame it’s more than evident that the main goal wasn’t to terrify.
1. Ghostbusters
Yes, this was actually thought of as a horror movie at one time, but now it’s listed as a supernatural comedy, and rightfully so. There are a few moments in this movie when people are bound to be scared if they’ve never watched a horror movie, but the rest of the time they’re bound to be laughing since the actors did such a great job that it’s hard to say that it’s anything but funny. But yes, the two demon dogs were definitely nightmare fuel back in the day to anyone that was watching this movie as a kid.
Sometimes horror doesn’t have to be horrifying.
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