Hello, everyone. Much has changed since my trip to Phoenix, but I'm still trying to pull myself together since then. I must confess that a good part of it was my fault, and since then, I've been feeling the burning aftermath of my decision in all of it's loneliness. I will also say that out of this, things can only get better. When one door closes, God opens a new one, and I hope that this new door will take me to wonderful places indeed. If everyone would, I would like happy thoughts and/or prayers sent my way over this subject, and I'm going to do my part to make things better. This may be something I've wanted for years and that fate is finally providing for us, but it's going to take a lot of work to achieve.

That said, onwards and upwards.

Since the last Halloween of the 2000s is right around the corner, and because I'm actually busy that weekend, I decided I was going to write a little bit about the horror movies that have come out during the last decade. Horror is my favorite movie genre by all means, and if anyone knows me, they know I'm also big on the aesthetic, literary appeal of them.

To begin with this subject, I'm going to say that these past few years have not been kind to horror. For the past three decades, the genre seems to have focused on slasher gore and shock tactics to only cause audiences a mere jump in their seats without really leaving a lasting impression. Some of them have wonderful charm and provide great entertainment, like "Halloween" or "A Nightmare on Elm Street", but they're not altogether terrifying, at least not to me. Many of the ones through the '80s and into the 2000s have become white noise schlock and have flown over the radar. It seems that by the time this decade rolled around that the genre had been reduced to cheap thrills that anyone could just easily produce and make money from.

There are, however, a few shining examples that filmmakers are still trying to keep the genre alive with, using artistic talent and genuine terror. These films go beyond the cheap scares and shock tactics and with brilliant work, creating something that is A grade scary.

Now, the first film for me of this quality that came out in 2001 is "The Others". Now, this film had a fairly low budget and only a few special effects, but it got under our skin with it's believable period piece design, omission of detail, and gothic atmosphere. Plus, Nicole Kidman's acting was fantastic, along with the kids and the house servants. Many of the actions of the characters seem very odd at first, but then once you find out the mystery behind both the house and the characters, it all makes perfect sense. By the second time you watch it, these odd behaviors become entertaining clues to the ending you know is coming.

The next big horror film of the decade for me was the American remake of "The Ring". It must also be said that during the end of the '90s, the Japanese had really begun making their own name in the genre, with such titles as "Audition" and "Ringu". It was only a matter of time before big American movie heads decided that they wanted to make their own version of these films for their own audiences. With the remake of this film, we get an unusual story of what seems like an evil chain letter. The plot revolves around a cursed video tape that kills you seven days after you watch it. Slowly but surely, through clever plot designs, we get an explanation of how it came to be, with the evil psychic implementation of a mean spirited psychic girl, who seems to be the female version of Damien from "The Omen". Her adopted parents killed her because they saw what she was doing to the people around her, but in the wake of her death, her evil deeds continued to live on. The subtle imagery, great performances, and brilliant direction of Gore Verbinski made everything about this film work and work well.

The following year produced another fantastic work from British director Danny Boyle with a new twist on the living dead while providing a realistic picture of the brutal lengths people will go to to survive in a post apocalyptic world. I am of course talking about "28 Days Later". Right from the get go, we get a scant explanation and a lot of intensity. The protagonist is a coma patient who has been asleep since the zombie infection has spread ("rage" as the scientist calls it at the beginning) and has woken in this world where the town of London that he's known for so long has been destroyed. It's hard not to see ourselves in his shoes from there, because we can really see the pain and agony on his face and his actions, and the audience can only imagine what it would be like having lost everything we've held dear to us. Cilian Murphy quickly became one of my favorite actors after this film, and I also discovered how much of a genius Boyle actually is. There's a lot of intensity, but there's still the occasional playfulness to take the edge off. Plus, it actually has an optimistic ending, which I always love seeing in horror films, as I don't feel it always right that these characters that we've been supposed to relate to have endured so much only to be met with defeat (*cough*Drag Me To Hell*cough*). Here, at least, we see the characters survive and possibly have a better life.

The genre had been fairly quiet of A grade for a few years, focusing more on the gory, shocking "Saw" films rather than something substantial. I will admit I did like the first two Saw films, at least since I didn't take them too seriously and went in with low expectations. I expected a poor man's "Se7en", and that's what I got with them. Once the third one rolled around, I was pretty burnt out on it, as the plots just got needlessly senseless. Since then, these films have unfortunately been on a downward spiral. They've just overly milked this series where they could have ended it with the first film and left it at that.

Of course, the same year the third "Saw" came out, I was treated to something I did not expect, an artistic monster movie, this being "The Descent". While at first glance, it looks similar to the schlock film that came out a few years before called "The Cave", but upon viewing it, one can find that the two are far from comparable. Critics were quick to compare it to "Alien", namely in its sense of isolation and claustrophobic atmosphere. This film, however, is more than just that. If you were to take a character who is already suffering the mental strains of post traumatic stress disorder from losing her husband and daughter (the former we find out later had been cheating on her behind her back in an extremely subtle plot device that I didn't catch during the first time I watched it) and throw her in an enclosed area with a bunch of monsters, you've got both the physical terror as well as the psychological terror. With "Alien", Ripley was a perfectly sane and strong-willed character who could pull herself together even in the worst of times. Sarah, however, is not, which adds to the level of tension and had to slowly become the tough amazon with a pick axe to fight her way through the horde of creatures and, eventually, exact her revenge on Juno, the woman who her husband cheated on her with and who ultimately led them down to this situation in the first place. Like "Silent Hill 2", nearly everything in this film is symbolic of something else, but it's not too flashy or in your face to take away from the nightmarish experience. With the director's cut, we're given an alternate ending that we have to decide if it was actually better. I'm still in debate on this as well, but I won't spoil it for those who have not seen it yet. I must also say that I'm not sure how I feel about them making a sequel to it.

On the subject of sequels, they generally are never as good as the original. In 2007, there was a tremendous exception to that with "28 Weeks Later". Here, we see how the human race has tried to reform their lives and civilizations. But soon, the audience realizes that this epidemic is still not over and that the virus is being contained by an imperfect system from which it soon breaks loose again. One of the things about this film that a lot of people actually didn't like that I actually did was the fact that it was constantly intense. There were moments of which it would slow down, but when it would, all the audience would get were just morose undertones and sullen reflections on how things might have been. Yet, even in the end, when all hope seems lost, we still get something of an optimistic end with the two kids having immunity in their blood which means the possibility of a cure. To me, it's the perfect horror film. Give us nonstop intensity but still have at least the main heroes overcome these challenges.

Now to write about what I wanted to write about from the beginning: "Paranormal Activity". I have been searching since I was nine years old for something that could match the 1963 version of "The Haunting". It's one of my favorite movies of all time and it has terrified me for many a year with it's use of sound and lack of light. It was a brilliant film by Robert Wise that showed his versatility and his understanding of the art of omission. Now, when I first heard about "Paranormal Activity" and was hearing all the hype from critics, I was more than a little stoked. I was worried I'd never get to see it, however, since it was only playing in select theaters. Well, I just happened to be in Arizona at the time and got to see it before it was demanded enough to be seen everywhere. Now, I did know that this was not the original version from the Los Angeles film festivals where it originally aired, but I was still looking forward to seeing what they were going to give us. When I left the theaters, I had no words for what I had seen, other than that I had finally found a match for "The Haunting". "Paranormal Activity" has revived the long forgotten art of building terror through building tension, playing on the imagination of audiences without actually showing the monster or relying so much on shock tactics. It shows no monster and very little blood, but it uses low lights, well timed sound effects, and solid performances of each of the actors. While you're focused on seeing the genuine care between each of the characters and relating to their situation, and with the creature slowly breaking them down, the film gets under the viewers skin and festers like a disease. When I said builds the tension, I mean that it starts off very slow with only minor things happening around the house. Then, it gradually escalates into a collection of bad fever dreams that the characters cannot awake from. Like bloody-disgusting.com said, you will be affected. It's one of the scariest films in decades and a perfect example for the standard of future horror films. Less is more, and hopefully the directors of the '10s will realize this as well.

Thus, we have a look back at the sophistication of terror through this past decade. While the genre has shown quite a few disappointments during this decade, these are the prime examples of what true horror can be. I will say that these are also based on my own opinion, and I'm sure that each of you have your own opinions of these films and others through the decade.

Have a Happy Halloween everyone; I hope you all will keep me in your thoughts in the coming days.