Movies have been around for longer than you or I have, and they’ve gone through quite the evolution. Where movies used to be slow-paced, almost intimate and more about the (over)acting than the visual effects, they’ve now turned into fast-paced CGI-infested epic tales. But not all evolution is a good thing.
Certain genres have seriously been missing from our cinematographic diversity in the last few years, and it’s about time we start reviving some of them. Let’s take a look at some genres that we really need to get back on the big screen this year.
Spaghetti Western
I mean, has there been any of these lately? Can’t you just see Clint Eastwood in “The Good the Bad and the Ugly” or “Fist Full of Dollars” or “For A Few Dollar More”. Classics all, with a real authentic feel of good versus evil. There’s been a huge gaping hole in our recent movie history when it comes to a good old fashioned tale of bandits and cowboys shooting up the early days of the United States of America. Come on Clint, park the Gran Torino and put that poncho back on and ride a horse.
Slasher Horror
Apart from a few lousy remakes, we haven’t had a revival of the slasher horror genre since the Scream series. And to think that pretty much half the movies made in the 80s were slasher horror! My guy for all time to go slashing was Freddy Krueger and “Nightmare On Elm Street” killing people while they were dreaming. What a concept!
Found Footage
Where the Blair Witch Project movie started a hype, it also almost immediately ended it. Found footage movies are now commonly associated with “B-films”. This technically means “low budget”, but nowadays just means “bad”.
Hood Films
We’ve had Straight Outta Compton a few years back, but we need more movies like that. Hoods are still very much a thing in lots of places in the world, so why wouldn’t we make movies about them? Joe Pesci in the 1990 Martin Scorsese movie “Good Fellas“ stands out as the ultimate psychotic Mafia hood who would decide to kill someone for no reason at all. John Travolta in Pulp Fiction also trail-blazed a unique character as Pesci had done.
Parody Movies
I’ll admit the Scary Movie series ruined horror movies and parody movies alike, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have good parody movies anymore, right?
Film Noir
By which we don’t mean “movies in black and white”. Film Noir is more about the specific tone, where characters often break the fourth wall – at least they did it in the old movies. The only actual modern example of it would probably be “Sin City“.
Creature Movies
People running from huge bugs for 120 minutes on end. What’s not to like about that? I was always a fan of the early Japanese movies that filmed common yard lizards with a macro camera showing the guy as gigantic critter ready to devour Tokyo. Primitive but so cool.
