"It's only a movie, and, after all, we're all grossly overpaid."

Thriller, horror, and suspense films have really declined in their quality. Using quotes from the master of the genre himself, Alfred Hitchcock, I will, in short order, plot out why. (plot... get it? Alright, alright... back to the actual post)

      "There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it."

Story tellers have began to focus on the nasty creature rather than letting the audience come up with their own nasty creature (or whatever the object to be feared is).  This just makes the movie a movie with a nasty creature.  The audience has no personalized monster, and there is no fear of this... just disgust.  When Milton Arbogast is killed in Hitchcock's Psycho(1960), the anticipation of what is coming is built up by his slow ascent up the stairs.  You know something will happen, but you don't know exactly what and when.  It isn't him getting killed, its waiting for it.

            "Film your murders like love scenes, and film

                    your love scenes like murders."

This is one of the huge problems with horror and thriller movies today.  Directors are actually filming murders like murders and love scenes like love scenes.  There is nothing unusual about that, so there is nothing to make an audience member feel uncomfortable.

         "Man does not live by murder alone.  He needs affection,

                  approval, encouragement and, occasionally, 

                               a hearty meal."

Another trait of villain characters in Hitchcock films is they are still natural.  No mutant people or alien creatures are there, and none of them are freaky creations of a prop department.  Because of this, they are inherently freakier to the audience because they are not instantly hateable because they are hideous.

       "To make a great film you need three things -

                the script, the script and the script."

Sorry, but Saw doesn't have a lot of plot to it: Sick man named after a type of puzzle puts people in situations where they must make choices concerning their life with real consequences.  This has now run on for five installments.  Really?  Get something new please.  Scare and suspense can't be made out of disgusting alone.

"Some films are slices of life, mine are slices of cake."

I really don't know what this means, but its funny.  This is the part for my conclusion.  Today's horror, thriller, and suspense movies rely 100% on the visual content, whereas Hitchcock's work was about the story.  Which takes more skill?  Hitchcock's.  Which is actually more frightening and unnerving?  Hitchcock's.  

       "Fear isn't so difficult to understand. After all, weren't we all frightened as children? Nothing has changed since Little Red Riding Hood faced the big bad wolf. What frightens us today is exactly the same sort of thing that frightened us yesterday. It's just a different wolf. This fright complex is rooted in every individual."

-Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980)