CREDIT: KIM GOTTLIEB
The original Halloween movie released in 1978 starred Tony Moran as Michael Myers and Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode.

I remember a time — okay, given my age, it was not a particularly long time ago — when scary movies were actually scary. I don't mean like they are today, how they are deeply disturbing and unsettling, but I mean frightening. I remember a time when I would rent a movie, sit in my basement in the dark watching it and be afraid! So I have to wonder, what has happened to all the scary movies?

Back in the 1980s, when the whole "slasher" genre was just starting to take off, scary movies were more than just blood and guts. Sure, when Jason Voorhees goes after his victims with a machete, there is a lot of blood, and yes, when the crazy hillbillies in Texas Chainsaw Massacre get out their chainsaws, it isn't all roses and gumdrops. But there has been a dramatic shift in the way scary movies are made, and the things that make them scary have taken a turn to the macabre.

I personally am a big fan of the original Halloween film; it has everything you need to make a film truly frightening. You've got the deranged, sociopathic brother who, though he should be locked in an asylum somewhere, has managed to escape; the sister who escaped his murderous rampage the first time and is sure she's safe now; and of course the backdrop of the Halloween holiday. Halloween is one of those movies that you watch on the edge of your seat, holding in a breath and digging your fingers into the armrest. When Michael Myers appears out of the shadows, you are startled — you maybe even gasp a little in shock. Your heart races. That is a good scary movie experience.

Now let's look at the new generation of scary movies. It started a few years back with Saw. Granted, the first flick in the seemingly endless series was quite frightening. It had a great twist at the end, a lot of suspense and just a hint of too much blood and guts. Follow that with the Hostel flicks and a handful of other similar movies and you've got yourself a new genre: torture porn.

The pinnacle of torture porn is beyond a doubt The Human Centipede: a movie about a man who kidnaps strangers and surgically binds them together to create a monstrosity with one very long digestive system. There is nothing suspenseful about this. There is nothing jump-out-of-your-seat startling about this. It's just a gruesome look at what would happen if a crazed doctor performed perverted surgeries.

I don't know about you, but I'm not one to watch nightmarish, perverted, deeply disturbing flicks where there is more blood, pain and terror than any sort of plotline. I want Michael Myers back. I want Freddy Krueger back. I want a good, old-fashioned slasher that will make me jump out of my seat, not require a therapist to help me work through the aftermath.