Five years have passed since I last watched a true horror movie.  I think the last one was the original Saw, and I did not like it.  Last night I decided to give the genre another chance and decided to view 30 Days of Night.

My interest in this movie sparked for a couple of reasons.  Vampire folklore has always been of interest to me, which gives reason to why Buffy the Vampire Slayer is possibly my favorite television show.  As you read above, it has also been quite some time since I last saw a movie in this genre as well, so I decided to give it a go.

After finishing 30 Days of Night, I am reminded why so much time has passed since the horror movie.  For one, it seems like movies of this genre just try and scare you for no other reason than to scare you.  And that ends up being counter-productive.  I jumped more during Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince than during this movie.  When you are ready to be scared or frightened, it just does not happen as much.

I also found all the gore to be pointless and overdone.  While watching a rather un-enjoyable scene where the vampires wreck havoc on the Alaskan town, I turned to my wife and said, “I bet the reason the camera never stays still is because they don’t want us to see how unrealistic all the effects are.”  Even if the effects were realistic, why would I want to see someone getting attacked?  This is not something we should enjoy watching.

So here is my conclusion.  I do not feel like the horror genre is necessarily a bad thing, however, find movies like this to be over-the-top and rather disgusting.  We have the freedom to watch movies like this as long as it does not cause us to sin.  My guess is I will not be watching another horror movie for quite some time, if ever.