8 Horror Movies That Could Never Be Made These Days

Horror movies, by their very nature, are designed to shock the audience. In their search for new ways to scare people, they always push boundaries and explore taboo subjects. That's why we like them. They show us things that seem like they should remain invisible.

Sometimes, though, even a horror movie can go too far. They can represent something truly depraved or reflect values ​​and ideas that are at odds with the modern world.

The films below all fall into one of these categories. (Some may even fall into both.) Most are still pretty scary. Some can even be considered “classics” of the genre. But you can bet none of them would be made today.

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

This horrific cannibal film was hugely controversial and influential; is one of the first examples of a found footage horror film, nearly two decades before the Blair Witch Project. It also tried to use the same marketing gimmick, with the filmmakers claiming the film was a legitimate documentary and not a work of fiction.

For a while, the ruse worked quite well; director Ruggero Deodato was arrested at one point for the murders of his actors. (Eventually, the actors appeared in court, the deception was explained, and the case was dismissed.)

The acts of violence against animals in the Cannibal Holocaust were not faked, and today that would be their biggest problem. (Pigs, monkeys, snakes and turtles are killed on screen.) There would be a publicity holocaust if a movie attempted that feat today.

The Evil Dead (1981)

Many horror movies are low-budget, created by independent (read: broke) artists. They can't afford fancy special effects or big movie stars, so they try to attract an audience. going further than the competition, depicting more sadistic and bloody acts than previous films would have bold.

Sam Raimi was barely 20 when he scraped together the money and equipment to make the original Evil Dead. The film became a cult hit and launched his career, although Raimi would later say he regretted part of it. shocking material in the film, especially the sequence where a woman is sexually assaulted by an evil tree. In a documentary about the film a few years later, Raimi said he regretted the scene.

Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975)

Many signature horror titles from the past - even some of the most disturbing ones - have been sequeled or rebooted in recent years. Not Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS. The material is very depraved, with a relentless series of torture and assaults on concentration camp victims perpetrated by the hypersexual Ilsa.

The film opens with a statement from the producer, insisting that Ilsa is based on "documented fact", which is broadly true; there was an infamous Nazi woman named Ilse Koch, nicknamed “The Beast of Buchenwald”, who carried out sadistic experiments and abuses against her prisoners.

But Ilsa turned that real tragedy into a repulsive image of sexual exploitation. The graphic violence and rampant sexuality made it a huge hit at drive-ins and grindhouses in the '70s, and it spawned three sequels, all starring Thorne. But the notion of reviving a film that mines genuine Holocaust trauma in search of sinister erotic sensations seems inconceivable in the 2020s.

Megan Is Missing (2011)

This found-footage horror film about the disappearance of two teenage girls barely made a difference. in the pop culture landscape when it was first released in 2011, years after its production initial.

Nearly a decade later, teens discovered the film and its shocking depictions of sexual violence against underage women and began posting about it on TikTok.

The publicity grew so much that the film's director, Michael Goi, actually responded, warning potential viewers not to watch the movie alone, or maybe not watch it at all "before you start seeing things you might not want to see. ”

Monster Squad (1987)

Compared to every other movie on this list, The Monster Squad is ridiculously tame. But by kids' movie standards, it's surprisingly intense; monsters are blown up, torn apart, shot with shotguns and stabbed in the chest.

Because it is a film about teenagers in the 1980s, the dialogue is also peppered with homophobic slurs. All of these combined strongly suggest that we'll never get an unabashed horror movie for kids like Monster Squad again.

Necromancer (1987)

Necromancer is like a greatest hits collection that you would never get to see in a horror movie today. It includes autopsies, violence, cruelty to animals and necrophilia – though not necessarily in that order.

The film focuses on a necrophiliac who works for a company that cleans up crime scenes, and it only gets more disturbing from there. According to Wikipedia, the film remains banned in Iceland, Norway, Malaysia, Singapore and parts of Canada.

Salò, or the 120 days of Sodom

Since its initial release in 1975, Salò, or the 120 days of Sodom, has been a test case for cinephiles and connoisseurs of extreme cinema. Adapted from the famous novel by the Marquis de Sade, Pier Paolo Pasolini's film is a violent and depraved, with four wealthy libertines relentlessly abusing a mansion full of young men and women. girls.

That said, Salò is considered an important (if brutal) work of cinema by many film critics and is taught as part of the curriculum at some film schools.

A Serbian film (2010)

The horrific, abusive, degrading, nightmarish mix of sexuality and violence in “A Serbian Film” should never be made again. Arguably, it shouldn't have been done the first time.