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I'm curious where the line is between "horror" and "monster" movies. When does the make-up for vampires, werewolves, and whatever other beasties raise the investment budget up into "sci-fi" or "fantasy" or other lower return genres?

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I've always thought of monster movies as a subgenre within horror movies. Hard to say what the difference is between scifi and fantasy.

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I like this genre and generally the uglier the better. I have seen some B-movie gorefest type films which have made me feel grubby that I enjoyed them despite better instincts. But there's a sort of a cartoonish quality to some of them to keep you from entering through the gates of hell completely. I think what is most entertaining about them is to see what is achievable nowadays on absolutely minute budgets. If you do wish to delve into the sewer, a very good example is the film Terrifier.

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Horror films have a different objective than most other films, especially when they have a small budget. They should be evaluated on whether they achieve their objective, not on their status as high-art (which they are decidedly not).

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I’ve never been into the genre but I really like your last sentiment of going out to the movies for a “collective terror experience” lol

Because I did see the Blair witch in the theater and omg was it scary! Contrast that with my home viewing of get out which I thought was really good but not really scary. Perhaps it could have been that I was missing out on the collective terror experience to get the full experience?

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Comedy and terror are great in movie theaters 🎭

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Comedy for sure.

Also, nothing beats some genre Special Events: a highly anticipated release of "Star Wars" or an "Avengers" movie. Usually crowded cinema is vile because that ups the chances of rude folk being rude, but those movies EVERYONE is there to revel in the experience. The energy can be amazing.

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Great stuff. I was looking at the Blumhouse wiki the other day and saw the sub-label "BH Tilt". Hadn't heard of any of the movies. All profitable (at least in budget/box-office as reported on wikipedia). Pretty remarkable story.

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Blumhouse is a remarkable business school case study.

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