What movie genre has died a long time ago?

Question

Horror, no doubt about it.

Answer 1

I totally agree. Horror has changed so dramatically. I keep waiting for Sam Raimi to once again do a horror flick but, he's just too stuck on Spiderman. Don't even get me started on Wes Craven. His flicks have been crap since the Scream trilogy. He should have stuck with movies that would give him more than one. Stephen King, the master writer of horror, has went soft. What is this world of horror, that I once loved, coming too?

Answer 2

I assume you refer to a genre's death as being in a total state of nonexistence; i.e. they are no longer being made at all. That completely invalidates most of the answers left here: Horror films are clearly big business right now, even if they are often merely annoying slashfests or pallid remakes of 70s cult classics. Westerns might not be the cultural hallmark they were from roughly the beginning of cinema until the mid-70s, but every so often someone comes back with a truly great one (think Unforgiven, The Long Riders, Silverado or three whole seasons of HBO's "Deadwood"). Even spaghetti Westerns received a tip of the cap with Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead and I'd argue that Kill Bill Vol. 2 followed a very spaghetti mindset, right down to the laconic whistling and surf guitar. Film noir is ALWAYS referenced over and over, from Blue Velvet to The Black Dahlia to Palmetto to basically everything directed by John Dahl. There were more honest-to-goodness musicals made in the last five years since Moulin Rouge than in the previous thirty years combined. Finally, silent films are NOT a genre at all. They were the way films were made before 1927, encompassing all genres discussed so far.

The one genre I would claim has actually died is the screwball comedy, the gentle battle-of-the-sexes ribaldry that ruled the screen in the early post-Production Code years of 1934 until 1941. Men and women outfoxed, outshouted and outkicked one another, verbally and physically, with all requisite sexual tension building until the fade-out, when both parties were fully exasperated and either a victor or a draw had been declared, at which time good and proper marriage and humping would begin thence. The reason it has died is because modern "romantic comedies" spent too much time sentimentalizing one or both partners, begging for audiences' pathos by trying to make us care about the characters' "inner conflict," instead of simply wowing us with witty repartee and hilarious shoves, kicks and punches from one to the next and back again. When they do occur nowadays, the battles of the sexes are simply too mean-spirited and nasty for us to be truly and simply delighted by them (see: Addicted to Love, My Best Friend's Wedding and How to Lose a Guy in Thirty Days as modern examples of sociopathy disguised as romantic longing). But the most effective killer of screwball was that the held-off promise of sex at the end is defused because the lead characters are already screwing halfway through the movie, because modern cultural mores no longer demand marriage before consummation. No sexual frustration is built, hence no screwball.

Answer 3

I don´t agree with you, maybe there is a new type of horror. The movie genre which died a long time ago is western, no more cowboys or rude men, no more indians, definitely western movie genre is ******* dead!!!

Answer 4

Westerns

Answer 5

Westerns

Answer 6

Silent movies! I think psychological thrillers (like Hitchcock) are very few and far between, and that horror turned into slasher movies. Too bad:(

Answer 7

Musicals.

Answer 8

Not just any old western, but spaghetti westerns, filmed in Italy

Answer 9

I agree. And they keep on prodding its dead body with sticks trying to make it be alive once more. :P

Answer 10

Silent films.

Otherwise, none.