With the established horror classics of The Amityville
Horror, The Shining and Poltergeist, the haunted house sub-genre transformed
into one of the foremost horror film premises. True, much like most peoples’
assumptions concerning Halloween and slasher films, haunted house fare existed
long before these three films, but this was the period where it truly entered
the Hollywood zeitgeist. Just look at the most prominent horror film series of
today with Paranormal Activity which, while starting to drift in quality, also
makes for one of the better examples of doing the premise right since the inception of the idea. From the old-school
revivalism of James Wan to the annoying failure at parody of Michael Tiddes,
it’s quite clear that this isn’t going to go out of fashion any time soon… even
if the idea itself is beginning to grow stale. Well, here comes Gothic horror
devotee Guillermo Del Toro to give his own take on the idea; with any luck,
this will fare better than last time he attempted this with Don’t Be Afraid Of
The Dark.
