Is Technology Killing the Horror Movie?

I have this theory (ok...not really mine...many, many people share this opinion) that for horror to be truly scary it needs a few key elements. The first and foremost is a feeling of claustrophobia--that is, the feeling that escape is not possible.

I've written about this before, but this though really struck me as I was revisiting a classic Stephen King tale, Cujo (25th Anniversary Edition). I haven't read the book or seen the movie in ages, so when AMC recently aired the film version, I sat down and watched. The story, while flawed, is still a pretty scary one, in my opinion. What really gets me, though, is the simplicity of the plot. It's only a mother and her son in a broken down car in the middle of nowhere. Add in a rabid dog (a St. Bernard, no less) stalking just outside, and the story becomes truly terrifying. It doesn't get much more claustrophobic. The pair cannot even leave their car for long, for fear of the dog; just trying to use the restroom takes equal parts careful planning and just dumb luck. The image of the mother, lying bleeding and nearly lifeless following the dog attack, and her son, screaming and half-naked in the back seat, is one that haunts my nightmares.

Then, something else occurred to me. This story could not happen today. The mother would have had a cellphone. The son probably would have had a cellphone. They could have called for help--the local police, an ambulance service, animal control, and probably a pizza delivery while they waited. Heck, the mother could have even used her smart phone to learn how to treat a dog bite and recognize the symptoms of a rabid dog. This same story set in 2003 or 2013--not 1983--would have been a short, boring tale.

Technology, it seems, is connecting the world, making us closer to everything and everyone, and destroying the horror genre as a result.

Sure, there have been brave writers and directors who have attempted to infuse their stories with modern technology, but none of them have really struck me as outstanding. Films like Shutter, Fear Dot Com, Pulse (Unrated Widescreen Edition), and One Missed Callcome to mind.

Instead, more writers are having to get creative with their settings, choosing to set their plots in places away from the reach of the wireless signal. For example, the underground cave, as in The Descent (Original Unrated Cut) [Widescreen Edition], or outer space, or even a post-apocalyptic world where technology has been rendered useless (The Walking Dead, Book 1 (Bk. 1) does this well) are all settings that the horror genre is now embracing.

When my father and I went to the movies to see the Let Me In (the recent remake of the 2009 Swedish film Let The Right One In), he only had one question as we left the theater. He couldn't understand why the film was set in the early 1980's.

Easy, I thought. No cellphones. No computers in the home. Complete isolation. If the kid had had a smart phone and a complete gaming system (with internet connection) at home, would he ever had met the little vampire girl? My thoughts...probably not.