Horror Films Are Not Made for Old People

Yet We’re Some of the Most Fervent Fans

Just for once can someone make a horror film that takes place in broad daylight?

One of the problems I have as a result of being 73 years old is that I don’t see as well at night as I used to. This is a consequence of aging, and it happens to most of us as we get old.

As a result, I no longer drive at night. That’s not a problem: if I truly need to go somewhere after dark, I can ride the bus.

Where it is a problem is with movies. I’m a horror movie fan. Have been since I was a kid. “Frankenstein.” “Dracula.” And of course, “Gojira” (the original Japanese name for “Godzilla.” I loved them all. Yes, even the ones that scared the bejeesus out of me!

Over time, as the movie-going public started being served with films featuring more “realistic” scenes, image quality for us old folks began to deteriorate. More and more films featured poor lighting. I’m sorry, but cinema verité or cinema noir doesn’t work with horror films.

Case in point: There were several night scenes in each of the movies I listed above, but they were also well lit. We weren’t reduced to having to sit closer to the screen in order to see what was happening in any given scene.

Alas, gone are those days. Now the standard seems to be if a scene takes place in, say, a swamp, where the only light is from the moon, it is de rigueur for the scene to be shot as if the only light source is the moon. This might make sense for younger audiences, whose eyesight is unaffected by macular degeneration or any one of the other eye problems that go hand in hand with aging, but for us old-timers, it’s a problem.

This might not be an issue for anyone when viewed on the big screen, i.e., in movie theaters, but how many people actually go to movie theaters anymore? I don’t. I get my entertainment from various streaming services and view them either on my big-screen television or, more likely, on my laptop. The last movie I saw in a theater was either the third or fourth installment of “Pirates of the Caribbean,” and even then a family member bought the tickets.

I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve sat down to watch a…