New Nightmare on Elm Street trailer and the death of the horror movie

Nightmare on Elm Street 3 was the first scary movie I ever watched, aged about nine.

These were simpler times when an advert featuring a cartoon giraffe's toy shop could cause spontaneous, aspartame-aided cartwheels. Then, suddenly I watched a horror movie and my perspective on life changed.

The film featured, amongst other delights, a teenage boy having his veins ripped out by the ghost of a hideously scarred child murderer- who then delighted in using the detached cords to guide the hapless adolescent off the top floor of a hospital tower block.

Bollocks to the Derren Brown, Nightmare on Elm Street 3 genuinely stuck me to my seat- in abject terror.

Despite the whole innocence-annihilating effect of the film, I still fondly reflect on it. Mainly because it probably helped me avoid becoming a more wimpy-minded teenager than I was.

So now they're re-making it, and the involvement of CGI wankfest guru, Michael Bay, doesn't bode well. To be fair, the trailer (below) looks okay, but I've rarely been scared by a horror movie that was produced pre-1990.

For me, the saturated colours and clumsy editing of films such as Don't Look Now and Halloween added a gritty realism.

Modern horrors are too knowing, too self-referential, they're not serious attempts at art. Scream is entertaining, sure, but you can't really believe the character's psychological toils. The acting has gotten worse, and I blame irony. Irony and botox.

I still look back fondly at Nicholson in The Shining, Peck in The Omen, Lee in The Wicker Man, jumpers for goalposts, drinking Tab Clear in Laser Quest, nagging my mum for remote controlled cars in Toys 'R Us.

I've gone full circle here, but yeah, modern horror movies, they're not as good and stuff, innit?

Roll trailer.