Has modern horror gone soft?

The word 'horror' gets thrown about a lot these days. But what does it
actually mean? Modern horror films go for the in-the-moment scary bits
and tend to ignore any psychological fear they could add. They lack
what horror, in the past, used to have: pure fright.
True horror fans want to watch a film and sleep with the light on -
instead of turning the light off half way through the film.

The classic slasher film that kick-started the sub-genre were of
course "Peeping Tom" the 1960's film directed by Michael Powell. It
was a psychological horror about the Freudian relationship between the
protagonist and his father and the protagonist and his victims.
However, if you look deeper that a few cenitmeters, the film is as
much about the voyeurism of the audience as they watch the
protagonist's actions.
Another film to help the sub-genre of slasher on to it's feet is,
probably the most famous horror film, Psycho. It was created in 1960
(and re-made in 1998) and was directed by Alfred Hitchcock. This film
caused controversy due to how chilled it made its viewers.
These two films had the key factor to horror films - psychological
fright. Modern horror films do not go as far to play with the minds of
its viewers, it's only interested in a few short screams.

Asian horror films are true to the word horror; even if the remakes
destroy them. Asian horror films play with your mind, they take
something that could happen and twists it around to something
completely insane but it still scares you. "One Missed Call" takes the
day-to-day occurrence of missing a call. This film takes it and twists
it. I dare you to listen to your voice mail after seeing this film.

The "Saw" movies show just how much modern films rely on fake blood
squirting all over the place just to rake in the money. Why someone
would want to watch a film based entirely on gore I do not know. Yes
the "Saw" films have a great plot to them but you have no time to get
attached to a character. Don't you just hate it when your favorite
character gets killed off just when you think they might live until
the end? In films that rely completely on gore there is no aspect of
suprise - you know what's going to happen.

A REAL horror film would cut back on the gore and rely more on the
suspense. The bit when you know the killer/monster is in the house and
the scary music comes on and when you think it's going to jump out and
kill them...
It was just the neighbours cat. So you relax and think everything is
ok... Until the victim turns around...
That's the bit horror films lack but horror fans crave.

In my opinion, I think modern horror films have gone soft. They rely
to much on gore and cheap screams. Whatever happened to getting into
someone's mind and pulling a few wires? We want our money to be well
spent. We also want to be screaming non-stop for a month - not for a
second.

^^^^ it's my essay... any good? tips, hints, constructive critisism,
marks? thanks, -x-x-x-x-

much appreciated.