Scarier Horror films in general prior to about 2010 were generally panned by hypocritics.
Mostly, if a film like Jaws, The Birds, or others used shock and blood/violence, the critics didn’t see it as a problem, but if a film that was actually scary used them, like Saw or the Grudge used them, those things were suddenly massive problems and get labeled “torture porn” or “jump scares” because they’re used in ways that make people unsettled or frightened. Like they’re offended that they were frightened and need to slam a film with excuses.
Horror’s come a long way in the past 10-12 years. Saw and the Grudge aren’t the scariest anymore, not by a long shot; but, they are still probably the scariest and most unsettling, or at least in the top 5, prior to 2005 or so.
Granted, critics are getting a lot better with how they view horror. Art horror is getting some really good reviews these days (I’m talking certain A24 type films). Although, they’ll still give extra points to the safer more low-tension horror films that have some kind of metaphor or allegorical theme, Get Out being the prime example—that one has a 98%. It’s not even Jordan Peele’s best horror film, IMO. Jordan Peele can’t even hit that level anymore despite much more artistic elements (Nope) or much more thrilling elements (Us)—critics want him to put in more racial metaphors to make certain hypocritics feel good about themselves for praising before they’ll give him another 98%. Although, to the credit of most critics, Us and Nope still did exceedingly well with the majority… it’s definitely a big improvement from earlier times.
On the topic of Saw. James Wan created Insidious as a response to critics. Basically, it was to defend his craft as not being all about “torture porn” and he made one of the scariest films of all time (at the time) with that one. He’d go on to outdo even that one with Conjuring 1 and 2, I think the first is generally considered scarier, but I feel the second beats it if you have the proper sound system… audio, subtle audio, is a big part of why Conjuring 2 is, IMO, one of the scariest films ever made—this film literally gave people heart attacks. I’m getting off topic, Insidious (66%), Conjuring 1 (86%), and Conjuring 2 (80%) were all well received by critics. Relatively speaking, Saw was almost universally panned, but is currently at 50%.
Speaking of audio, Hereditary uses it, and I believe was scientifically demonstrated to be the most frightening film in existence. And to the credit of modern critics, it has a 90%. Go back 40 years, and that one would be winning razzies (case and point: The Shining).
So I meandered a bit :)
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
