Discussions about whether or not older horror movies "hold up" or "are still scary" tend to be pretty boring. Mainly because most of the time, the classic films being talked about provide the blueprint for the cinematic horror language of today.

They don't shock, not because they "haven't aged well" or whatever, but because they've ultimately influenced how we engage with movies as a whole. Thanks to their impact, bits of them are in every movie after.

Take for example Halloween. Halloween scared the shit out of people when it came out. But nowadays, it's probably not even in John Carpenter's top 5 scariest films. That's not because its power has been lost, but because we see Halloween everywhere nowadays.

Its use of shadow and framing, with that gorgeous widescreen illuminating some parts and keeping others hidden. That roaming camera that straps us in and reveals nothing but what the director intends. It makes the audience feel helpless.

In 2021, that's everywhere, from every Conjuring spinoff to every SAW sequel, to every A24 award winner. But in 1978, as Carpenter and these other guys like Romero and Hooper and Cronenberg and Craven were revolutionizing the genre, it wasn't yet.

Halloween holds up just as well as it ever has. It has not become a lesser film with time. It's just become a part of our cinematic language - no longer new and raw, but rather almost like a necessary tool for the genre.

The same can be said for films like Nosferatu or The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or The Phantom of the Opera or The Phantom Carriage. The bones of these films complete the skeletons of what we know today as horror. They have been rendered ingredients, and I mean that in the best way.

Are some of these films still able to unnerve us? Absolutely. You can't account for the tastes of everyone and inevitably, no matter how widespread a film's reach is, a part of it can still jolt us and make us uneasy. Everyone scares differently.

So if you lament the fact that your favorite classic horror film has been labeled as "not scary" by people, it's cool. That's likely because it's no longer just a movie - it's culture.