Horror - what's the point?

Was looking up Wikipedia, was intrigued at a section of films on their banned list (the old "video nasties"). What seems clear is that most of these films were banned for being sadistically savage and cruel, rather than just because they were horrors.

For me, a real horror doesn't come from gory effects or what new way the film makers have come up with to kill someone off. That is all gore effects and whilst they may revolt, and the idea of it happening be horrific, they are in my opinion lazy horrors.

True horrors, in my opinion, are when you care about the characters. You like them and want them to survive, so when they are put in real peril, you are scared for them. nothing to do with gruesome demises and editing tricks, but good old fashion terror that one feels at the prospect of losing a loved on. it is true psychological horror and I fear we are losing the art form in an attempt to shock the audience with ever more gruesome and sadistic scenes of torture.

Take Hallowwen, for example. There is a film with little blood to it and yet it is genuinely scary. in part its due to the skill of Carpenter's direction but its also because we get to meet these characters, and like them. When they are put in jeopardy, we want them to survive and so we fear their demise. Once that has been established, gore is really not needed.

I also find it sikcening that we have a generation of horror films where the audience are no longer going to see characters they like trying to escape from the killer, supernatural or otherwise. Instead they go to cheer on freddy, jason, Michael and jigsaw as they dispatch another group of faceless, pointless victims for our amusement.

It worries me greatly.