There is a film being released this week that was based on a story by Clive Barker, the horror mastermind behind such films as Hellraiser, Nightbreed, and Candyman. Surely a man with those credentials is entitled to some respect within the horror community. Yet the new movie is being unceremoniously dumped by Lionsgate into 100 theaters, with no press screenings beforehand, as a perfunctory gesture before it comes out on DVD.

The movie is called Midnight Meat Train -- either the best or worst title I've ever heard -- and yes, it's about people getting killed on a subway train. It screened at Comic-Con, where my friend, the esteemed gorehound Scott Weinberg, saw it and declared it awesome. So why is Lionsgate practically abandoning it?

It's a reflection of the sad state of the modern horror film. The genre is overrun by PG-13-rated remakes of Japanese films in which pale, stringy-haired Asian ghost-children crawl out of bathtubs or skitter across hardwood floors. These remakes are produced cheaply and often turn a profit thanks to the voracious movie-going appetites of the teenage squeal-at-loud-noises-and-grab-your-boyfriend crowd.

The problem is that these movies are all alike, and they're seldom actually scary. Oh, they'll startle you, all right, with people jumping out unexpectedly, always accompanied by a loud jolt from the musical score. But being startled is not the same thing as being scared.

Legitimately scary movies have been rare in recent years. Personally, The Strangers, The Ruins, and The Mist all did it for me, but only The Strangers had much success at the box office. Meanwhile, grotesqueries like the latter Saw sequels, Hostel, and the Halloween remake earn money by substituting blood 'n' guts for scares. A movie can be both bloody and scary, of course, but it seems like most modern films choose one or the other -- and "bloody" is easier to accomplish than "scary."

Then there are those weak remakes, which tend to be neither bloody nor scary. But I digress.

Weinberg points out in his Midnight Meat Train review that it's the kind of movie that will probably only be loved by people like him -- i.e., hardcore fans of gory-scary-creepy films. Lesser bloodbaths like the Hostel films have befouled the marketplace. Now audiences equate "R-rated horror flick" with "ultra-bloody torture film that's not all that scary." And apart from The Strangers, the last few R-rated scary movies haven't done very well. So it's no wonder the studios are hesitant.

I would love to see a film duplicate the success of The Ring and The Others, two movies that were very suspenseful and frightening without being horrifically bloody. But I realize those are the exceptions, not the rule. Generally speaking, inducing full-scale terror means dipping into the R-rated bag of tricks. You don't have to fill every scene with chainsaws and entrails -- The Mist earned its R rating without overdoing the violence -- but you usually do need to go for the gut, as it were.

So where are the filmmakers who can do it? Where are the twisted minds full of ideas that are bloody AND scary? Next month brings us Mirrors, from demented French kid Alexandre Aja, whose High Tension didn't make any sense but at least managed to be scary. I hold out some hope for Mirrors. Yeah, it's another remake of an Asian film. But at least this time they've pulled out the stops and gone for the R rating. Plus, the trailer is creepy. Do we dare hope for something terrifying?

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Eric D. Snider thinks mirrors are pretty scary in general.

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