I would intentionally pick out films with the most outrageous cover art.
There wasn't much of any other information about what you were going to get. Still, cover art and backside's summary text were more than often misleading and didn't have anything to do with the actual movie. Luckily, there were fanzines that had some reviews to read. Now we have Internet Movie Database (IMDb) so we don't have to rely our luck anymore (and we lose a chance to make surprise finds from underdogs that are unjustly undervalued).
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Okay. Now I have warmed up enough to this forum to start talking about my interests... A lecture coming up.
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I have noticed that share of my daily movies has been tilting towards having less and less new horror movies (and lately, superhero movies) during last decades.
It is because horror movies are not anymore what they used to be:
50s and previous times were classic times and great if you liked ambitious filmizations of 1800s novels (Frankenstein, Dracula, Nosferatu etc.). But I think there wasn't many of them, unlike later decades when horror began to be considered a "slightly higher culture" that could actually sell tickets. Of course, there were also those embarrassingly bad cheap made stuff that did sell tickets but were also quickly forgotten (mostly... of course we still have movies like Creature from the Black Lagoon... classic...).
60s movies were often silly (you have to love Hammer-movies), but they gave rise to grim and nihilistic (and gory) style of 70s and 80s (Hitchcock, Romero...).
70s and 80s are winner times in my books in addition of 90s. Mostly for nostalgic hand-made puppetry, which was better than puppetry before, and more stylish compared to modern day CGI.
Thought I think that 90s were the time when horror movies began their slow decline that has lasted to these days: I never liked slasher movies that were made in standard format and less extreme and more comical to gain lower age ratings, nor "found footage"-style of The Blair Witch Project and its copycats, nor "wait an hour and half for something to happen while omnious music is playing and characters are just staring and moving slowly in scared manner without any visible reason to be afraid".
Don't get it wrong, I did like The Ring (both Japan and US versions) as they were something new back then, and I do like Jordan Peele's movies and their style. My issue is with other movies that are not made by Peele.
I probably have missed a lot of good (or, more like, entertaining) horror movies during last ten or so years, because I have stopped giving them a chance unless they get at least 7.0 in IMDb. I am now mostly at mercy of cable-TV or streaming service freebies when it comes to introducing new horror movies to me. And I haven't been convinced even with these 7.0+ movies.
