If anything, these scary movies, or horror movies, should only be called scary based off their trailers.

Every time one of these new scary movies releases its trailer, everyone overreacts and freaks out over how scary the movie will be based on the trailer.

One recent example, for me, is the trailer for “The Nun.”

Facebook and Twitter comments would have made you believe the movie was already the scariest of all time without even being released.

The trailer gave me a lot of hope that it would be a good, creepy thriller that would make me jump out of my socks in fear.

But the movie turned out to be very predictable with its jump scares, and even the scenes that tried to forcibly be scary were just bland.

You knew it was a creepy-looking nun coming out of the darkness; there was no surprise factor there.

Do not get me wrong; I want to be scared.

I want to watch a movie that will make me be scared to go to bed and close my eyes.

I want to see a film that will make me want to keep all the lights on that night when I go to bed.

The “classic” horror movies everyone says was scary when it debuted in the 1970s and 1980s is outdated to an extent, so the scare factor from 30 or 40 years ago does not exactly work the same today.

There are some stand-alone movies, or movies done by smaller studios or producers, that are OK, but even they are not great because of a lack of resources.

So, what are these horror movies missing?

Why are they lacking the scary factor?

I think jump scares should be used as little as possible because they are becoming too predictable.

Their purpose is not to drive the movie, but they are overused.

It is at the point where the movie will set up a jump scare, say where somebody opens a door, and the audience expects a monster to jump out. But, instead of it jumping out when the door opens, the camera pans to show behind the character, where the monster then jumps out.

Now, we can easily predict the fake outs, or the fake fake outs.

Also, using dark settings is overdone. Seriously, we have seen too many dark churches, houses or asylums.

I am not the movie director to fix the horror genre, but I am a moviegoer who is more scared of an impending financial recession than the movies that are actually supposed to be scary.

Dillan Schorfheide is a senior journalism major. He can be reached at 581-2812 or at dtschorfheide@eiu.edu