Camp Horror: Is it Possible in the 21st Century?

 

My dad and I bond over really crappy 1970s/80s horror films. It's been a tradition since I was about 13, at an age where I realized I wasn't really scared of horror movies anymore (ask my roommate--I will sit in my bedroom alone in the dark and watch them).  

Some of our favorites include: 

- The Crazies (or any George A. Romero flick, for that matter. See image above: Day of the Dead, 1985) 

- The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue 

- One Dark Night 

- Equinox (for those of you scoring at home, a film that served as inspiration for The Evil Dead) 

- Manos: The Hands of Fate 

I would like to stress, just because this is a list of favorites, it does not mean that any of these films are good.  They're fun to watch, and they're fun to make fun of. They're very campy--low-budget, little-to-no plot (just vibes), overacted/poorly acted, not very scary, and completely silly. 

I recently had a conversation with my dad asking if this same kind of camp is possible in the 21st Century.  For example, my dad and I have trouble watching modern B-movie horror. We wonder if the struggle has to do with the contemporary aesthetics of film. 

A big reason why we prefer the Star Wars original trilogy over the prequels/sequels (I know Star Wars is not camp horror, but I do have a point to this; bear with me) is because of its aesthetics. The sets are real sets. They were built by people, exactly like stagecraft (I mean, George Lucas even used real artifacts from WWII to construct weapons and armor for the characters). The film quality is grainy (thank you, Panavision 35mm). There was no use of CGI or any kind of digital imitations (except for any creature added in the George Lucas 1990s edits).  Everything is by hand. 

Now, I don't say this to knock down film in the digital era. I think it has its perks (it's also more environmentally friendly--materials won't go to waste). However, I wonder if that's why we have trouble adapting to crappy modern horror movies. Are the gags not as funny because they seem more artificial in a digital era?