Shocking horror

Rottentomatoes.com posted their annual 'Best Of 2009' list not long ago; most titles being fairly well known however there were some supposed gems in the horror field which I sought after, trusting the mighty RT (tongue firmly in cheek). Two of which were House of the Devil, a very well directed homage to 80's moody horror, filmed and packaged exactly as such, and Pontypool, an original 'infected masses' flick (a genre which is becoming increasingly derivative). I highly recommend both, but I write this post with the intention of explaining my lack of faith in the horror genre... I rarely see anything purely original anymore so I assume the trick is to make something that's still able to disturb or 'gross out' the viewer. Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell did an amazing job at comically provoking dry heaves, and Pontypool gave me a claustrophobic sense of invisible uncertainty with a very satisfying (un-Hollywood) ending. So maybe I'm expecting too much... I keep hoping for another Evil Dead or The Thing which I doubt will ever happen but I can still be glad that a handfull of solid films are still being released. Few and far inbetween perhaps, but I suppose that's how it always was and always will be...