I have come to a conclusion if not an epiphany: pulling off even the most generic style from any decade that was either the 80s or one that came before it is hard. Just ask Panos Cosmatos, Ti West, Alexander Garland, E Elias Merhige, David Robert Mitchell or even The Roadkill Superstars just to name a select few. To make a movie in the style or atmosphere of most films from last century you don’t just have to mess around with the film’s grain or color: You have to take EVERYTHING within the shot into consideration. From the sets to the mindsets that went into making said films of that era (be them fun or questionable) to making sure certain modern ingredients don’t add a certain degree of turbulence to the immersion, it certainly doesn’t even get easier with age. Yet even the most generic 80s movies have aged fairly well because of these traits if not the resources allotted to them and what they were able to do regardless of the limitations of their time. With generic 2000s movies, however, that’s all you really need to do: make the most generic movie possible regardless of how professional (if not expensive) you aim. I didn’t feel anything else when I saw 2004’s Godsend, that I can verify. In fact the only thing that was 10 times more horrifying than this was the haunting wonder of its sudden existence after I failed to watch the original 1980 film of the same name the first time (be it when the 2004 film was released or a year prior as far as I can remember). Otherwise it’s relatively soulless, rushed, nonsensical, and, worst of all, not even that scary nor intelligent enough to count as a Ring cash-in. Again, I’m sure I’ll be proven wrong in time on how a generic 2000s movie is pulled off, I just feel this movie currently takes the fun out of it.

As for a generic 90s movie that’s easy: just make a generic 80s movie but with 10% more CG by the end (20% throughout if you're aiming for the late 90s).