I'm going to say right off the bat that I'm not an avid fan of horror films. The main reason is because the filmmakers and writers solely treat torture and gore as a source of entertainment without any relevance or context. It is just a creative decision to tempt the audience to emote, more on the cringeworthy side than in the awesome side. And, I got tired of filmmakers using gore as just a manipulative element of tempting us to react to it to see how they create "blood" in that scene. It is a stunt and a cliche at the same time. And, I was starting to give up on them after a few horror movies in the late 2000s.
However, there was a beginning of a potential resurgence in the beginning of this decade that I thought had given the horror genre a chance, more likely a psychological thriller but there is another movie that also has booted its potential of bringing the horror genre back from the grave, in my opinion.
2010:
Black Swan
Insidious
Let Me In
These movies above go into similar, potential paths of self-destruction and/or death. All three of these characters are suffering from the loss of innocence and they all spiral out of control. I believe the theme of loss and loss of innocence began the trend of upcoming horror films of this decade as a great subject so we can explore the psychological nature of almost every character in this decade and take the journey with them and does not depend on gore itself. The filmmakers back away from the cliched moments of blood and dedicate themselves to spend more time with the characters as we start to worry about them. Strong character development is the essential element of the whole decade because we want to have fun and also be captivated.
There was a remake in 2011 called Fright Night which was fine but the only movie in the vampire genre, which I think is the least exciting sub-genre in the horror realm, that was watchable. Maybe, it is because the Twilight franchise left such a bad taste in many audience members' mouths. Audience members had enough of vampires.
But, a movie that I felt was revolutionary in terms of the horror genre was The Cabin in the Woods. The original 1996 film, Scream, delve into the clichés of horror films as to what would happen to certain characters once they commit an action or say a line of dialogue, persuading to think that they are not coming back. The teenagers are speculating and talking about the character tropes and clichés. But, this movie, I was thinking, "Here we go. Another movie where a group of teenagers go into another cabin and a Jason type of character will go around and kill them." But, the movie surprised and delighted me to a full extent because Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon went into another fresh direction by handling clichés in a violent, humorous and clever way.
As you can see in the past like in the late 70s, 80s, 90s and even some of the 2000s, you spend more time with teenagers in high school and college but most of the characters were either undeveloped or just plain stupid. And, even though it is a fresh kind of stupid, the college students were considered pawns in The Cabin in the Woods and had no idea what was going on so I cannot consider them stupid. They were basically in a game.
The technicians manipulate events to kill the teenagers but also use those methods around the world which was funny but fresh and exciting. The movie is a prime example of using a familiar concept but turning in around and create something clever and maybe original, even though, it had a weak ending, it did not derail my whole experience. And, this movie is a great part of a horror movie catalogue for slumber parties so you can have fun.
The Cabin in the Woods
Now, there was another sub-genre that I felt was developing real well in terms of horror genre that I felt most directors who want to tackle a horror movie are abandoning and that is the theme of family.
We spend more time with teenagers in the horror realm that creators and writers start to think in this day and age, "What about their family?" Many of the filmmakers and writers spend time more with the family but twisting it with a more specific concept such as exorcism or possession and to its success, most of the movies pay off in such great ways. We'll talk about one movie in a more specific way in two categories, one of which will be in the conversation of people being divided on its story. But, the theme of family is strong because the characters are at the core of its suspense and you do not know what would happen to them, whether you care about them or not. Like I said before, horror films in the past, starting to 80s started to pull away from not caring about the characters and more focused on the killings and I am starting to notice the trend with the first Insidious movie but also Sinister and other films.
Sinister
The Conjuring
World War Z
The Conjuring 2
The Babadook
Oculus
The Visit
Mama
The Witch
Train to Busan
Hereditary
A Quiet Place
It is a lot of families in peril and all of them that are pictured above are good to great because we empathize with the characters most of the time and horrified because the family is in dire peril and we want them to make it out alive. But, also, one of the few tropes that I think needs to slowly fade away is that the movie has to stop spending time on a child that is in danger and not impact the family unless there is something quite fresh in a filmmaker's mind. All of the movies above are about the characters and their situation and not about the blood or celebrated violence. Also, the stories around exorcism, possession, loss of sound and family in peril are quite solid as they can get you hooked and investigate as to why the problems and why the horrible stories are getting attached to the characters and some are more disturbing conclusions than others, hearkening back to the films of the 70s where directors can finish the story with originality defying a "happily ever after" ending, which is ballsy.
Now, in this day and age, horror directors can go into depth in exploring such mature and social themes such as feminism, sex and race in the context of a film and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. I certainly think one movie is a bit overrated. Raw is a solid female-led exploration of sexuality but I was bothered by the cannibalistic nature as to questioning what the point was. How did they connect as a whole? To me, it was just great, out-of-the-box ideas and themes and not connected to a potential great story. Critics loved it but I did not think it was all that special but it was a solid job that I think that I will not watch again.
Even though, there are audiences that want to avoid politics and social justice. People want to escape from those problem and I think one great movie did a brilliant job on not hammering you with the head as to this director was presenting and that is last year's Get Out. You watch it more times and you start to notice the little details that you did not see that hearkens back to some political topics or social topics and applies it to the story in such a sublime way. Comedian and director Jordan Peele crafted the horror film with such precision balancing the topics, horror, psychology and a bit of humor into the movie.
It Follows
Don't Breathe
Raw (WARNING: strong violence.)
Happy Death Day (not the best example but it is fun.)
Get Out
Upgrade
With The Conjuring franchise, Annabelle franchise and Get Out, horror films were starting to pick up in terms of box office as audiences were wanting to again, escape from reality. But, the one movie that took The Exorcist off its throne as the highest grossing horror film of all time was last year's IT. You can say it is a throwback to 80s films like Stand By Me, Goonies and E.T. or the TV show, Stranger Things where it centered around a bunch of kids but it is based on a book by Stephen King that people mostly listened to the audiobook to than the read because it is a dense book. But, Warner Bros. did a spectacular job on the marketing and selling Pennywise because we know the clown from the TV movie and played wonderfully by Tim Curry. However, the movie felt a bit dated and cheesy at times whereas the rebooted 2017 film was more nightmarish than I possibly expected. The film projector scene: Wow! But, it is a lesson saying that if you market a horror film real well, audiences will flock to the screening.
It (2017)
Now, the last thing I wanted to cover and debate whether this decade is the new golden age for horror movies is controversy. There were some horror films back in the day that spawned controversy like Psycho or The Exorcist or Friday the 13th. Nowadays, this a nice segue because earlier I talked about how great marketing can sell a horror movie. Misleading marketing can frustrate an audience thinking that it is a horror film or can have some horror elements. For a great example, mother! had a fantastic trailer because I thought this was another great Darren Aronofsky psychological horror film. But, it was a slow-burn Biblical, if you want to decipher it, psychological thriller that felt self-indulgent that I nearly did not care about the movie at all. Slow-burn horror films seem to not attract audiences along with its misleading stories because of the misleading marketing. It Comes At Night is another example which I thought was fine also with a good but not great movie, The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Also, a movie that I very much liked, Annihilation, a sci-fi horror flick, caused division amongst audiences. But, Hereditary was the movie that I felt I can understand why people hated it. It is still a new movie so I cannot reveal it. However, I am on the positive side on that.
Besides mother! and I guess, It Comes At Night, this is a very strong slate of films but I was analyzing about the nature of this decade's horror films in sequels, remakes and original stories. And, these filmmakers and writers all have in common is they want to go deep into the exploration of characters and not spend time on pure violence and that is what is swaying me positively towards the horror genre because it takes some risks on the stories with some powerful themes and pays off real well. Also, big studios and little studios like A24 gamble on out-of-the-box and first-time directors like Jordan Peele, John Krasinski, Ari Aster, Jennifer Kent, James Wan, Cary Fukanaga and Drew Goddard and it pays off big time for mostly the horror audience but also attracting newer audience members. And, I think it you find the right time to release a horror film like this month in October or in the fall season and maybe elsewhere, the market for horror films will still keep going up.
People want to escape from reality but also want to see deeper and original scary stories that deals with a psychological nature and not be invested in torture nowadays. I don't want see limbs torn apart in every single horror film or people getting tortured for a prolonged time. I want story, well-developed characters, fantastic camerawork, well-written dialogue, performances and something to think about after I finish a horror film. That's it. And, this batch of films does justice tackling almost every theme imaginable to the genre. So, is this a new golden age of horror films? Even though there are some badly made horror films that I did not discuss here, there is much more good than bad in the genre. So, maybe. Maybe not. Decide for yourself.
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