With its propensity for horror that’s ripped from the headlines, the genre now clobbers viewers over the head with the same reality they’re trying to escape. Home invasions, torture abroad, organ harvesters. There's little symbolism, little metaphor, little allegory. It’s all on full, graphic display, and there is no escape. Horror films today force us to confront visceral depictions of the stories we hear on the evening news. Our reality is met with reality masquerading as escapism on the screen. As a result, the horror movie experience is less cathartic, less therapeutic. It reinforces instead of relieves our fears. It's less roller coaster, more carousel.
Perhaps we’ve become too sophisticated for the simple cinematic metaphor, too jaded to buy into the personification of evil, too numb to bloodshed and violence. We know what evil is – we’re inundated with its images and effects 24/7 on streaming newscasts. There seems to be so little that shocks us that the boundaries in modern horror cinema have been stretched to their outer limits. And now that the concept of community is a fading aspect of our culture, there are few collective fears. Tapping into individual fears is a taller order for filmmakers, so they opt for depiction over personification.
Moviemakers cop out and recycle ideas instead of creating the next creature from a black lagoon or the next thing from another world. Studios opt for remakes that spit in the eyes of the source material and reimaginings that have less to do with actual imagination and more to do with wringing as many dollars from old ideas with as little effort or artistry as possible. The fun has been zapped from modern horror movies, and we’re often left to suffer through joyless celluloid creations that lack passion for the horror at their core – slick eye candy possessing all the substance of a vacuous blond sipping cosmos at a bar. There are exceptions, of course, but those are few and far between the dreck.
Even the horror movie experience itself has changed drastically. With the fading of community, the collective viewing experience of Saturday afternoon matinées is on the decline. People opt for the comfort and sanctuary of their own home theaters and the resulting experience is heavily dulled down. No longer is there that marvelous shared fear, tension, and anxiety of a hundred people all simultaneously tensing and cowering and jumping and screaming in a crowded movie theater. The enchantment of greasy popcorn and musty theater seats is quickly approaching antiquation as studios contemplate ways to make quicker, bigger bucks by releasing films simultaneously to multiplexes and home viewing markets. We’re developing cultural immunity to our once beloved horror movie experience.
Article comments
1 - Bo
A very interesting read and some fine points made all around. I would argue that modern horror is the same as it ever was, only different. It's similar in that there have always been the good releases and the not-so-good. The '50s and '60s are a prime example of the rush to film sometimes on the basis of nae alone. For every Ed Wood, there is a modern analog, our Uwe Boll. There are a number of fine horror films in the recent past, many of which were mentioned here (The Mist, The Ruins, [REC]) and some of these films are truly exceptional. I dare anyone to watch the last fifteen minutes of [REC] alone in the dark and not get spooked. Unfortunately, all American filmmaking has become a numbers game, and, as such, the 'product' the studios have been slinging is inferior and derivative. As long as people buy tickets for it, studios will continue to produce. The best new horror is often fund on the dvd shelves and not at the box office. Unless a festival is nearby, it's all-too-easy to miss an Inside or The Orphanage. Can't wait to read part 2!
2 - Brad Schader
I find that horror today reflects the attitudes of the day. The 80's Slasher movies were filmed during the Reagan era of oppressive morals. In those films, sins were punished by a slasher's visit and only the pure survived. The 70's saw mostly horror movies were G-d and the devil were at odds and usually G-d was powerless to help you (exorcist, omen) which was a reflection of the post Watergate era. The 60's, like today, were heavy on gore based films with little suspense because today, like the 60's we live in a very suspenseful and horrific time of war and gore.
Great read BTW
3 - Teresa
Wonderful article! I've always said today's movies are just not scary (sorry, I didn't like "The Ruins" at all). The only movies that truly made me scared were ones such as "The Evil Dead" and "The Thing". Even the 'cheesy' horror movies of the past are a 100 times better than the 'cheesy' ones made today, I don't know if it's the setting, the acting, the concepts, but a 70s horror film always outshines something from today.
4 - Alvin
We just need something good to come along and change things. IMO it all went tits up when they made a film called Scream which was crap and overrated
5 - UP TOOO LATE
Rec isn't terrible but nothing on Blair Witch (i'm used to being told off for that one) and honestly didn't capture me the way i'd hoped. The ruins wasn't bad at all but still has that sour smell of crapiness that for me has defined this decades horror releases. The Mist was watchable enough but again, flat.
I think what's wrong with horror today (and there is something very wrong) is down to something that's missing in youth culture at the moment. It's the same in music ect innit. It's hard to define. I will start my OWN BLOG YEAHAHAHAHA. (i will)