Accepting Modern Horror

The horror movie renaissance is in full swing and it's time for the genre fans who are still stuck in the past to accept it or be left in the dust.  

By: Josh McCormack

Up until last year, generation z did not have an image to define the horror film genre of their time. 

The 1960s had Janet Leigh screaming at the descending knife about to strike her in the shower from Hitchcock's "Psycho." The 1970s had Max Von Sydow staring up into the bedroom window of a Georgetown house with a demonic trail of light in "The Exorcist." And even the children of the 1980s had the image of Jack Nicholson's demonic grin shoved through a hole in the bathroom door of Kubrick's "The Shining."

Another one of these images came in 1991 in the form of Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter pressed up against a glass cell, flicking his tongue menacingly in "Silence of the Lambs". This represents the fears of a populous who was no longer frightened of what comes from beyond the grave or beyond the stars, but of one that fears their own kind. 

At the tail end of the 20th century "The Blair Witch Project" shocked the world with its image of a crying girl covered in snot paralyzed with fear, all illuminated by the light of her handheld video camera.

But when looking at the horror from most of the 2000s, one seems to hit a wall. 

It says a lot when the most relevant image of gen z is probably Christian Bale naked and covered in blood from "American Psycho" since it is a film that owes far more to the 1980s and the unchecked capitalism/toxic masculinity of that period than it does its own time.

With films like "Paranormal Activity" and "The Conjuring", the horror genre was still proving to be as marketable as ever, but neither film featured an image of frightening simplicity, striking the nation like their predecessors had.

However, in February of 2017, Jordan Peele released his directorial debut "Get Out" and gave the current generation a defining image of the horror genre. 

This image:

An African-American man sitting in a chair, restrained by a white woman with a look of abject terror and tears pouring from his red eyes. It's an image of horror for a generation that was only less than a month into the Trump administration's reign and in the midst of a post-Obama "post-racism" lie and it affected the United States in so many ways. 

The film is a perfectly satirical and frightening look at race that could only be made now. It picked up plenty of award nominations and wins and was a huge hit at the box office. All the while, Jordan Peele never once referred to his film as anything other than a "horror movie" as so many other directors in the same position do, given the fact that there is such a stigma associated with the genre ("'Silence of the Lambs' is not horror, but rather a PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER." Really?). 

All that said, this writer isn't sure that Peele would have been so comfortable with continuing to label his first film "horror" if the genre hadn't been quietly improving in quality and relevance in the few years leading up to "Get Out"'s release.

The modern horror renaissance seems to have sprung out of the indie film circuit. Studios like "A24" and "IFC Midnight" cater to many filmmakers who view the horror genre as a way to deal with heady themes and reflect a generations' particular paranoia.

Films like Jennifer Kent's "The Babadook"deal with guilt and responsibility from the perspective of the rarely seen, working single mom as well as providing truly frightening images for the audience.

Robert Eggers' "The Witch" tells what is a seemingly traditional horror story, but one that deals with the destruction of a family from within. 

And most recently "A Quiet Place" displayed John Krasinski's effectiveness to make a well crafted monster flick that also featured many real world dramatic elements. 

While most of these films do receive rave reviews from most critics and a large amount of the audience, there are always naysayers. Surprisingly, the people who sometimes seem to be the most vocal critics are horror fans themselves.

There was certainly a period of time when I believed that horror movies just weren't as good as they used to be. I agreed with the general consensus from horror fans that a movie like "Saw" didn't have the energy or creativity of an exploitative "Friday the 13th" film from the 1980s. 

But the world of independent cinema has produced some of the most interesting genre films in the past decade. These are films that make you think about your own fears and question our modern society as a whole. They are horror films not only for the gore hounds, but also for the socially and politically conscious filmgoer. However, a lot of horror fans still want "Friday the 13th".

There's nothing wrong with campy 80s slasher movies and people wanting to replicate them for a modern audience (I highly recommend 2013's "You're Next" if you're looking for campy slasher fun), but a film like "Friday the 13th" or "Terror Train" shouldn't be the high standard for which all other horror films must be judged. There's a time and a place for those kinds of film, but when you're trying to redefine the genre for a new generation, hacking up nude teenagers just isn't going to cut it. 

Many horror fans say these films are pretentious or boring or too political. But if you look at the history of classic horror, you can see that all the best directors in the genre use horror as a way of looking at real world issues.

George Romero used his undead zombies to reflect the dangers of unchecked capitalism and even the civil rights era. William Friedkin was attracted to "The Exorcist" not because of the scares, but because it was a story of a man losing and regaining his faith in a seemingly faithless time. Even John Carpenter's splatterrific remake of "The Thing" from 1982 is somewhat of a comment on the rising paranoia about AIDS in the 1980s. 

This weekend, A24's critically acclaimed "Hereditary" will be seeing a wide release. I already have a feeling there will be some hardcore horror fans who are annoyed by it or left unsatisfied that there wasn't as much shock value as they were hoping. But perhaps if they were to look at the terrors of the real world or even within their own, everyday lifestyles they'll understand that real horror is slow and subtle.

The horror genre is changing for the good and those who don't wanna keep up with it can be left in the dust.