Kevin Fullam writesThe Fourth Wall: Does Horror Matter in 2024?

Welcome to The Fourth Wall, CHIRP's e-conversation on cinema. This week's subject is the the state of the horrror film genre.

This edition is written by CHIRP Radio volunteers Kevin Fullam and Clarence Ewing.

Clarence:

It’s Halloween season once again! And of course, a perfect time to fire up the horror movies old and new.

I’m not what you would call a hardcore fan of the genre, but I do respect it when it’s done well. I also appreciate the detailed history of scary movies, from the classic monster flicks of the ‘30s to the atomic scares of the ‘50s to the the psychedelic arthouse cinema of the ‘60s to the Golden Era of the ‘70s and ‘80s (which gave us classics ranging from mainstream blockbusters to grindhouse B-movies) to the self-aware Scream / I Know What You Did Last Summer kicks of the ‘90s to the Saw franchise (and its imitators) of new millennium.

In the 2020s, one thing is clear: zombie stories have been pretty much done to death (pardon the pun). I blame The Walking Dead, which ended a couple of years ago. By now there are very few ways to shock an audience with the undead.

And I could be wrong, but it seems like since the 2010s, horror movies have plateaued in terms of having a central place in the movie landscape. I can’t remember the last time a horror film took center stage on a theater marquee. Every year there seem to be a few new releases, but for most of them, the scariest parts seem to be the lazy “jump scare” edits in the commercials.

The landscape has shifted; it seems like if you want horror, just watch TV. Not the news, but the endless parade of True Crime programs on basic cable TV. Check your local cable schedule and you’ll find entire networks dedicated to breaking down the details of grisly scenes of real-life murder and mayhem. They must have a following since there are so many of them.

Kevin, what’s your sense of the horror landscape in 2024? Does anything come close to the majesty of the all-time greats (Dracula, Night of the Living Dead, Amityville Horror, The Shining, etc. etc. etc.)? Do modern horror movies still have the power to shock and disturb the popular imagination the way they once did? What’s left in society that we can all agree to fear, that hasn't already been worn out on the TV grist mill?

Also, have you seen any good scary movies recently? Do you have any all-time favorites? I’m still freaked out by The Blair Witch Project (and I don’t care if it makes me a horror lightweight). The Ring was also good. I also enjoyed World War Z, even though it was mostly an action movie. But people turning into zombies in a plane while in mid air??? Awesome.

Kevin:

World War Z, eh? I still haven't brought myself to catch this film. The novel is one of my favorite horror yarns of all time, and I knew that the style of the book -- docufiction, myriad of perspectives from all across the globe -- wouldn't neatly fit into a Hollywood zombie format that required a central figure who was presumably a box-office star. 

[OK, that being said, I did cue up that plane scene just now, and... it was pretty good! Even though there's no way in hell that Brad Pitt and his female companion would've survived that crash.]

I'm going to play the Siskel to your Ebert here, and present a Thumbs Up perspective regarding modern-day horror. We always complain that Hollywood seems to take fewer and fewer risks as film budgets have exploded over the years, right? Well, horror is a genre that requires neither a huge amount of money nor a big-name star to attract an audience. The concept is the draw. 

Obviously, there's still a lot of schlock being produced. Horror and sci-fi used to reside in the same ghetto as far as there being a plethora of low-rent options, simply because studios knew there were die-hard genre fans who would soak up anything that was put out there. Today, however, it seems that sci-fi has moved out of the basement, first propelled by directors Ridley Scott and James Cameron, and later Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve. 

But horror? Only in rare exceptions do you see A-listers behind the camera. You mentioned The Shining (Stanley Kubrick), and there was also The Omen (Richard Donner, who would go on to make Superman and Lethal Weapon), The Exorcist (William Friedkin, who had already won an Oscar for The French Connection), and Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski). And Psycho, of course, from Alfred Hitchcock. For the most part, though, "regular" directors don't touch horror. It is its own thing. Even directors who are wildly successful within the genre, like James Wan and Eli Roth, rarely stray outside those confines. 

This can work to horror's advantage. Rarely are big reputations on the line, and it's a lot easier for a studio to take a chance on an outside-the-box story when they ain't risking serious dollars. The Blair Witch Project basically invented the Found Footage subgenre, but Wan took this to a whole new level in Paranormal Activity, and Spanish directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza did the same with [REC]. This century, we've seen technology enter the fray with Unfriended and The Den. It helps that horror almost always involves younger folks, and so it makes perfect sense that current horror stories would incorporate social media. 

To me, the best scares are personal. It's one thing when the world is going to pieces outside your window, but quite another when the terror is happening to you and you alone. On top of whatever's tormenting you, there's also the distinct possibility that you're going insane...

And sound. Sound! Music is so integral to the horror experience, such that it's tough for me to embrace vintage films like Dracula, simply because of the audio quality. (I'm also the sort of chap who enjoys watching horror films with headphones on, so as to hear every creaky floorboard.) On that note, have you seen The Strangers? Joanna Newsom's "Sprout and the Bean" starts playing at juuuuuuuust the time when our heroine is ready to lose her marbles.

[The director of The Strangers, Bryan Bertino, has called it a "terror film," since the movie is all about slowly ratcheting up the tension. There's very little violence/gore until the conclusion. Ditto with his excellent 2020 work, The Dark and the Wicked.]

Besides The Strangers, here are some other post-Y2K favorites:

1) Sinister (Scott Derickson, 2012) -- one of the few horror films to feature at least a mid-tier star (Ethan Hawke). Here you've got a mesh of True Crime, Tech Gone Bad, and One Man's Descent Into Madness. Hawke returned to the genre to play the heavy in The Black Phone -- also a fine film with some scares, though not quite up to the level of Sinister.

2) It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2014) -- I've said a few times in this forum that I much prefer slow-burn psychological dread over gore. Here, the Walking Dread (as opposed to Dead) is literally moving slowly. And always walking towards you, in disguise, 24 hours a day. It's a demonic curse that's transmitted through sex, but you're never in the clear, even after passing it on, since "It" will simply march back up the chain with each successive kill. Novel concept.

3) Under the Skin  (Jonathan Glazer, 2013) -- A minimalist sci-fi/horror tale starring Scarlett Johansson as an odd, odd woman who tools around Scotland in a nondescript van and lures men to their demise. (Spoiler alert: she ain't human.) It's not surprising that the film bombed at the box office, given its almost docu-style camera feel, along with the fact that exposition was minimal. But it was a darling with the critics, and yet another example of how the genre often takes risks. 

4) The Innocents (Eskil Vogt, 2021) -- What happens when children acquire supernatural abilities before they have a well-developed sense of morality? The stripped-down aesthetics of this Norwegian tale lend a strong veneer of authenticity to the proceedings, as kids in a random apartment complex gradually develop frightening mental powers. 

5) The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, 2024) -- I hesitate to call this a "favorite," since the ending was much too over the top and gory for my tastes. Then again, the film clocked in at 140 minutes (very unusual for a horror yarn) and at no time was I ever bored. The "Substance" in question provides an aging TV also-ran (played by Demi Moore) with youth and beauty -- in a manner of speaking. But in true Twilight Zone spirit, there are "unintended consequences." I joked with my friends that the font of all instructions/commands regarding THE SUBSTANCE is almost a co-star of the film in its own right. There is no bargaining. No negotiating. OBEY OR PERISH. I will not forget this movie. Clarence, you asked if modern horror tales still have the ability to shock and disturb? See this one and report back. 

6) Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000) -- Not really a "horror" film in the truest sense of the word, but one of the scariest films I've ever seen, depicting the absolute nightmare that is drug addiction. Ellen Burstyrn's turn as a mother of a heroin addict who gets hooked on speed herself might be the most frightening narrative in the film; you can feel her losing her mind as she gradually disconnects from reality. I still have yet to subject myself to a repeat viewing. 

-- Does horror have the same "rewatchability" factor as other genres of film? It ain't exactly the Hollywood equivalent of comfort food, and so many of the tales hinge on plot twists and jump scares. 

-- Are you a fan of horror novels as well as films? Stephen King's adaptations Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption achieved great success, but he had a rough go of it as far as his earlier works. Only Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976) and The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) garnered any critical acclaim. 

[King's Danse Macabre, an overview of horror films/literature circa 1981, is a terrific read that provides lots of insight as to why various types of scares work.]

-- Where do you stand on the whole horror/comedy hybrid, a la the Evil Dead movies, Cabin in the Woods, etc?

Clarence:

I think, in general, it's hard to be scared of something you're laughing at. That's why satires and farces are such effective tools at undermining political authority. If you don't have that element of dead seriousness and plausibility in the story, it's that much harder to get to the audience's lizard brains and invoke that flight response.

I'll admit, I've never read any of Stephen King's novels, or any horror genre for that matter. It's a personal tolerance thing - I'm just too much of a scaredy-cat to wrap myself up in those kinds of books.

When I think about my tolerance level for horror in general, it's clear that if horror were coffee, I definitely take mine Americano-style - just enough to know what I'm drinking, but nowhere near the "real stuff" others require. But I also think rewatchability is the same as any other genre - if the story is well-told, it merits multiple views, even if you know what's happening next.

I can rewatch stories like the original Twilight Zone series, which has many horror-based chapters that are well-written and relatively bloodless, or even a few of the classics like Night of the Living Dead or Aliens, but most of the well-known horror standards (The Last House on the Left, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) or even more intense episodes of The X-Files make me squirm too much.

I'm glad you mentioned Requiem for a Dream. Such an amazing movie. I wrote in an essay years ago about what makes it so effective is how it doesn't glamorize drug use or make the lead actors some kind of poetically tragic figures, as is done in so many other movies. Like you mentioned, the personalization of the horror (or the potential of it) is the key to the fear - not only can these horrible things happen, but they can happen to you.

Last month, TCM broadcast a movie called Targets, Peter Bogdanovich's first theatrical release. It's about a mentally unstable young man who basically goes around shooting random people sniper-style. [The film also features Boris Karloff in one of his final roles, playing an aging horror actor who has decided to retire because people aren't frightened by scary movies as much as the daily news reports of Vietnam, political assassinations, etc.]

The movie failed when it was released in 1968, but is considered an underground low-budget classic today. In 2024, a time when random shootings are a daily occurrence in this country, it was (to me) deeply disturbing to watch. No studio would even try to make something similar today - it hits far too close to home for too many people.

It's a line that horror has had to watch closely ever since the genre was created - how do you make something that scares people without making it so scary audiences don't want to watch it, or the people with the checkbook don't want to make it? This might be why so many of the great horror pics are made on smaller budgets. If you had the money, what kind of horror movie would you make these days? Consider your answer from two perspectives - that of the renegade artist filmmaker who's trying to make a great story, and a producer who's trying to make a profit?

And now that zombies are basically played out as a general horror staple (or are they -- what do you think?), is there anything left that has the potential to get the public scared out of their minds? How about AI? Any chance the miracle of artificial intelligence can invoke terror in the masses somehow?

Kevin:

Wait, what? AI, you say? Talk about cycles coming around! If you'll forgive me a bit of shameless self-promotion, here's a four-minute doc short I put together around 2013 on "Technophobia" in film. 2001, The Terminator, Demon Seed, Blade Runner... we were frightened of self-aware computers a half-century ago! 

In particular, Colossus: The Forbin Project is one of my favorite underappreciated classics, perfectly straddling the line between sci-fi and horror. The computer Colossus was created to "ensure peace," and this goal was achieved... with the enslavement of humanity. Lending extra chills to Colossus' decrees is the robotic voice created for the AI. It was quite the trendsetter, and was imitated in everything from the original Battlestar Galactica to the arcade game Berzerk. They've been talking about a remake of this tale for decades (most recently with Will Smith about 15 years ago), but the project seems to be languishing in Development Hell. 

As far as technological fears in general, we'd also have to include the Black Mirror series, which we discussed after Season 1 and Season 4. Much like The Twilight Zone, the series wasn't quite horror in the spirit of the films we've mentioned, but was often horror-adjacent. ("Men Against Fire" and "Shut Up and Dance," yikes.)

I completely agree with your thoughts on the amalgamation of horror and farce, though it should be noted that few sequences compare to the grim nightmare of what transpires after the "System Purge" in Cabin in the Woods, where every monster conceivable to man is released simultaneously.

Spitballing on "psychotic shooters" re: your mention of Targets: 

-- The scourge of the original Dirty Harry is Scorpio, a crazy sniper who was based on the Zodiac Killer. We also had a real "Beltway Sniper" in DC in 2002, which inspired a number of similar television villains. 

-- In Stephen King's Apt Pupil, a high-school kid slowly goes off the rails after befriending a neighbor who is hiding his Nazi past. The ending of the novel saw the protagonist perch himself on an overpass with a rifle and boxes of ammunition. ("It was five hours later and almost dark before they took him down.") Even by 1998, when the film adaptation was released, this was seen as Beyond The Pale for Hollywood. The next year? That was Columbine. And it seems like that was a wrap with regards to teenage mass-shooters. Incidentally, King's earlier work Rage (written under the name of Richard Bachman) is literally about a student who shoots his teacher and takes his class hostage. The book is now out of print at King's request, after having possibly inspired a number of copycat incidents, including Columbine.

As far as my brilliant (!) ideas for horror tales... do you moonlight as a studio mogul? Are you secretly sitting on a nest egg that will turn my grandiose celluloid dreams into reality? 

-- For profit? I liked the concept of Brightburn, in terms of meshing the Superman mythos with horror. Sadly, when it came time for Hollywood to greenlight a series featuring the deconstruction of superhero tropes, it decided to adapt The Boys instead of Supreme Power. (Folks, check out the latter, reimagined by J. Michael Straczynski in the early 2000s. The Boys is crude and clumsy in comparison.)

People criticized the characters and writing of Brightburn, but it had an even bigger issue -- there essentially was nothing to even remotely challenge the superpowered antagonist. There has to be some hope that Freddy Krueger can be defeated, or that Father Merrin can vanquish the devil, right? In Brightburn, the cavalry arrives in the form of the local police... and they're vaporized in nanoseconds. How can we create a protagonist that still keeps the story within the realm of horror, as opposed to turning it into generic superhero fare? Grit is essential here. Found Footage.

-- For the auteur? Docuhorror. Did you ever see the British film Threads? Much like how Requiem for a Dream was a "real life" horror film, the same was true for this tale about nuclear armageddon. What does the world look like a month later? A year? Ten years? You can watch the whole film here -- everything after "Attack Warning Red" at the 47:45 mark = Nightmare Fuel, as TV Tropes would say. 

We could take the docuhorror approach in a number of directions. Perhaps create a version of the aforementioned World War Z that's faithful to the book! Or go down the path of "What If?" scenarios. We've seen tales that featured Germany as the victor of WW2, most recently in the adaptation of The Man in the High Castle. But what about a history-book look at the topic? (Filmmaker Kevin Willmott went down this route with CSA: Confederate States of America, which deserved a much bigger audience.) 

We could flip that as well? How would global politics have evolved if 9/11 didn't happen? What does the Middle East look like? Would Saddam still be in charge today? No Homeland Security Department? Would the doors have opened up for an even worse terrorist attack at a later date? Alternate timelines don't have to be grim, but you did put out a call for horror...